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yer new , and it was a while back ...

I went in at one pm on a Sat..... at 4:30 they told everyone to bugger off.....I don't know what floor I was on....so I just started following people in hopes of finding my way out.....
there was this stairway at the back of one floor......it was so small...for one person only...and so steep that if you fell...you were toast......I followed folks down that opening....and then had to go to the opposite side of the building......ect ect.....
at 4:55 I ended up on the main floor in front of a Sterling showcase......and bought a money clip...for my troubles.......and souvenir !!!

Out on the street was chaos ..... like a sports event had just let out !!!

 

One place I've never been. Not a huge fan of crowds annd i would have dodged that stairwell.

Our local church opened up its tower one year for the town fete. I tried going up this spiral staircase. So steep and so narrow. I just kept thinking about people falling down it from the top and skittling me so I had to wuss out.

 

Being a Londoner and having worked in London's famous Covent Garden market, I got to learn and use a lot of rhyming slang, and I have never neard of a 'deep sea diver'! It was always to my knowledge known as a 'lady', or a 'Lady Godiva'. Some simply refer to it as a 'bluey'.
A few years back it was considered cool to use rhyming slang, and a lot of it was simply made up by folks who had absolutely no idea.
I still use a lot of rhyming slang, and never refer to the telephone as anything other than the 'dog' = 'Dog & bone'.

 

Language evolves, not always for the better or through the 'right' people.

The only thing I remember from my times in London was 'to have a butcher's', have a look (butcher's hook).

 

If you want to know the brass tacks on what comes out of the old north & south, just let me know.
By the way, since we are on the subject, the cockney for mate (friend), is Dutch! Dutch plate = mate! As in, 'Hello me old Dutch'.
I know that the real Cockney's, Londoner's born in the East End of London, were really angered by people trying to be smart and using so called rhyming slang.

Some places, not just in London, use back slang, which is literally using words backwards. Butcher for example is 'rehctub'. It is quite funny to hear!

 

My aunts spoke like that to each other, it was a secret language they devised as children. Even in old age they could speak it fluently.

 

It maybe a Mancunian thing then as it is used quite frequently around these parts, me old china.

 

PS we have our own rhyming slang round these parts and it is difficult to distinguish between what is borrowed from London and what was bourne from this region. A few examples: -
Pan lids - Kids
Paraffin lamp - Tramp
And someone who is a plant pot is full of *#@&.

 

'Saucepan lids' I know as kids. Some use the term 'dustbin lids', for the same meaning. The latter is used by some to refer to the Jewish community, not in a derogatory way I must stress, it is just their way of talking, but dustbin lid, or 'four by two' is often heard.
We use the same, as 'plant pot', but I know it as 'barn pot', though I am not sure where from, or why.
I once heard the Queens Christmas speach translated into rhyinig slang, it was hilarious!
'As I sit here at the cain and able, in front of the old Jeremiah. Philip has just rolled in from the rub a dub, which is just a short way down the frog and toad, having had a few pigs ears, and he is totally elephant's trunk. But we send you all our warmest pots and dishes...............'.
Rub a dub, can also be 'battle', as in battle cruiser-boozer. Elephants trunk, is normally Brahms & Liszt- Pi**ed.
I learned rhyming slang as part of my early working life, but not being a Cockney ( I'm a 'Sarf (South) Londoner', not an East ender, I cannot always vouch for the veracity of the slang, only as I learned it, though that was nearly fifty years ago, long before it sort of became cool. In those days though, around the markets, it was perfectly normal language.