No arguing about Emmet.
Torquay claims Grockle due to a film, in 1962.

My old fella picked Grockle up from BlackPoo, in the late 40’s after he came home from the War. We heard it as kids and asked him what he was talking about, he explained that in BlackPoo, that’s what they call visitors.

Who cares? I’m not from either place LoL.

Peedee – that is an interesting point – about your father using it in the late 40s. This is from the Oxford English Dictionary, which confirms the rest of your comment.

“Grockle’ is an informal and often slightly derogatory term for a tourist. It was first popularized because of its use by the characters in the film The System (1962), which is set in the Devon resort of Torquay during the summer season. Some older dictionaries suggested that it might be a West Country dialect word. Other scholars have put forward the theory that it originated in a comparison of red-faced tourists (wearing baggy clothing with handkerchiefs on their heads) to ‘Grock’, a clown and music-hall performer who was famous in the first half of the 20th century.

The word ‘grockle’ was indeed picked up by The System’s scriptwriter from local people during filming in Torquay. However, it was apparently not an ‘old local dialect word’. According to research by a local journalist in the mid-1990s, the word in fact originated from a strip cartoon in the children’s comic Dandy entitled ‘Danny and his Grockle’. (The grockle was a magical dragon-like creature.) A local man, who had had a summer job at a swimming pool during as a youngster, said that he had used the term as a nickname for a small elderly lady who was a regular customer one season. During banter in the pub among the summer workers, ‘grockle’ then became generalized as a term for summer visitors.

This development seems to have occurred in, or only shortly before, the summer in which The System was filmed: the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary has no examples of the word dating from before the release of The System (though one or two people from the south-west remain convinced that they knew it before then).”

No one voted for “this shower”, in the sense that no one bar some tactical voters voted for a coalition. I voted against another 5 years of the worst Prime Minister since the war.

The only reason that it was better, for me, was that it was much more about the man than the car in the fifties. Yes of course the cars had a part to play and who knows how many titles Moss might have won, but for his cars, but it was still much more about driver versus driver than it is today.

We can probably guess at the age of said presenter!

Cloud 9 – your boss/manager comes in one day, demanding to change the terms and conditions of your employment regardless of the reason, and you would quite happily just bow down and say “Yes sir/m’am, I accept”…no if’s, no but’s, no what if’s, no negotitation, nothing on your part, just a firm acceptance and then you continue on with your work?

I was not going to be drawn into this yet again but having a natural antithesis to unionism in general, although accepting that on occasion it has merit, my response to your question to another poster is no, I would not bow down and say yes, if I didn’t like what was being offered. I would leave.

Now the response to that might be that it is very well but jobs are hard to come by and the same package might not be available etc etc. Well, if that is the response, then my argument would be “put up or shut up”.

In the private sector the laws of supply and demand operate. And when the economy is sluggish and demand is low the employer holds the stronger hand of cards. In a strong, healthy, growing economy the employee holds the strong hand.

I understand that pole dancing and lap dancing are very artistic and demand great skill.

Funny how “what made you smile” one day makes you “want to swear” the next day……..;)

Relaxing family weekend in the sun – eating outside – the troubles of the world mere distant knowledge and the PC switched off most off the time!!:)