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Hi again Elle and Rusty,

I have just watched Laddie delivering a fish that looked like a pike from what I could see; Lassie promptly got hold of it and flew off presumably to eat some of it elsewhere !

Hi, Rusty!
I have no ideas as to the origin of "lickety- split"?
I of course know the meaning....but cannot find any derivation anywhere!
I have searched in Brewers, but it isn't in my edition.
I ended up watching the programme about the Tube last night.
I noticed that I hadn't set the recorder as I'd thought, switched on the TV...and got involved in watching .....(altho I'd missed the first quarter of an hour by then)
It wasn't quite what I was expecting but I found it interesting, never-the -less.
I was totally unaware , for instance , that there are quite a lot of abandoned underground stations dotted about underneath London!
I wonder if all the locations are known?
And the Tube map - I didn't know that there had been such controversy about it .......
It is certainly a masterpiece of "engineering" .
You can go anywhere at all on the Tube with no difficulty whatsover, as long as you can see a Tube map!
The original designer's name - Harry Beck - is in the bottom right hand corner in very (very) small print!



Hello, Pigale!
You seem to be having better luck than I!
Every time, I look in on the ospreys , only Lassie is there or else the nest is empty.
I have yet to see Laddie arrive with a fish!

Elle, this is probably because I spend quite a bit of time watching it; and even when I do not watch it, I keep the sound on so that I am aware of any activity whenever the birds flap their wings for instance.
They are both quite often in the nest this morning and Laddie is/has been very talkative.

Phrases.org.uk is a very useful site

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/lickety-split.html

Hello, Pigale!
I missed that!
Glad you are enjoying it, though!

Hello, Elle!
I have not looked up lickety-split.
Sounds like the kind of thing that Aunt Polly would say to Tom Sawyer, though?
I watched The Tube and thought it was very good.
Should be more programmes like it on TV.
That was what Lord Reith wanted.
The Tube map is just taken for granted but it was/is an excellent innovation.
I would have liked a bit more on the engineering problems they had to overcome but that is me being picky!
I had never heard of Farringdon!

Hello, Eirlys!
Thank you for posting that very informative site.
I have saved it.

Hi, Rusty!
Yes, that was an informative programme about the Tube. I had been expecting more about its structure - although we did get a little of that at the beginning - but I thought the slant given was good.

I am still only seeing Lassie in the nest - she is busily preening herself....it looks very blowy?
Unlike Pigale though, I don't leave the volume as the cat get too excited!! so I am not alerted by chirping, to any extra activity!

My thoughts of Aunt Polly are of her hitting Tom over the head with her thimble!
Now, I have another phrase for you !
This morning' s Times 2 produced as an answer to a clue ...."sick as a parrot"!
This means very disappointed and miserable - but I wonder how the phrase came into being?
Any ideas?
I shall consult Brewers later when I come back from my walk!

Good evening, Elle!
Yes, The Tube was an excellent programme.
I learnt quite a bit!
Did you recognise anyone?
There were two swans on the loch earlier.
Seems like a nice day there,
No sign of the sick parrot in Brewers.
Apparently the phrase was created in a comedy play hundreds of years ago, by I forget who.
I did come across another phrase which was new to me.
"A London particular". Would you know what it is?
And "All Lombard Street to a China orange", which appealed to me!
Nina's horse is now number 42. They changed things around today. Hope she "gets in"!

Hi again Rusty and Elle,

I have a copy of Spilling the Beans on the Cat's Pyjamas (Book on popular expressions and their meaning fron which there is the following extract;

"As sick as a parrot" - A term to describe extreme disappointment at an unexpected failure or setback. A similar phrase, "melancholy as a parrot", was used by the author Aphra Behn (1640-89) in the seventeenth century, and it is to describe this kind of malady, rather than sickness to the stomach, that the phrase is used today.

Perhaps that Aphra Behn was the comedian you meant Rusty?

Hello, Pigale!
Yes, that's the name.
I have never heard of the author!
I am learning a lot today.
I like the sound of your book!