Sunday, July 20, 2014

Have you been strimming?

The Barham Babes invited me to join them for an evening with Dawn French on Friday. (The person who was supposed to be going couldn't so they had to find a replacement: a single person who wasn't doing anything on a Friday night. Choice was limited.) Anyway a jolly evening was had by all.


Dawn French isn't a stand-up comedian but rather a raconteur telling us the story of her life - with accompanying pictures. The girls had both read her book, Dear Fatty, so many of the stories were familiar to them but new to me, as was the term norks for breasts. Fortunately there was a large diagram of the human body displayed with the word Norks pointing at the appropriate piece of anatomy so that wasn't a problem. No, the problem for me came much later when Ms French - or Dawn as I feel I can call her now I know so much about her personal life - talked about the time she had hepatitis A and her mum came to look after her. Her mum asked her how she'd got it and Dawn said it was probably a dodgy sandwich. Her mother, however, wasn't having any of this. 'Don't give me that, young lady,' and accused her of ... I'll add two letters to the front of the word so I don't get any dodgy visitors ... strimming.

The whole audience erupted with laughter. I joined in as enthusiastically as the rest although I didn't have a clue what the word meant. I guessed it was probably something rude but my imagination wouldn't stretch that far.

Walking back to the car afterwards I hesitated: should I ask the girls what it meant? I'd like to think they're young and innocent but ... they are medical students so may be able to enlighten me. So I asked. And they burst out laughing.
'Are you sure you want to know?'
'Yes. No. I don't know. Yes.'

So they told me. Ooh, I wish I hadn't asked.

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