Learning Cockney Slang: Don’t Be A Berkeley Hunt
Kevin Keegan, not a vegan
In Cockney rhyming slang, “I’m going to the Fatboy Slim” means “I’m going to the gym.” This is interesting, because as far as I can tell, Norman Cook’s fitness regimen is cocaine, which in cockney is “charlie.”
To call someone a “Berk” is short for “Berkely Hunt”, which rhymes with something that is the reason why the Mighty Boosh can never be shown in prime time in England, because the inoffensive-sounding “berk” is slang for something very dirty, something that rhymes with “hunt”, and starts with a “c”.
In cockney, to say something is Kevin Keegan, after the legendary footballer and coach, means that something is vegan. My tiny friend Emiko from Foodfightgrocery.com let me know this triv, that if you are at a party and pointing at various foods, asking “Zat Kevin?”, you are asking if it’s free of animal products, not made of an unlucky friend.
I took a picture of this sign at Nike, which makes me laugh but doesn’t make anyone else laugh, because it implies that the hallway is vegan. I think it’s Eddie. (eddie money=funny.)
Postscript: Like most of us, I was watching the Julien Temple short film, Jazzin’ for Blue Jean, on the treadmill last night (sidebar: Bowie was 37 when this film was made, and in my opinion at the height of his personal awesomeness. Goals, people.) Anyway, in this film, when Bowie is portraying the most challenging role of his career, a scheming poster-hanger named Vic, he says “I’m a berk!”, which means that Bowie tricked MTV into letting him say “cunt” repeatedly on their network in 1984, which is just another reason he’s my hero.