Having just emerged from the lighter end of a news conference scratching my head at the latest story proferred by the newsdesk, I’m feeling like a bit of a clot.
Fortunately, I’m clearly not the only one as ‘clot’ is number one on the top ten of most used words in Lancashire prose.
Apparently.
I would say this list was of dubious orgin but proferred, as it is, from the Oxford University Press, we would like to think the clot who produced it did their research.
Personally, I don’t believe a word of it – in fact the only word on this dubious list that sounds like it could reliably quite popular in the pastry-loving, savoury-savouring, Lanky-land is ‘pie’.
We all love a pie.
But quite why ‘brew’ and ‘ale’ are not on there is a mystery.
Surely ‘chuffed’ should make an appearance from the red rose county.
Instead it appears we have a obsession with the supernatural, with ‘entity’, ‘spaceship’ and ‘spook.’
It would seem these popular words are those of our imagination and we spend an awful lot of time thinking about food and outer space.
Maybe the two are interlinked and the overdosing on pie produced some sort of hallucinations?
Any reliable Lancastrian is well aware that pie contains magical powers, after all.
The somewhat baffling ‘nil’- eighth in the rankings- perhaps confirms an unfortunate obsession with the UK’s regular performance score at the Eurovision song contest.
It is clearly not nil by mouth as ‘waffles’ and ‘flake’ are also on there – though personally I would have substituted ‘chips’ and ‘gravy’.
Though there is strong possibility ‘flake ‘ refers to a person rather than a chocolately delight that melts in your mouth by Cadbury.
I’m just really hoping ‘clot’ isn’t of the blood variety – for all our sakes.
I don’t know about you, but I want to meet this Lancastrian clot of a sergeant who spends time doing nil but searching for a spaceship, a spook, and other entity in a jeep, with a fully packed picnic of pies, waffles and flake.