add-water-and-stir success     (imdb)

airless (upper-middle-class milieu)     IMDB

all in favour please smile sardonically     (Richard Thompson)

All the gear, no idea (surfing term) (Those in the pew have no clue.)

as long as no one gets their undergarments bent into some kind of Panty Origami (whatnottocrochet.com)

As much variety and imagination as a Bulgarian housing project. Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune March 10

aseptic (surroundings)

astroturf hair

astroturfing (see greenwashing)    A fake grassroots campaign, creating something that looks like a grassroots eco pressure group but is actually run by vested interests (who make sure it is ineffective, and use it to absorb any genuine protesters).

autocutie (Victor Lewis Smith)

backrooming (the “heat” take the card counter into a back room and give him a good talking to)

bad enough to make your ears bleed (radio show)     (Gareth McLean, Guardian August 30, 2006)

balmoralised    “balmoralised popular histories” George Monbiot Guardian September 14, 2004

belting out an aria in a register normally associated with burglar alarms.    Guardian July 23 08

Bibley    I'm not a big fan of shows that get all God and "Bibley" on you.

blenderizer    We are in the post-modern, blenderizer phase of the world-music movement. (Joel Bresler)

boarding-school culture

Boden    It's the unrelenting uniformity of it all that's so repulsive, like being trapped inside a Boden catalogue. Observer Dec 24 2006

Bodenia     Catherine Bennett Guardian March 31, 2006

boldly stupid    It was part of a “boldly stupid” idea to link tall buildings with walkways. (Leo Benedictus on the Barbican, Times Sept 06)

boot of time      The Bronx stations of the old New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad are like a string of pearls – a very broken string. Some have been lost, and others are being slowly crushed by the boot of time. New York Times Nov 09

boreathon Chris Campling on modern pop Mar 31 10

boutique diagnosis

boutique economy   farmers’ markets, hippy entrepreneurs selling “good“ food at festivals

brain gain

brazen oldies

bus-queue psychologists

Cabbage Patch Doll investments    All the rage one day, all but disappeared the next. The Times, 9 September 2005

cafeteria Catholics

cargo cult version of Le Corbusier     Stephen Bayley on 60s estates, Observererver Dec 30

castle creeper (Mr Collins) Rachel Johnston Sunday Times Feb 4 07

cathedral    [Tate Modern] remains, of course, the dark cathedral of the visual arts, its priests dull-minded necromancers whose deceitful sorcery is no more than the now stale convention of bringing into it things unexpected and improbable as art and murmuring over them the incantations of contemporary curatorial jargon. Brian Sewell, Evening Standard May 4, 2007

cauliflower head perm

celebricaste    Guardian  June 8, 2007

cheap tuxedo    intelligent design is “creationism in a cheap tuxedo” Leonard Krishtalka of the Natural History Museum of the Uni of Kansas, quoted NS Dec. 2006

cheerleading (for remorseless positivity)     Zoe Williams Guardian April 18, 2008

chiclet teeth, chipmunk cheeks     results of cosmetic dentistry and surgery

chrome dome (for bald person)

circling the drain (preparatory to going down the plughole)

Clement Atlee: on the Richter scale of charisma the needle didn’t even flicker. Radio 4 July 10

completely unhooked from the imagination    Luke Jennings on issue-based dance theatre, Observer Dec 30 08

cone of uncertainty     useful in debate when trying to explain about probabilities

