Codswallop! Pensioner handbags health minister outside No 10

[kpete]

Last edited Mon Feb 20, 2012, 02:54 PM - Edit history (1)

Finger of blame: June Hautot, 75, harangues Andrew Lansley before the No 10 summit on his NHS reforms

A Downing Street summit to rescue Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms turned into a fiasco today when he was harangued and jostled by a 75-year-old woman who accused him of talking "codswallop".

The Health Secretary was berated by June Hautot from Tooting who claimed he was privatising the health service. Brushing aside his denial, she jabbed at him with her finger and shouted into his face: "Codswallop, don't lie to me, I'm sick of you."

The former NHS union official refused to stand aside as a sheepish looking Mr Lansley tried to get through the security gates at Downing Street. Mrs Hautot said: "I've had enough of you. You can wait." Later she went on: "He is gutless, he is a coward, he has no conscience."

The chaotic scene was a blow to an event supposed to present the reforms as being on track and supported by key health service professionals.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/politics/article-24036620-cameron-to-hold-summit-on-nhs-reforms.do

[KansDem]

1. I've just added a new word to my vocabulary!

cods·wal·lop (kdzwlp)
n. Chiefly British Slang
Nonsense; rubbish.

[DURHAM D]

2. me too

[aquart]

8. Fine. But what, precisely, IS "codswallop"?

Is it nonsense to be walloped by a cod? Or something else?

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. More than one theory:

The word is of uncertain origin, but the following story is sometimes offered to account for it. In 1875 Hiram Codd patented a mineral water bottle with a marble stopper. ‘Wallop’ is a slang term for beer. Thus ‘Codd's wallop’ is said to have become a disparaging term among beer drinkers for mineral waters and weak drinks and in due course gained a more general application.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

The word sounds as though it should be an old one, but the OED’s earliest example comes only from 1963. The OED says “Origin unknown,” but it seems significant that cod is an old word for the scrotum and that codswallop is used derisively in the same way as the exclamatory Balls!

Rawson's Wicked Words

The OED currently says:

It is often suggested that this word is < the genitive of the name of Hiram Codd (1838–87), British soft drinks manufacturer, who patented several designs for mineral water bottles in the 1870s + wallop n. (see sense 4c at that entry), and that it was originally used by beer drinkers as a derogatory term for soft drink. However, no evidence has been found for early use of the word in this sense, and derivation from the surname is not supported by early spellings.

And now the earliest quote is:

1959 R. Galton & A. Simpson Best of Hancock Tony: I was not. Sidney: Don't give me that old codswallop. You were counting your money.

[dipsydoodle]

27. Memory lane

I remember Sid saying "I don't like your one much" which went into our vocabulary and stayed there to this day.

[shanti]

33. as in

bollocks! got it

[dipsydoodle]

26. Very droll

We have many such expressions from the past. Its just that we don't normally bother ourselves about origins - we just take them for granted. I don't think you use soppy over there either - meaning silly or daft.

[aquart]

32. I always bother about origins.

A friend who spends time in Paris came back and tossed "I'll bring you oranges in jail" into the conversation. I spent the next two hours tracking it down.

And then there's eggnog. And finicky. And fizgig. And Arthur. Multitudinous false derivations for the name Arthur. Those take decades. Maybe lifetimes.

[shanti]

34. absolutely

i just love a good turn of phrase...

[dipsydoodle]

37. Well if you want the definitive guide

its here in various forms : http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=partridge+dictionary+

Son of a gun fascinates me : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_a_gun I've read elsewhere that the sons manned the canons on the lower gun deck and the fathers on the main deck of Elizabethan galleons.

[aquart]

45. That's odd. I don't have a single Partridge. Probably always too pricey.

[dipsydoodle]

46. When it gets to first day of Christmas this year

go out and look for pear tree. :rofl.

[liberal N proud]

9. The Brits have a way of telling you that you are full of $#!* and you enjoy it.

[calimary]

24. They do indeed! With so much more dignity!

[shanti]

35. as do southerners

bless your heart....

[aquart]

36. One of my favorites.

[UrbanKhoja]

43. Spot on

I was watching Reginald D Hunter a few weeks back, and he was saying something rather similar.
It's also the famed 'British Sense of Humour' which is all well and good, but can be somewhat frustrating and most normal people don't get it. I was talking to an Australian chap the other evening, nice fellow but I don't think he got anything I was talking about.

[TorchTheWitch]

44. my mom always used to say that the Irish

have a way of telling you to go to hell is such a way as to make you look forward to the trip. I know she certainly had a knack for it. Though I'm not all together certain if the "look forward to the trip" part always meant that she snookered you or going to hell was preferable to continuing to be in her presense. LOL!

[tech_smythe]

19. Heck I've been using it since I read it in Harry Potter

great reference for modern British vocabulary XD
of course it didn't hurt I was living on that side of the pond and had one or two brit colleagues XD
Never will you hear the work "fuck" used in so many creative ways as when you talk to a brit!

[DCKit]

20. I've watched 50 episodes of 'Shameless' on Netflix...

And I think there are several examples of constructing an entire sentence from, almost exclusively, the word "fuck".

[tech_smythe]

21. Truely an amazing people and language XD

I marvel and the extreme divide linguistically between the have's and everyone else.
and the regionality... omfg... but that's a general european thing.
go 20 miles in any direction and you're in a different region.

by contrast to help people see i'm not crazy...

in america, go 20 miles and you're just on the other side of town, if that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. Mind you, The Wire did a whole scene

(NSFW, of course)

[DCKit]

31. Thanks for the NSFW tag at the bottom of your post. I'm now unemployed.

Kidding, I've been unemployed for years and viewing at home.

