airing cupboard • This is a cupboard over the top of the hot-water heater in a house. It is used for keeping towels and sheets warm on cold winter nights. Er, at least that’s what it’s used for in normal people’s houses.

      “Agadoo” • The worst song ever written. It won the Eurovision Song Contest, which is a competition for the worst songs ever written. That is all I have to say. Oh, and grown-ups think it is a “laugh” to sing it when they are drunk. It isn’t. (It goes “Aga doo doo doo, Aga doo doo doo” for twenty hours.)

      agony aunt • A woman in a magazine who gives you advice if you are a sad person with no one else to talk to. For instance, Jas might write, “Dear Agony Aunt, My friend Georgia is so much better-looking, cleverer and all-round more brilliant that I feel inadequate. What should I do?” And the agony aunt would write back, “Kill yourself.” (Not really, that last bit is a joke.)

      bangers • Firecrackers. Fireworks that just explode with a big bang. That’s it. No pretty whooshing or stars or rocketing up into the sky. Bangers just bang. Boy fireworks. Boys are truly weird.

      Borstal • A sort of young person’s prison for naughty boys.

      catsuit • An all-in-one suit thing with trousers and a zipper up the front. Usually evening wear. It is supposed to be sexy, and perhaps it is, but try getting out of one quickly if you have to pay an emergency lavatory call. Like a grown-up version of a romper suit.

      Crazy Colour • Hair colour that you paint on your hair and that can be washed out. (Crazy because it is blue or purple or red or green.)

      deely bopper • Like antenna things with tiny balls on the end that you wear on your head. Popular with five-year-olds.

      Denise Van Outen • She is a blonde on TV who is a bit on the breasty side. Boys seem to like her, although I can’t see the attraction myself as I am not (probably) a lesbian.

      dole • What unemployed people get (i.e. money) to stop them starving to death. Welfare.

      double cool with knobs • “Double” and “with knobs” are instead of saying “very” or “very, very, very, very”. You’d feel silly saying, “He was very, very, very, very, very cool.” Also everyone would fall asleep before you finished your sentence. So “double cool with knobs” is altogether snappier.

      duffing up • Duffing up is the female equivalent of beating up. It is not so violent and usually involves a lot of pushing, with the occasional pinch.

      first former • Kids of about eleven who have just started “big” school. They have shiny innocent faces – very tempting to slap.

      fringe • Goofy short bit of hair that comes down to your eyebrows. Some one told me that American-type people call them “bangs”, but this is so ridiculously strange that it’s not worth thinking about. Some people can look very stylish with a fringe (i.e. me) while others look goofy (Jas). The Beatles started it (apparently). One of them had a German girlfriend and she cut their hair with a pudding bowl, and the rest is history.

      Froggie and geoggers · Froggie is short for French; geoggers is short for geography. Ditto blodge (biology) and lunck (lunch).

      full-frontal snogging • Kissing with all the trimmings: lip to lip, open mouth, tongues… everything. (Apart from dribble, which is never acceptable.)

      gorgey • Gorgeous. Like fabby (fabulous) and marvy (marvellous).

      “have the painters in” • An expression to indicate that a girl is… er… having her… you know what. Oh, come on, you do know. Having her… er… well, to put it plainly… her… well, that “the red flag is flying”, that her “little friend has come to visit”. Period. Menstruation. Woman trouble. Trouble at the mill. I can’t go on with this; it is making me tired.

      hols • Vacation. In olden days when bishops wanted a day off, they decided to have a Holy Day or, as it has become, a Hol-i-day. Shortened to hols for obvious reasons. (Life is too short to use long words.) Apart from the fact that Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s