Conran Shop school of "traditional design" (Kathryn Flett)

cows-have-left-the-barn approach     attempt to shut stable door after horse has bolted, firefighting

crosstitutes     people who cross the floor of the house (ie House of Commons, parliament) (Inkatha Freedom Party website)

crowdsourcing     getting the public to compile your database of ancient monuments, write your travel website etc (Guardian )

cultural heavy breathing      too many references to past masters, historical events (Michael McNay, obituary of RB Kitaj, Guardian  October 23 07)

cultural McCarthyism     dividing ethnic music into Frinton versus Clacton (folk v country – and happens all over world)

dampen expectations (please use instead of defuse)

deader than disco

deal was nibbled to death 

declinologue      doom sayer, piner for the good old days, country going to the dogs type (Dominique de Villepin)

decompress (for recover)

definition slippage (lecturer at Moda)

de-grow for shrink (Economic Times, India)

densest groves of academe

desire line, desire path    path created in a straight line from A to B over the lawn or verge the council has put in the way

Dibleyfication (Victor Lewis Smith) (like Disneyfication)

dinosaur that’s waiting for the asteroid to hit, like a

dislexicize (Ari)

dollar-book Freudianism

down and going (opposite of up and coming) Virginia Ironside

Duchessing is a term more common in Australia than here, to treat/entertain to obtain favour – I guess we would call it mild graft. (Web) from Aussie OED v.tr. (Aust.) 1. entertain (especially a visiting dignitary) lavishly and with ceremony. 2. fawn on, treat obsequiously in order to curry favour etc.

dull as a porridge sandwich

dying embers    they blow feebly on the dying embers of feminism Brian Sewell Evening Standard April 4, 2008

ectoplasm    I am constantly diverted by the ectoplasm of religious disputes. Simon Jenkins Guardian July 13, 2007

edifice complex    Ken Livingstone is suffering from “edifice complex”. Headline Guardian September 28, 2007

Egos    Squads arrived in South Africa “with egos clanking together”. Jonathan Northcroft Indy July 10

Enough leaden dialogue and wooden performances to make a box of pencils. Gareth Maclean, paraphrased, Guardian April 24, 2007

essence de smarm  (Richard Corliss)

estate agents "make journalism look like the priesthood." Times April 19 (paraphrased)

Everyone preened darkly in moody lighting and intoned lines dripping with something real dang close to import. imdb on Murder One

fake bake    St Tropez tan (Pod from Snog Marry Avoid)

fall-on-your-grapefruit-spoon depressing      (Steve Cassidy)

Fighting a losing duel with reality.    Paul Hayward, Guardian Oct 09

figleaf parties     purely notional opposition parties that were allowed by communist regimes

firework career     that rapidly rises, fizzles out and falls

flatpack drama     (Nancy Banks-Smith)

foolhardy updating     I braced myself for the whizz-bang terror of a foolhardy contemporary updating (of Oh What a Lovely War!) Daily Telegraph Mar 25

fortune-teller chic     (Gareth Maclean re Monsoon)

frat-boy levity     sophomoric humour

from the back wards of daytime TV     (Adrian Searle, Guardian November 28, 2007)

fuss as a verb    We put up umbrellas and fussed into cagoules Damian Whitworth, Times July 17, 2007

Georgian – a language that needs an emergency shipment of vowels (Julian Pardoe)

glutinous harmony "There is almost sickening glutinous harmony between me and Dave" on all London-based issues (Mayor Boris Johnson on Crossrail). April 15, 2010

Government House morality    imposed on populace for the good of the governing class (Bernard Williams)

graduate of the Vincent Price school of therapy      Roger Ebert on Tom Conway as Dr Judd in Cat People (also in The Seventh Victim)

granola credentials     (Adam Smith)

greenwashing      whitewashing firm with high-profile eco-activities

greetings-card view of the countryside

grill-pan highlights     on hair – think of seared tuna (Libby Purves)

group shrug

handmeups      (things you borrow from your daughter)

has-beens and currently-ares      Guardian June 15 2006

He [Frederick Rolfe] belongs on the same shelf with Symbolist prose poetry

He behaved with quiet dognity.     Jilly Cooper on her dog Fortnum

Hell on wheels (Wyatt Earp’s opinion of Wrangell, Alaska)

heavy metal umlaut

hemlock    Now several big studies strongly suggest trans fat is even worse than saturated fat, formerly the hemlock of American cuisine. (thestraightdope.com)

