[Music] Pip-pip. Tally-ho.
Joolz Guides here, in which I wander around London and
tell you fascinating facts about our city, and also
about our beautiful language. So, today, I'm going to be
talking about where certain expressions come from.
For example, the expression ‘above board,’ which means
something that's perfectly legal and allowed.
And the reason I'm in Leicester Square is because
over there is the Hippodrome. Now, the word Hippodrome
actually comes from the Greek ‘hippos’ meaning horse,
and ‘dromos’ meaning racecourse. Because a Hippodrome originally
was for horseracing, but then later on it became adopted
by general entertainment venues; as meaning, a general place
for entertainment. And, that's why a hippopotamus is actually
a river horse. ‘Hippos’ meaning horse, and ‘potamos’ meaning river.
The Hippodrome actually opened in 1910, and it attracted acts
like Charlie Chaplin and then Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra,
even the Jackson 5 performed there. And, what -- I hear you cry --
does this have to do with being ‘above board.’ Well, in later years,
the Hippodrome turned into a casino and my friend reliably
informs me that it's a good place to get a drink after hours.
But the other good thing about it, actually, is that you can just go in,
and place even very small bets. So if you're not a complete gambling
addict like me, you can just go and put, you know, £2 onto the
roulette wheel.
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But, the phrase ‘above board’ actually comes in relation to
people playing poker, because players who were being accused of cheating
might be stacking the deck or something underneath the table --
otherwise known as the board. So players were requested to keep
their hands physically, above the board, so that people could verify
that they were playing the game fairly. For example, one might say,
“That bloke, who sold me that dodgy looking theatre ticket
in the middle of the street; he looked a little bit untrustworthy.
But, don't worry, it was all completely above board.”
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Speaking of theatre tickets, if you're intending to go to the
theatre in the West End, you can actually get discounted
theatre tickets if you come here on the same day as the
actual performance. So you can just come to this nice, cute theatre
ticket box in the middle of Leicester Square and they sell
discounted tickets. Those are completely above board.
[Music]
Splendid. Well, speaking of theatres,
if you've seen my other video about Covent Garden,
you would have seen all about the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane,
which is over here. There's been a theatre on
this site since 1663. During the revolution they --
Oliver Cromwell, who was a bit of a mean old so-and-so,
and he closed down all the theatres. So King Charles II, when he came back,
he decided to open up all the theatres again. And, he had
a mistress called Nell Gwyn, who used to sell oranges here
in Covent Garden. And then she got a job as an actress here
at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. There was actually, I understand,
a tunnel that led underneath the theatre and straight up to
the pub where -- which was a tavern in those days
where you could have rooms to sleep in -- and he had to carry on his
affair there with her. But, why do I tell you all this?
Well, because hundreds of years later, there was a fella called John Dennis,
who was a playwright. He wasn't very good and
he came out with this play called, Appius and Virginia.
And he had developed this excellent means by which to
create the sound of thunder, which was rattling some balls
around in a bowl. Anyway, his play didn't last
very long and so they took it off. But nearby they started showing
Macbeth, which also had thunder in it, and they used his version of
creating the sound of thunder, rattling these balls around
in a bowl. And, so he said, “Well, damn their eyes.
They won't show my play but they steal my thunder.”
And since then, we've got this very handy phrase.
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Now did you ever hear the expression ‘toeing the line?’
You often hear about politicians having to toe the party line.
As in, doing what their leader tells them to do. Essentially,
toeing the line means obeying certain rules.
“Oh, well, he didn't want to play in goal but he had to toe the line;
otherwise, the coach of the team would have dropped him.”
In the 19th century, it literally meant putting
your toe next to a line, as in, the start of a race.
Now, debates in the houses of parliament can become quite heated.
So, on either side of the House of Commons, they've got
two red lines situated two swords lengths apart
in order to stop them from getting in each other's throats.
But, because of this association with members of parliament,
putting their toes behind this line, we more commonly associate
the phrase ‘toeing the line’ with parliament.
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Now, did you ever call someone a son of a gun?
