the number of allotments rose from 815,000 in 1939 to 1,400,000 in 1943.
dignity in destiny See RENDEZVOUS.
(the) dignity of labour This phrase refers especially to manual labour, but citations have proved a touch elusive. In his 1887 short story ‘The Model Millionaire’, Oscar Wilde has the artist Alan Trevor say: ‘Why, look at the trouble of laying on the paint alone, and standing all day long at one’s easel! It’s all very well, Hughie, for you to talk, but I assure you that there are moments when Art almost attains to the dignity of manual labour.’ At the close of Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chap. 1 (1890), Lord Henry Wotton congratulates himself on missing an engagement: ‘Had he gone to his aunt’s, he would have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and the whole conversation would have been about the feeding of the poor…The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift, and the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour.’ Wilde also states in his essay ‘The Soul of Man Under Socialism’ (1891) that ‘a great deal of nonsense is being written and talked nowadays about the dignity of manual labour’. Booker T. Washington, the Afro-American writer, alludes to the notion in Up from Slavery (1901): ‘No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.’ Bernard Shaw, in his play Man and Superman, Act 2 (1903), has the exchange: ‘I believe most intensely in the dignity of labour’ / ‘That’s because you never done any, Mr Robinson.’ Dorothy L. Sayers has the exact phrase in Gaudy Night, Chap. 3 (1935). The similar honest toil is almost as elusive. Thomas Gray in his ‘Elegy’ (1751) spoke of the useful toil of the ‘rude forefathers’ in the countryside. ‘Useful Work versus Useless Toil’ was the title of a lecture by William Morris (1880s). Useful Toil was the title of a book comprising ‘autobiographies of working people from the 1820s to the 1920s’ (published 1974). The OED2 finds ‘honest labour’ in 1941. Thomas Carlyle spoke of ‘honest work’ in 1866. ‘Honourable toil’ appears in the play Two Noble Kinsmen (possibly by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare, published 1634).
dim See AS DIM.
diminishes See HIS DEATH.
dinner See ALL GONG; DOG’S.
dinners See AS MANY.
dire straits Meaning, ‘desperate trouble, circumstances’. A cliché phrase by the early 1980s when this inevitable coupling was compounded by the name Dire Straits being taken by a successful British pop group. ‘In fact, as a Mori survey in one of the Sunday newspapers pointed out, the middle classes in Britain have seldom been in such dire straits’ – The Daily Telegraph (29 June 1994); ‘War heroes’ rents soar…In Staffordshire, another St Dunstaner blinded by shell fire at Normandy in 1944, said: “I can’t understand how they have got into such dire straits”’ – The Mail on Sunday (2 April 1995).
dirt See AGE BEFORE.
dirty See DOM.
dirty work at the crossroads Meaning ‘despicable behaviour; foul play’ (in any location), this is mostly a Hollywood idiom but not quite a cliché. The earliest film citation found is from Flying Down to Rio (US 1933), although P. G. Wodehouse had it in the book Man Upstairs in 1914 and Walter Melville, a 19th-century melodramist, is said to have had it in The Girl Who Took the Wrong Turning, or, No Wedding Bells for Him (no date). A Notes and Queries discussion of the phrase in 1917 threw up the view that it might have occurred in a music-hall sketch of the 1880s and that the chief allusion was to the activities of highwaymen. Brewer (1999) suggests that it might have something to do with the old custom of burying people at crossroads. ‘Why couch it in arcane, ridiculous questions? If you think there is dirty work at the crossroads, say so. Don’t shilly shally, don’t ask the minister concerned what information he possesses about what may have occurred at the crossroads on such and such a date’ – Peter McKay, Evening Standard (London) (13 July 1994); ‘Miss Downs’s withdrawal upset the congregation. “This was dirty work at the crossroads and gross discrimination of the worst kind,” a man who attended the service, but refused to take communion, said yesterday’ – The Independent (5 August 1994).
(the) discreet charm of the bourgeoisie A tantalizing title devised by the writer/director Luis Buñuel (1900–83) for his France/Spain/Italy film (1972). In its original French: Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie. In his native Spanish: El discreto encanto de la burgesía.
discumknockerating See HOW TICKLED I.
(to) discuss Ugandan affairs To have sexual intercourse. In Private Eye No. 293 (9 March 1973), there appeared a gossip item that launched this euphemism: ‘I can reveal that the expression “Talking about Uganda” has acquired a new meaning. I first heard it myself at a fashionable party given recently by media-people Neal and Corinna Ascherson. As I was sipping my Campari on the ground floor I was informed by my charming hostess that I was missing out on a meaningful confrontation upstairs where a former cabinet colleague of President Obote was “talking about Uganda”. Eager, as ever, to learn the latest news from the Dark Continent I rushed upstairs to discover the dusky statesman “talking about Uganda” in a highly compromising manner to vivacious former features editor, Mary Kenny…I understand that “Long John” and Miss Kenny both rang up later to ascertain each other’s names.’ Later, references to ‘Ugandan practices’ or ‘Ugandan discussions’ came to be used – though probably not far beyond the readership of Private Eye. In a letter to The Times (13 September 1983), Corinna Ascherson (now signing herself Corinna Adam) identified the coiner of the phrase as the poet and critic James Fenton. Richard Ingrams (editor of Private Eye at the time) added the interesting footnote in The Observer (2 April 1989) that the original Ugandan was ‘a one-legged former Minister in President Obote’s Government. When the New Statesman found out that the Eye was going to refer to the incident, representations were made to the effect that the Minister, on the run from Obote, would be in danger if identified. The detail of the wooden leg was therefore omitted, but the expression passed into the language.’ As a further footnote, Nicholas Wollaston wrote to The Observer (9 April 1989) and pointed out that the one-legged performer wasn’t on the run from President Obote but ‘the much-loved chairman of the Uganda Electricity Board, also of the Uganda Red Cross, and an exile for seven years from the tyranny of Idi Amin. When he died in 1986,…a memorial service at St Martin-in-the-Fields was packed with his friends, among them several who remembered their discussions on Uganda with him, the artificial limb notwithstanding, with much pleasure.’
diseases See DESPERATE.
disgusted, Tunbridge Wells When it was announced in February 1978 that a Radio 4 programme was to be launched with the title Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells (providing a platform for listeners’ views on broadcasting), there was consternation in the Kent township (properly, Royal Tunbridge Wells). The title was intended to evoke the sort of letter fired off to the press between the wars when the writer did not want to give his/her name and so signed ‘Mother of Three’, ‘Angry Ratepayer’, ‘Serving Policeman’, etc. Tunbridge Wells has long been held as the source of reactionary, blimpish views. Derek Robinson, the presenter of the programme, while disliking its title, commented (1989): ‘Why Tunbridge Wells was considered to be stuffier than, say, Virginia Water or Maidenhead, I don’t know. It’s just one of those libels, like tight-fisted Aberdeen, that some places get lumbered with.’ The Kent Courier (24 February 1978) reported the ‘disgust’ that the ‘Disgusted’ label had stirred up in the town. Some people interviewed thought the tag had originated with Richard Murdoch in the BBC radio show Much Binding in the Marsh in which ‘he made much use of his connections
