"Adams, Douglas - Meaning of Liff, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Douglas)

The massive three-course midmorning blow-out enjoyed by a dieter who has already done his or her slimming duty by having a teaspoonful of cottage cheese for breakfast.

BERY POMEROY

1. The shape of a gourmet's lips. 2. The droplet of saliva which hangs from them.

BILBSTER

A pimple so hideous and enormous that you have to cover it with sticking plaster and pretend you've cut yourself shaving.

BISHOP'S CAUNDLE

An opening gambit before a game of chess whereby the missing pieces are replaced by small ornaments from the mantelpiece.

BLEAN

Scientific measure of luminosity : 1 glimmer = 100,000 bleans. Usherettes' torches are designed to produce between 2.5 and 4 bleans, enabling them to assist you in falling downstairs, treading on people or putting your hand into a Neapolitan tub when reaching for change.

BLITHBURY

A look someone gives you by which you become aware that they're much too drunk to have understood anything you've said to them in the last twenty minutes.

BLITTERLESS

The little slivers of bamboo picked off a cane chair by a nervous guest which litter the carpet beneath and tell the chair's owner that the whole piece of furniture is about to uncoil terribly and slowly until it resembles a giant pencil sharpening.

BODMIN

The irrational and inevitable discrepancy between the amount pooled and the amount needed when a large group of people try to pay a bill together after a meal.

BOLSOVER

One of those brown plastic trays with bumps on, placed upside down in boxes of chocolates to make you think you're-getting two layers.

BONKLE

Of plumbing in old hotels, to make loud and unexplained noises in the night, particularly at about five o'clock in the morning.

BOOLTEENS

The small scatterings of foreign coins and half-p's which inhabit dressing tables. Since they are never used and never thrown away boolteens account for a significant drain on the world's money supply.

BOOTHBY GRAFFOE

1. The man in the pub who slaps people on the back as if they were old friends, when in fact he has no friends, largely on account of this habit. 2. Any story told by Robert Morley on chat shows.

BOSCASTLE

A huge pyramid of tin cans placed just inside the entrance to a supermarket.