Well, I've called people a son of quite a few things in my time,
but the son of a gun actually is a pejorative term,
a derogatory term to put someone down. This is the Golden Hind.
Actually, a replica of Sir Francis Drake's ship in which he circumnavigated
the globe in 1580, I think. He was unofficially backed by
Queen Elizabeth I, but she did encourage him to try and put an
end to any Spanish interests if he could. In fact, it’s actually
called the Golden Hind because the person who did officially
sponsor Sir Francis Drake, was a fella called Sir Christopher Hatton.
I'm actually going up to Hatton Garden later.
And so Christopher Hatton’s family crest was a golden hind,
which is a kind of red female deer, and you can see it on the
front of the ship there. And one story I heard was that,
when the ships went off on campaign, they would invite their wives,
girlfriends, or indeed prostitutes onto the ship in order to have
a bit of nooky before they left. And so they have to make space
in order to do their business with their ladies.
And so they'd maneuvered these guns out of the way and then that's where
they'd perform their acts. And then when they'd disappear
off on campaign, they’d come back nine months later and,
“Hey, I got a baby, son of a gun.”
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Now along here, down the bank side, this used to be the sort of no-go area.
It was quite dodgy. And they’d have loads of
brothels and bear-baiting hits and cock fights and I daresay,
dog fights. And if there was one dog on top of the other,
and they would appear to be winning, he'd be known as top dog;
and the one underneath, it’d be known as the underdog,
the one who was losing. And the other thing they had
down here was theatres and, of course, Shakespeare's Globe.
Although, this is only actually a replica, it's all made using the
original techniques and plans. I think it's all wooden pegs
and green oak or something, the timbers.
The first thatched roof in London since the Fire of London,
because we like to burn things down in this country,
and the original globe burnt down after a performance of King Henry VIII
but then they rebuilt it. Eventually, it was completely
torn down during the revolution. Originally, Shakespeare had
part ownership of a theatre over in Shoreditch. The lease ran out.
They claimed that they owned the building and the landlord
said no he owned the building. So they broke down the whole theatre
in the middle of the night and they shipped all the timbers
across to this side of the river -- around 1598, I think it was --
and they built up the new theatre just in time for the first performance
of Henry V. “What's he that wishes
so my cousin Westmoreland? No, fair cousin. If we are marked to die,
we are enow to do our country loss,” etc. I'm wasted here.
What happened to my agent? Bastard must have died.
But, you could get 3,000 people inside the original globe because
they had a lot of people standing. And then they'd pass around this
little bag on the end of a long stick and then they’d take all
this money from the people in standing areas. But the people who
had a bit more money, they'd have boxes and stuff,
so they'd have their tickets waiting for them at a special
office right by the entrance, and that was known as the box office,
as if you care.
[Music]
Now this is Hatton Garden, famous for being the center of
Britain's diamond industry, I think, diamond trade.
Um, and just over there is where one of the biggest jewelry heists
in British history took place, over Easter bank holiday weekend,
a few years ago. When they actually discovered
that people who had done it were a bunch of old age pensioners
who had left a trail of evidence behind them.
And just down here in Hatton Wall, is one of my favorite pubs
where they have a rather splendid pub quiz on Mondays, which I won once,
and you can play eccentric bar games like shuffleboard, something like that.
[Music]
Each player has four pucks, red or blue, two players,
first to 15 points wins. Well, there's no one else here to play,
so I’ll have play on my own as usual.
[Music]
That's quite good fun. It’s quite a good game actually.
It's like, a bit like curling. Now have you ever been told
to mind your P's and Q's? It means to, you know,
be a bit careful and don’t say the wrong thing or behave badly.
We still serve beer by pints here and we used to have quarts as well --
as a quart is, I think two pints. And if you're a better man than I,
you could try drinking a yard of ale, which they've still got above the bar.
I don’t think they actually serve them though anymore,
but anyway, pints and quarts were our measurements of quantities.
And in the old days, if you got a bit too rowdy in the pub
and they wanted you to stop throwing your beer around,
they’d tell everybody to mind their pints and quarts,
mind your P's and Q's if you don't mind. Cheers. Thanks for watching.
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