![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia")
Lily on the Dustbin 186: Two examples are ‘in and out like a fiddler’s elbow’ or ‘rushing around like a one-armed fiddler with the itch’ whose innocuous meanings merely describe useless or senseless over-activity. Lily on the Dustbin 14: One woman says to look like a lily on a dustbin (or garbage or dirt bin) is to dress inappropriately for an occasion and/or to wear over-fussy, frilly clothes. [...] Another uses it for a variety of incongruous matters: an informal or poor family meal table might have newspaper instead of a cloth and cracked and battered utensils, and one pretty milk jug stands in the centre of it like a lily on a dustbin. Lily on the Dustbin 86: ‘Make like a tree and leave!’; ‘make like a bee and buzz!’. Lily on the Dustbin 22: You’ll have rooms ‘all over the place like a madwoman’s breakfast’. Lily on the Dustbin 176: ‘Zits’ or ‘ackers’ (pimples) may be ‘subterraneous’ or ‘volcanos’ and acne sufferers have faces ‘like a festered pickle bottle’. Lily on the Dustbin 123: Adam and Eve on a raft are two fried eggs on toast, and wreck ’em (break the yolks). Lily on the Dustbin 41: Women are distinguished from charity molls if they provide an ‘after dinner mint’ to men who expect, and ask for, this sweet conclusion to an expensive night out. The implication is that ‘minters’ are less promiscuous and more often are ‘going steady’ with their men. Lily on the Dustbin 41: A ‘charity moll’ is the equivalent of a World War II ‘EA’ or ‘enthusiastic amateur’: a promiscuous woman whose sexual favours are theoretically not available for sale […] [She] barters herself, instead, for presents, dinners, theatre and show tickets. Lily on the Dustbin 83: Had Christopher Robin been an Australian child the answer to his plaintive query, ‘Has anyone seen my mouse?’ might have been ‘It’s up in Annie’s room behind the clock.’ Variants [...] are ‘Up in Annie’s room resting on a pedestal’ or ‘hanging on a cobweb’. Lily on the Dustbin 96: Just because she’s ‘as skinny as a walking hairpin’ or skinny as a ‘gas pipe cut on the bias’ or ‘a match-stick with all the wood shaved off’, you think she’s ‘the ants pants’. Lily on the Dustbin 31: The APC belongs to an order of Sheilaspeak that allows members of a group who understand it to convey information to each other. Lily on the Dustbin 98: If you’d rather have a beer there’s a couple of cold ‘arries’ in the fridge. Lily on the Dustbin 32: Don’t go being all Melbourne snob with old Gloria . . . she’s rough as bags but sharp, too. Lily on the Dustbin 25: If you had no claim to great beauty you were ‘as ugly as a hatful of arseholes.’. Lily on the Dustbin 49: ‘Going to Mary’s room’ or ‘going to visit Mary’ or ‘aunty’ are examples of a range of euphemisms used by some women. Lily on the Dustbin 50: A confused patient may also be ‘away with the fairies’, ‘ga-ga’, ‘doe-doe’, ‘dumbo’, ‘dubbo’ or have ‘lost ’is marbles’. Lily on the Dustbin 132: The exasperating person who is ‘mad as a meat ant (or meat axe)’, ‘silly as a tin of worms (or a cut snake)’. Lily on the Dustbin 51: There are racist overtones to [...] the ‘Mediterranean back’, which denotes derisive suspicion about a back-ache and ‘Mediterranean gut-ache’, usually shortened to ‘MGA’ which is just as suspect as the back-ache. Lily on the Dustbin 48: A girl’s genitals and urinary area is her ‘front tottie’, her anus is the ‘back tottie’, and this term may also apply to a boy’s anus. Lily on the Dustbin 137: When a young Australian man ‘puts the hard word on’ a girl who does not welcome his sexual importunities she will ‘knock him back’ (tell him to ‘go jump in the lake’ or ‘take a long walk off a short pier’ — or worse). Lily on the Dustbin 96: ‘Then,’ mum continues, ‘I “ran into” dear old Mrs Jones.’ ‘That old tabbie!’ dad snorts [...] ‘That old perambulating ragbag!’. Lily on the Dustbin 21: She will also economise with food, serving ‘mystery bags’ (sausages) or some other cheap but substantial fare to her family. Lily on the Dustbin 57: Passionate parents barracked furiously and frequently disputed decisions. Lily on the Dustbin 105: Once when Australians went to the beach for a ‘dip’ they carried ‘cossies’, ‘bathers’ or ‘togs’ or in South Australia ‘swimmies’. Lily on the Dustbin 96: Mum’s approaching ‘her change’ and fears that, like her own mother before her, she may ‘lose her figure’ and end up ‘built like a battleship’. Lily on Dustbin 85: The ‘drop bears’ are creatures of a tall story - they were invented during World War II for the benefit of gullible American servicemen. It is alleged that ‘drop bears’ are a dangerous kind of koala and that they drop out of trees on the heads and shoulders of bush walkers and hug them to death. Lily on the Dustbin 183: My father perfected a formula for dealing with ‘Bible bangers’ (or ‘Bible bashers’) which I use with success. Lily on the Dustbin 183: My father perfected a formula for dealing with ‘Bible bangers’ (or ‘Bible bashers’) which I use with success. Lily on the Dustbin 48: One child ‘does its business’, talks of ‘binnie one’ or ‘binnie two’ or ‘number one’ and ‘number two’, and another ‘makes cackie’, or ‘poop’. Lily on the Dustbin 89: There is no question that Karen is a ‘hubcap biter’ (girls who chase boys because of their cars).