her voice dotted away...     (Lady Antonia Fraser)

herd of white elephants

here are the edited lowlights

Hermit kingdom is a pejorative term applied to any country or society which willfully walls itself off (metaphorically or physically) from the rest of the world. (wiki)

hieroglyphics    Geoffrey Durham’s Richard Whiteleyish patter is so ancient ... that it was probably originally written in hieroglyphics. Bruce Dessau, Evening Standard January 20 2006

high-fiber (speeches)

holy deadlock

horse-drawn   Still driving a horse-drawn computer? (ad for new-style keyboard that never caught on)

I am probably all alone on a windswept plain in this, but I think... (imdb.com)

I think one of the lowest moments comes at the end, when Dr. Soberin is warning Lily about the atomic pinata. In four lines, he piles on the allusions like cold cuts and mixes his metaphors like oil and vinegar to sprinkle on this ugly submarine sandwich of a scene. (imdb on Kiss Me Deadly. A pinata is a box full of little gifts that gets exploded at a Mexican kid’s birthday party.)

ideas wearing “pseudo liberal fancy dress”      (Guy Kewney)

If you are what you eat, she must eat a lot of bananas. (Lorna Spenceley on Gillian McKeith)

I'm just going to go and wash my soul now.     (Facebook discussion board after mentioning disturbing Tintin parody)

industrial quantities of…

IQs at room temperature      (Finally some folks with IQs in the triple digits got into the act. straightdope.com)

It has a certain government-information-film charm.    (Martin Roberts)

It was a whole new hair-do!      (Steuart Copeland on Punk)

it was one of those unpublicized, tell-'em-Louie-sent-you things.    (thestraightdope.com)

It would take the devotion of a Talmudic scholar to figure out all the meanders of this tortuous story.     (imdb on Murder My Sweet)

It's not all sturm and drang (that famous Austrian dance team).     (George Robinson)

It's true there was a great mood of take-your-vitamins earnestness about the middlebrow enterprise. ... we are spared some of the plodding gentility that marked middlebrow culture.  (David Brooks, New York Times, June 16 05)

James Cagney shines, and at times even seems to glow in the dark in this rugged follow-up to White Heat... (IMDB)

knifemares      people who have had too much plastic surgery

knock the legs out from under...

Ladybird Book description     (Tony Robinson)

Languor management      (title of blog)

lashes out and ... succeeds in knocking all the china off the shelf in the process     (Tom Wright on Bishop Spong)

laying a series of elephant traps for the Tories     Matthew Norman Independent Nov 09

lead hat    That puts the lead hat on it.

leave your brain on a low light      Evening Standard May 16, 2006

leaving don’t

left with the parcel when the music stops

levitate      into a better job, up the ranks ect

lick of paint    A children’s jelly sweet gets  a promotional lick of paint by using natural colourings. Evening Standard September 21, 2004

limousine liberalism

locked in a permanent tape loop

looks as if she dresses in the dark

lost in the post       “a joke that got lost in the post for a decade or two.” Guardian September 3, 2004

low-tar racism     Times June 3 06

lunch minute     Guardian September 11 07

malware     common for evil, unwanted, damaging software

McFace     sported by Madonna and many another celebrity who now looks like a waxwork of their younger self. Times September 3, 2008

Middle classes “keeping jazz on life support” Stuff White People Like

mocketing       satirical marketing – say it in an American accent

Monday morning quarterback    someone who’s wise after the event

money tree    ...and if you believe that, I have a money tree for sale if you’re interested. (Amazon review)

more chavs per paving slab...     chavtowns.uk

more startling conclusions than you might find in Genesis     Michael Billington Guardian Dec 2004

moregeoisie

move further in the thong direction     (Zoe Williams, Guardian March 2, 2007)

multiplatform celebrity    (Josh Tyrangiel)

murkification      opposite of clarification

nameless horrors at whose name every knee knocks     (Nancy Banks-Smith)

negligee    “In much of northern Arizona and southern Utah, the land wears only the sheerest of negligees of living matter." Arizona Highways

neo-hairshirt fashion     for energy-saving lightbulbs ect

nilpotent    powerless

no-budget movie

nonebrities      (Sam Wollaston Guardian April 13 06)

not a granule of remorse in his voice     (bbc.co.uk Feb 08)

on the cheese board      for on offer (Mark Tennant)

