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Originally Posted by piosenniel
Aaah, that was it, Squatter, the HoME E E . . . I'll beg off, saying, that it's quite late here and a long shift at work has befuddled me.
In the befuddled vein . . . I've always wondered where the Peculier, in Old Peculier comes from. Does anyone know?
And thanks for the intro to John Betjeman. Ignorant git that I am I'd never heard of him. I did google him and read a number of his poems - quite delightful.
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A "peculiar" is usually a church as in a
"Royal Peculiar" which are under the authority of the crown rather than the diocese in which they lie
Theakston 's case is a little different save that it is cleary the same sense of the word to mean particular rather than strange!!!
Betjeman was our Poet Laureate and made a number of television programmes which made him more recognisable than the average poet. I am a lot of his stuff doesn't "travel" well since it is so linked to a particular time and place. While he is somewhat Eeyorish (someone saidf that depression was to Betjeman what daffodils were to wordsworth...)... the Slough poem is extremely well known here and what ever other issues are, I find it highly unlikely that anything other than humour was intended ....