Sitting there like a bag of nutty slack...

NotSpaghetti

Allira and gulligranny
I think it's the quiet "longing but giving" sort of perfect patience that Viola was describing here. I wonder how it became so "commonplace" as to be used for daydreaming?

Viola is lovelorn; she cannot declare her love because she is masquerading as a man.

Dizzyribs. There are two similar expressions that meant "spinning a yarn". One was "my eye and Fanny Adams" and the other was "my eye and Betty Martin". My mother always used the former, but I have heard of the latter.

Fanny Adams was murdered at the age of 8 in 1867 and her body dismembered. The story is too convoluted to explain how this horrific event gave rise to the expression "my eye and Fanny Adams" and why it means fibbing, but it is very interesting.

Betty Martin did not exist at all. The expression is attributed to British sailors docked in Italy during the 19th century who heard either a song or a Latin church service. They were sure some of the words involved were "my eye and Betty Martin". It became quite a joke which naturally spread to the populous and eventually morphed into meaning something false, daft or exaggerated.

Standing there like a streak of wet weather.

Allira and gulligranny
I think it's the quiet "longing but giving" sort of perfect patience that Viola was describing here. I wonder how it became so "commonplace" as to be used for daydreaming?

Coke was the original “smokeless fuel” coal which was processed so it gave heat but little smoke when burned. It was acceptable to burn it in “smokeless zones” where burning coal, which generates a lot of smoke, was prohibited.
You’ve heard what nutty slack was- there was also “gassy slack” poor quality broken coal that smoked and smelled (at least it was called that in my area, which has lots of mines)
My granny used to say “Venus on a rock bun”
She would also express surprise with “yee gods and little fishes”
“All my eye and Fanny Martin” was her way of saying someone was “spinning a yarn” ie making things up based on very little truth,
“sixpence short of a shilling” for someone foolish, lacking common sense (there were twelve pennies in a shilling in old money)
And “bent as a ninebob note” (a shilling was a “bob” in pre decimal currency. In the old-money half a £, ie 50p was a ten shilling note, there wasn’t a nine shilling note)

I grew up with coal fires. Mum would buy anthracite when we were a bit better off and coke to bank up in leaner times. For some reason going to the coal merchants was Mum's job in our old Morris van. I remember in the winter of 63 we got stuck in a terrible snow drift on the way to buy coal. I think we abandoned the van and walked home. I was six at the time.

Especially with a slice of bread to make a chip sarnie

When someone looked cheesed off my old dad would say ‘he’s had his egg and chips’.
Not sure why cos I have never looked cheesed off after having egg and chips.

If someone had a wrinkly forehead.

He could screw his hat on.

We still say ‘if you had a brain you’d be dangerous’ when somebody does something silly.

If wit was s++t, you’d be constipated.
My Grandma used to say “he/she has money to pelt dogs with”

That's mean.

A friend says “she is so mean she would split a raisin.”

Lamb and lettuce, cheese and fourpence, some of these must have been just made up.
I've not heard the fried bread one, either.

I like the expression (used when you have delivered bad news) - sorry to piss on your chips!

My Dad used the phrase ‘sitting up like a piece of fried bread’. No idea where that came from

If I tied a belt too tight my mother used to say I looked like a tick(tic?) tied in the middle. No idea where it came from.

My mother used to send me to the gas works to fetch coke in an old pram when she couldn't afford coal. I was always afraid that someone from school would see me pushing that pram home.

coke was to coal what pringles are to crisps.
processed and pressed out into an imitation of the original, in regular size and shape.

MissAdventure

What was coke, then?
Was that nutty slack?

my memory is that coke was an industrially processed fuel, kind of rendered coal, with the gas taken out, or was it oil, something that flared and flamed bright in the grate.
coke was produced for enclosed boilers or back boilers as the ignition point was higher.
sometimes a gas poker was used to get it going.
that was quite posh, and i think it occurred to people that if you had a gas supply near the grate, you might as well fit a gas fire, if you could afford it and were not in rented accomm.
a gas fire was so much easier; not sure of the running costs though, by comparison with an open fire.
nutty slack was low-grade, sweepings-up, bits and coal dust.
useful for backing up a fire, as described above.
i never heard of anyone starting a fire with it, wouldn't seem adequate.
but my knowledge is partial.
nice to remember though.

If you didn’t get stuck in, mixing with others a Midlands saying was “don’t sit there like a Fairy on a Rock cake”.

He is so mean he wouldn't give you the drippings of his nose

What was coke, then?
Was that nutty slack?

We always had a bucket of nutty slack in the coal house!!! I can see my mum now, sweeping up the coal dust and all the little pieces off the coal house floor and shovelling it into the bucket! A shovel full of it would be thrown into the back of the fire to dampen it down and keep it burning without ferocious flames, thereby extending the life of the burning coals!

Like 1o'clock half struck😅