Oscar bait

Our computers are so old they run on hamsters and steam. (Don Morrison)

overling      like underling

over-torch      what one shouldn’t do to a song

paint by numbers version of political correctness      Observer July 13 08

Past Times version of history

pastelising     for gentrification

peel factions away from one another     (Bobby Ghosh)

People thinking of moving to Epsom, re think it.      chavtowns.uk

perishing elastic    The elastic has perished from detective fiction. AA Gill Times 2010

pirouette       for about turn

Please – wind ya neck in.     (bbc message board)

plot as full of holes as a string vest

plywood palazzo      McMansion

political overcorrectness     (wiki)

polyp      “somebody above polyp level” (Euan Ferguson, Observer. June 19 05)

post-fame

post-talented      talented in a postmodern way,  i.e. not talented at all

PR boilerplate

prawn-cocktail offensive     Labour attempt to charm City

put together from the spare parts of...

railway-bookstand Freudianism       (Matthew Sweet – but where are those railway bookstands of yesteryear?)

rarefaction    However, collectors of Old Masters do not allow themselves to get carried away by the prestige of a signature even when faced with a diminishing number of works (rarefaction). Art Market Insight

reach across the aisle     (Peter Mandelson – he probably means aisle of House of Commons, etc. rather than church, plane)

Reality-o-meter    Asking (get this!) $4,000 for a crocheted Bedspread cotton large granny square is indication that you might have some errors in the calibration of your Reality-o-meter.  Better get that looked at.  whatnottocrochet.com

red-carpet fever

refrigerator magnetitis     (uglyhousephotos.com)

repertoire buying   buying several magazines each week.

retail entertainment     (Selfridges)

retail theatre     eg having an in-store “bakery”

ridiculous empowerment speak     Tim Teeman, Times Aug 11 06

saltwatery grave     [Farmland birds] will be sent to a saltwatery grave [if the land is flooded]. farmer on Countryfile BBC April 11, 2010

screamathon

screeching to the converted      (Beth Ditto described in Guardian March 25, 2008)

sepulchral calm (of spa town Badenweiler)     Observer Dec 24 2006

shampoo slingers for hairdressers Guardian Sept 5 06

Slightly kind of Rasputinesque, yeah.    (Derren Brown)

snap apart like a dry biscuit    Rowan Williams says the church isn’t going to

social alpinist/mountaineer

Some people seem to feel somewhat competitive about owning the klezmer movement and gouging other people's cartouches.  Lori from Maxwell Street (like chiselling out the hieroglyphics that read “Pyramids by Imhotep”)

spray (paint) job      on an outdated policy – like cosmetic changes

squoval     new shape for nails

srs levels of o god    twitter

stained-glass platitudes      (Paul Pearsall MD. When he had cancer he was always being told “Everything happens for a reason”.)

starter husband/marriage     like starter home – or even starter relationship

still at the larval stage

stodgy drawing room devil drama      (imdb on The Devil Rides Out)

store-bought (observations)    Telegraph June 10, 2005

stripmining (expertise)    (Ari Davidoff)

strokey-beard (meetings)      meetings where people stroke beards meditatively but nothing gets decided

sugar-coated treacle     (Sue Arnold)

supercalifragimagnetic     (Courtney Rubin)

swarm    a swarm review, in which all the critics attack together (Guardian May 24, 2006)

take the down elevator     go to hell

templatized

tentacle    turns out to be a tentacle of Random House Observer July 29 07

The BBC usually does a “faces and places” treatment (of Agatha Christie) (imdb, saying you need the narrative voice)

