SHOW NOTES — for — MINISODE 32 (Season 5)

(April 16, 2026)

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• 01:35: STREET POETRY: From a broadside ballad: “The Old Oak Tree” and “The Old House at Home” — a song of a jilted lover-maid, and another song of longing for one’s childhood home.
• 04:35: BLACK BESS; or, THE KNIGHT OF THE ROAD (starring HIGHWAYMAN DICK TURPIN), Chapter 65-67: Following the signal lights, the two cutters meet up with the smuggling ship, the Snake, and start transferring packets of smuggled silk. Everyone is a little worried because the Snake is showing a signal light that means the Coast Guard is active tonight, but hope to get away clear without seeing them.
• Then this hope is suddenly, and explosively, dashed ….
• 31:25: INTRODUCING MISS GODFREY: One of the “ladies of the evening” listed and described in Harris’s List of Covent-garden Ladies, a directory for bucks and bloods out on the town in the early 1800s. Miss Godfrey is described, somewhat paradoxically, as a tiny, lovely, petite pixie-gamine with the voice of a boatswain or drill sergeant, and an “excellent bed-fellow.”
• 34:30: A RATHER NAUGHTY COCK-AND-HEN-CLUB SONG: "THE MAIDEN’S SURPRISE; or, THE OLD HAT” (a dirty story in verse about a blooming maiden whose lust was stimulated by an unexpected glimpse of a local swain’s nether member. Cool story, bro, amirite?)
• 37:20: A FEW MILDLY DIRTY JOKES from what passed in 1830 for a dirty joke book: "The Joke-Cracker" by Martin Merryman, Esq.

GLOSSARY OF EARLY-VICTORIAN SLANG USED IN THIS EPISODE:

• HELL HOUNDS: (from intro) Disreputable gamblers who frequent gambling “hells.”
• ACADEMICIANS: (ibid) Members of an “academy,” that is, a brothel. So academicians were brothel ladies.
• KNIGHTS OF THE ROAD: (ibid) Highway robbers.
• CORINTHIAN: (ibid) Sporting man of rank and fashion, most famously represented by Corinthian Tom from Pierce Egan’s “Life in London,” the story of the adventures of a wealthy Regency rake named Tom and his country cousin Jerry as they rampage through the streets of London on a continual spree.
• CYPRIANS: (From the introduction to Hostess Miss Godfrey) Ladies of easy virtue, a classical reference to the island of Cyprus, supposedly peopled with sexually frisky ladies.
• SPORTING THEIR BLUNT: (ibid) Throwing money around.
• FLICKER: (ibid) Liquor glass.
• JACKY: (ibid) Gin.
• SLUICE YOUR IVORIES: (ibid) Take a big drink.
• GAY: (from cock-and-hen-club song, “The Maiden’s Surprise”) Carelessly frolicksome — given to venery and dissipation.
• LEARY LANKY DOODLE: (ibid) Nonsense verse, but with a real flash word tucked into its midst: “Leary,” which means canny and crafty.
• IN AND OUT, ROUND ABOUT, DOODLE DOO: (ibid) More nonsense verse with “in and out,” a pretty obvious reference to sex, tucked into its midst.
• COCKATOO: Another nonsense word (not a reference to the bird) selected because (a) it rhymes with “Tomaroo,” the word in the song this is a parody of; and (b) it contains the ever-titillating word “cock.”
• MORRIS OFF: (from outro) Run away at top speed.
• BEAKS ON THE NOSE: Police detectives or magistrates on an investigation.
• DIDDLE COVES: Bartender or landlord in a gin palace or dram shop.
• DAFFY DOXIES: Racy ladies who enjoy drinking daffy (gin).
• CAPTAIN LUSHINGTONS: Habitual drunks.
• BOOZING-KEN: Drinking den.
• SMITHFIELD: In the early 1800s a notoriously crowded and dangerous neighborhood in which a very unsanitary open-air livestock market was regularly held until the 1850s.