I think I need to watch that series again.

With all that I've seen, I should be able to get a job as a TV or movie critic by now.

[Nihil]

40. And not forgetting ...

... the opening sequence from Four Weddings and a Funeral - one of the most creative
uses in all time of that particular word on the big screen ...

[Ebadlun]

28. 'Codswallop' is rather old-fashioned

It brings to minds retired Colonels from the end of the Empire.

[Magoo48]

3. Nice work June...

[LeftishBrit]

4. Good for Mrs. Hautot!

I think much of Britain has had enough of Andrew Lansley.

[DCKit]

13. He's just following orders, is he not?

I don't see how a Secretary of Health, whether in the U.K., the U.S., Canada, etc... could accomplish this independently.

She was speaking for the 99%, and I think a pub-crawl is in order.

[LeftishBrit]

18. Actually, I think it's more Cameron who is following Lansley's orders on this

You'd be right in general; but Cameron is weak and lazy and likes the trappings of power without the effort. So he generally lets his ministers do as they please. While at the same time being, so rumour has it, a complete bully toward individual MPs who seek to rebel against the government.

[UrbanKhoja]

41. Dwindling support for Cameron..

Contrary to what various polls may portray, the majority of people actually have rather little support for David Cameron. Especially considering the various scandals that are seemingly endless at present. But I couldn't help but smile when I first read this story.

[xchrom]

5. good for you, Mrs Hautot

[Fearless]

6. +1

[annabanana]

7. And IS HE "privatising the health service"?

Are they dismantling one of their truest claims to civilization?

[harmonicon]

12. Yep.

I don't have time to look for a link, but the "reforms" are really atrocious. People in the UK are so spoiled by the NHS that they don't realize how great it really is, and if it gets fucked up, it will take a lot of work to get it back.

[LeftishBrit]

17. Trying to.

Partial not complete privatization; but it is still horrifying many people in the UK. I don't think they quite realized the opposition they'd get from the public and the medical professionals. Even some Tories are getting cold feet, afraid that this may be 'the new poll tax' (which was Thatcher's downfall).

[lunatica]

10. Here's a picture of her mugshot

[dana_b]

11. reading the comment section

it seems that a lot of people are unhappy with the NHS and then there are those who like the NHS and are suspicious of foreign interests (i.e. U.S. insurance companies) putting their hands in these reforms. That would not surprise me in the least.

[xxqqqzme]

14. So health care insurance

is gong into global competition w/ the banksters? Jeez, maybe they can go at each others throats.

[dipsydoodle]

25. Personally

I've never come across anyone who is not happy with our NHS. It may have issues in certain areas but then nothing is perfect in this world. Bear in mind that as socialsed healthcare those that pay what is in effect a tax cover all unable or not elligible to pay. IF there is a funding shortage it can only be covered by increasing that tax which is paid by both employees and employers.

[Ebadlun]

29. Abolishing the NHS is somewhere up there with arming primary schoolchildren with AK-47s

It's not a credible opinion held by anybody.

[LeftishBrit]

38. +1000

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. "supported by key health service professionals" was always wrong

But the Royal College of GPs and the Royal College of Radiologists, which have both called for the Bill to be scrapped, are among those who confirmed they have not been invited.

The Faculty of Occupational Medicine has also not been invited and neither has the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which has said it "cannot support the Bill as it currently stands" and has called the reforms "fundamentally flawed".

Others from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges confirming they have not been asked to the meeting include the College of Emergency Medicine and the Faculty of Public Health, which has called for the Bill to be withdrawn.

The Royal College of Pathologists has also not been invited to the meeting. It has not come out in direct opposition to the Bill but has concerns over the legislation. The Royal College of Ophthalmologists has not been invited but a spokeswoman said it hopes there will be opportunity for a representative to meet the Prime Minister in future.

Read More http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/2012/02/20/experts-excluded-from-nhs-summit-91466-30368088/#ixzz1mx6MK5S3

Basically, they only invited those professional bodies who had already said they thought ther was something worth salvaging from the mess. The omission of the General Practitioners is probably the worst - the main thrust of the reforms is to put the responsibility for commissioning hospital care on to groups of GPs; and they are highly sceptical about it, as a body.

[Smilo]

22. Brilliant - you tell 'em June.

[LongTomH]

23. Kick

People in this country are being told so many lies about Britain's National Health Service!

[yellowcanine]

42. "I take umbrage at your codswallop!"

There, I got to use two cool words in one sentence.

[BlueIris]

47. Handbag is now a verb? I want to handbag someone now.

This is great.

[dipsydoodle]

48. Yes and accompany the swipe to the cry

"take that you muppet."

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. Yes, and the origin is political - Thatcher:

The OED:

Orig. and predominantly with reference to Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister 1979–1990: see quot. 1982.
1982 Economist 7 Aug. 20/3 One of her less reverent backbenchers said of Mrs Thatcher recently that ‘she can't look at a British institution without hitting it with her handbag’. Treasury figures published last week show how good she has proved at handbagging the civil service.

You may also find the following use for 'handbags':

2. colloq. (chiefly Brit., esp. in Association Football). In pl. A confrontation, esp. one which is ineffectual or histrionic; originally and chiefly (replacing pistols) in phrases alluding to a duel, as handbags at dawn (also handbags at ten paces, etc.). Also (in sing.) attrib., as handbag situation, etc.