The cast look like hairy prog-rockers from the 1970s and wield their weapons “with all the conviction of Derek from accounts on a company-sponsored paintball outing”.  Cast of Clash of the Titans, Sathnam Sanghera Daily Telegraph April 10

the chicken’s 2-volt brain     (Cecil Adams)

the corporate foyer beckons     Laura Cumming on Abstract Expressionists Observer Sept. 28 08

the elephant in the sacristy      (catholicsforchoice.org)

The explicitness of the rape scene leaves a sour taste in the mouth, and questions whether the film’s intentions were anything more than cheap entertainment dressed up in a social issue see-thru nightie. IMDB review of The Accused.

The government’s green credentials have withered in the heat.     Campaign to Protect Rural England, Guardian July 21, 2005

the huge clanging dumbnicity of men (illustrationart blog Dave Apatoff)

The novel, for me, was slightly less readable than a braille phone book. Dan Brown would be more suited to writing the assembly instructions for MFI furniture, although he would obviously have to brush up on some writing basics first. poster on bbc website re The Da Vinci Code

The special FX were drawn with a pen!     imdb, paraphrase

the trailing edge (suburbia)

theoloons

There was an uncomfortable silence. You could hear crickets. Tyler Stillman quoted in the New York Times on telling the wrong joke to the wrong audience

There was no more room left under the carpet. 

They’ve dropped the bundle.     Aboriginal man on his people’s hopelessness. (Eden)

Think tank patois (Matthew Norman)

this butterfly is as big as a vulture! Hilary on The Antiques Road Show

This is typical retrograde low-tech Chevy Impala-type thinking.     Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope

to call this a straw man argument is an insult to straw men everywhere(who said this Sept. 2006?)

took up a lot of oxygen

trailing the rest of the tour group     for not keeping up with the class (everything2.com)

trampoline     use job as trampoline for higher political office

trendsumerist     Guardian May 2, 2007

unsinkable rubber duck      someone who goes on believing in astrology etc. however much counter evidence you load them with – they just bob up again like a rubber duck with another reason for believing. (James Randi)

US mortgage companies that have “dried up and blown away”    

vomit tourism     (Jef McAllister)

washing line    The plot is merely a convenience, a washing line upon which to hang a large number of characters, theatrical set-pieces and little illustrations of life in and around the theatrical world. (imdb)

weightless     rated the fifth-best retail hot spot in the country by one of those mysteriously weightless institutions that take it upon themselves to rate such things Independent 21 Mar 10 (Meaning something like shadowy.)

Welcome to Croydon – twinned with Mordor.    (Sue Perkins)

went to the University of Life when it was still a poly     (Patrick Otter)

when their synapses have frozen over     (Simon Hoggart January 21, 2005)

Where Mt Fuji rises above the travellers like a think bubble.    Laura Cumming Observer Dec 23 07

Who said that all you needed to know about [mag edited by Jane Asher] was that it contained the words “doughcraft wall plaque”?

Who was on board, who had signed up merely for the trip around the bay, and who for the whole voyage?     (Julian Barnes in the London Review of Books on the Cubists Dec. 15 2005)

widow’s peak pelmet created in the ninth circle of hell.     (Colin and Justin’s How Not to Decorate)

wipe-down    we have created a wipe-down agricultural landscape Sunday Times July 29 07

wisteria sisters    the Middleton sisters (decorative, fragrant and climbing)

wolves in chic clothing     (imdb)

Wotan could have been a Swiss dentist.     Observer Fiona Maddocks reviews Wagner Aug 9 09

would bring tears to a glass eye     (imdb)

written with a knife and fork

You winsome you lose some     (of twee series Pushing Daisies)

young enough to be sent up chimneys (waiters)