Some lines don’t just stay in the programme or film they came from, they somehow escape into real life.
My wife and I do this all the time. A line from a sitcom, a film, or some daft bit of telly will work its way into our everyday language, and after a while it stops feeling like a quote. It just becomes something we say.
So this page is a little collection of those lines. The ones that stuck.
One thing I have noticed as I've started to compile this is that we misquote virtually every single one of them, but we don't care, still still think they are funny, perhaps funnier *not*
"Green it were!"
These words were uttered by the late, and very great, Brian Glover. It comes from an episode of Porridge, where Brian brilliantly played the dim-witted Cyril Heslop. The full, and correct, line is "I read a book once, green it was!", but we’ve changed it a little. So quite often at home, when we mention the colour of something, we’ll end with "Green it were!"
"Mickey Pearce lives on the Nyerere Estate"
This one comes from Only Fools and Horses, in the episode Yuppy Love, which is also the one where Del falls through the bar. Cassandra has dropped her friend off on a posh street, and Mickey mentions that it’s going to be a bit of a culture shock when she drops Rodney off at Nelson Mandela House. So when Cassandra gets back in the car, she says she’ll now drop Rodney off at the Nyerere Estate.
Rodney quickly corrects her: "I don’t live in the Nyerere Estate! Mickey lives on the Nyerere Estate. I live near it. I’ll show you."
We tend to use this one whenever someone has slightly misunderstood where something is, or what someone has said. It’s one of those lines that doesn’t really need much explaining in our house any more.
"Hag!"
This one is from Hot Fuzz. Sometimes, as a daft put-down, my wife or I will call the other one "Fascist!", and the reply is always "Hag!"
In the film, Sergeant Nicholas Angel is trying to check into his hotel while the receptionist is doing a crossword. She suddenly says "Fascist!", then explains that she’s looking for a seven-letter word meaning a system of government categorised by extreme dictatorship. Angel correcting her with the word "Fascism", then he looks at her and utters the word "Hag!", explaining that it means an evil old woman, considered frightful or ugly, one of the answers for her crossword. It’s childish, obviously. But that’s probably why it works.
"Oh Really!"
This is one that I thought came from a Fawlty Towers episode where the inept builder Mr. O'Reilly was brought in by Basil Fawlty, much to the dismay of poor Sybil. I thing she changed "O'Reilly" to "Oh Really", so now whenever we hear the name O'Reilly, we always respond with "Oh Really!".
"What did I say, Roy?"
Another one we use a fair bit comes from The Fast Show, from the sketches with Roy, played by John Thomson, and Renee, played by Caroline Aherne.
The basic set-up is usually Renee talking to some poor stranger about a random subject, before suddenly turning to her brow-beaten husband and asking, "What did I say, Roy?" Most of the time Roy just repeats what his overbearing wife has just said, but every now and then he says something she really doesn’t like.
The line we always quote is Roy saying, "You said you could shit through the eye of a needle." In our house, the reply has somehow become, "I didn’t, you lying bastard!" Which may not be accurate, but it makes us laugh more.
"Unaccustomed as I am"
This one is from Blackadder S3 E4, "Sense and Senility", the one where the actors try to teach the Prince Regent how to deliver a speech.
As part of the lesson, he has to stand with his legs wide apart, in an apparently heroic stance, before delivering his first line with a great big ROARRRR. His speech starts, "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking…"
We use "Unaccustomed as I am" as a daft little intro before we start saying something. It doesn’t really need to fit. That’s probably why it works.
"My love, my love"
That last one reminded me of this one. If I want to say "my love" to my wife, I’ll usually say it as "my love, my love", in a slightly Spanish accent.
It comes from Blackadder S1 E4, where Edmund is talking to the Infanta, with the hilarious Jim Broadbent as the interpreter, Don Speekingleesh.
The Infanta says, "Estas el verdadero amor de mi vida, amor mio, amor mio!" to Edmund, which Don then translates as, "You are the true love of my life, my love, my love!" in his pidgin English.
"But it’s Slater"
Every time someone gets mentioned who is called Slater, my wife and I will usually reply with, "But it’s Slater."
This comes from the Only Fools and Horses episode "Class of ’62", where Slater comes back to Peckham because he knows his estranged wife, Raquel, lives there.
At one point, when Raquel tells Del that Slater used to be her husband, Del reacts with utter disgust and says, "But he’s Slater!"
Yeah, I’ve noticed this is another one we’ve changed slightly to make it funnier for us. That seems to be a running theme.
"Oh, you did, did you?"
This is one of those lines from The Vicar of Dibley that we churn out fairly often. If one of us says we’ve done something, the other will invariably reply, "Oh, you did, did you?", or "You did, you did?", or something similar.
The line comes from the 1996 Christmas special, The Christmas Lunch Incident, better known to everyone as the one with the sprouts.
The actual exchange goes:
Geraldine: Ah! I’ve heard wonderful things about your cooking, Mrs Tinker.
Mrs Tinker: ’Ave you?
Geraldine: Yes, I have.
Mrs Tinker: ’Ave you?
Geraldine: …yes, I have.
Mrs Tinker: Oh, you ’ave, ’ave you?
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no parking is allowed in the top field!"
This is another of those lines from The Vicar of Dibley that has found its way into our regular vocabulary.
In the scene, Jim Trott is asked whether parking is allowed in the upper field. Clearly exasperated at having to announce it yet again, he takes to the PA system:
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no parking is allowed on the upper field. OK?"
It still makes us laugh, even though, as usual, we’ve tweaked it slightly over the years.
"They’re only doing it now!"
This is another of those lines from Only Fools and Horses, this time from the 1996 Christmas special, Time on Our Hands (you know the one). We tend to use it when someone does something, usually does something we don't expect.
In the episode, Uncle Albert mixes up the coffee and gravy granules. As the family begin pouring coffee over their Christmas dinner, Del turns to him in the kitchen and says:
"They’re only doing it now. They’re only out there pouring Maxwell bleeding House over their lamb noisettes and veg!"
"The dirty bastards!"
This one comes from The Catherine Tate Show and Janice and Ray, the Yorkshire couple who are permanently disgusted by modern life and almost everything they hear about.
In one sketch, they’re talking about a couple who use shiitake mushrooms in their cooking. Naturally, this is enough for Janice and Ray to declare them "dirty bastards".
Ever since, whenever we hear someone mention mushrooms, or any slightly unusual food or ingredient, one of us will inevitably say, "The dirty bastards!"
"I don't know, I'm not from around here"
This is another one from OFAH and we troll this out if someone mentions what the weather is doing. In the "Jolly Boys Outing" episode, Del mentions to Mrs Creswell (landlady) that its cold out, she replies "That’s the weather.", and Del quickly responds back with "Oh is it? I do… I don’t know, I’m a stranger round here."
What moved the pot: The first bit of movement came from small, useful, easy-to-post products. I started with hosepipe connectors bought from Tesco, then used the money from early sales to buy more small clearance items.
One of the better early results came from Oral B brush heads bought from the Tesco clearance aisle. They were bought for £8 and sold for £13, and one pack sold the day I listed it. That is the sort of product that makes sense in the early stages: small, known brand, easy to post, and not too hard for a buyer to understand.
I also added a few old bits from the shed, including drill bits and small unused ratchet straps. These were effectively free stock because they were already paid for and not being used. That makes the profit calculation slightly strange, but it is still real cash if they sell.
Lesson: at this stage, small and boring can be beautiful. The best early products are light, useful, non-breakable, easy to describe, and cheap enough that the buyer does not need to think too hard.