The fortnightly British satirical magazine Private Eye has long had a reputation for using euphemistic and irreverent substitute names and titles for people, groups and organisations and has coined a number of expressions to describe sex, drugs, alcohol and other aspects of human activity. Over the years these names and expressions have become in-jokes, used frequently in the magazine without explanation. Some have passed into general usage and can be found in other media and everyday conversation.
Euphemisms "", or a variation thereof (such as "discussing Ugandan affairs"), is often used as a euphemism for sex, usually while carrying out a supposedly official duty. The term originally referred to an incident at a party hosted in 1973 by journalist Neal Ascherson and his first wife, at which fellow journalist Mary Kenny allegedly had a "meaningful confrontation" with a former cabinet minister in the government of Ugandan president Milton Obote. Kenny later claimed that they were merely "upstairs discussing Uganda", giving rise to the joke. The poet James Fenton apparently coined the term. The saying is sometimes wrongly said to derive from a slanderous lie told by the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin about his female foreign minister, Princess Elizabeth of Tooro, when he claimed that he had fired her on 28 November 1974 for having sex with an unnamed white man in a toilet at a Paris airport, but this lie was more than 20 months after the phrase was first used by Private Eye on 9March 1973.Adrian Room Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable, London: Cassell, 2000, pp. 714–5 If the 'Ugandan' encounter was not completely successful, the phrase "failed to reach Kampala" was used. In 1996, "Getting back to basics" was suggested as a replacement euphemism after the policy of the same name adopted by John Major's government, which some Private Eye contributors regarded as hypocritical. This view was vindicated by Conservative MP Edwina Currie's subsequent confirmation of a four-year affair with Major in her book Diaries. "" is a euphemism for drunk, used in the British press to avoid libel laws. It was coined by Private Eye after a BBC report which used the term in describing 1960s Labour Party Cabinet minister and Deputy Leader George Brown, who was an alcoholic. It first appeared in a parody memo supposedly informing civil servants how to describe George Brown's conduct and state of mind. Due to the near-impossibility of proving intoxication without forensic evidence, journalists came to use the phrase as a way of describing drunkenness without inviting libel charges. In 1957 a trio of Labour politicians, Aneurin Bevan, Morgan Phillips and Richard Crossman, successfully sued The Spectator over just such an allegation, which Crossman admitted in his diary was true of one of the three. The phrase was allegedly first used by a BBC press officer in November 1963, as a description of Brown's condition when interviewed at very short notice on the night of the assassination of John F. Kennedy; the magazine subsequently borrowed the phrase.Nicholas Comfort Brewer's Politics, London: Cassell, 1995, p.617 Doubt is cast on this claim because the programme on which Brown appeared was not broadcast by the BBC but by Associated-Rediffusion.Peter Paterson, Tired and Emotional: The Life of Lord George-Brown, Chatto & Windus, London, 1993, pp. 147–164 passim. The Defamation Act 2013 introduced a number of important defences. "Arkell v. Pressdram" denotes a robust response to a claim of defamationspecifically, "fuck off". Private Eye had covered the case of a Mr J. Arkell, whom the Eye accused of receiving kickbacks from a debt collection agency in his role as retail credit manager at Granada Group. The plaintiff's lawyers wrote a letter which concluded "His attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of your reply." The magazine's response was, in full, "We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr J. Arkell. We note that Mr Arkell's attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off." The magazine has since used the exchange as a euphemism for a blunt and coarse dismissal, "We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram". Although there were in fact no legal proceedings and the matter was dropped, the phrase has become part of legal folklore. "Trebles all round" refers to large alcoholic drinks in (possibly ironic)https://x.com/PrivateEyeNews/status/1072821002659352576 celebration of something. It was used for Private Eye itself to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
Stereotypical and exaggerated personifications of people and organisations Sir Herbert Gussett is a fictional establishment figure who is forever sending "Dear Sir" letters to the Press, typically The Daily Telegraph or the Daily Express. In the early 1980s, he lived at Lymeswold. Since then, he has given addresses in Wiltshire, Dorset, Oxfordshire and, in 2023, Somerset. is the Conservative MP for somewhere-or-other, and during the Thatcher Government sat on the backbenches. The name was inspired by that of a real-life Conservative backbencher, Sir Tufton Beamish, who sat for Lewes 1945–1974, but the character was modelled on MPs who were well to the right of Beamish. Sir Bufton's constituency was usually the fictitious safe rural seat of "Lymeswold" (named from a commercially produced cheese), and, although this was subject to topical change, his greed, laziness, bigotry and incompetence remained constant. A file photo was frequently used, which turned out to be a picture of a real-life Conservative councillor, which eventually drew a "good-natured complaint" letter from the "innocent victim". Mike Giggler, an e-mail correspondent in newspaper letters pages, usually appearing at the bottom of the page having sent in a particularly unfunny pun as often seen at the bottom of The Guardian letters page. is purported to be the proprietor of the magazine, and is an amalgam of media magnates. Originally modelled on figures including Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Thomson of Fleet, first appearing under the name "Aristides P. Gnome" in the early 1960s, Lord Gnome has since accumulated other characteristics to encompass the likes of Rupert Murdoch. He is portrayed in the magazine as a man of great wealth, greed, unscrupulousness and vulgarity. Lord Gnome rarely writes under his name, but issues his proclamations, editorials and threats through a fictional underling named Emmanuel Strobes, with reference frequently made to His Lordship's "assistant", Miss Rita Chevrolet, a parody of French exotic dancer, Rita Cadillac. As well as being a media magnate, Lord Gnome is regularly referred to as having other business interests. Special offers from "Gnomemart" frequently appear in the magazine, which also carries an occasional column called "The Curse of Gnome", chronicling the subsequent misfortunes of those who have in the past taken legal action against the publication. In 1993, during the only televised ceremony for Private Eye Bore of the Year Awards ("the Boftys"), Lord Gnome (played by Peter Cook) made a brief appearance via satellite hook-up from his yacht, pushing a member of the yacht's crew overboard in a parody of Robert Maxwell's death. The word "Gnome" may refer to the term Gnomes of Zurich. Occasionally, Lord Gnome is an oblique reference to editor Ian Hislop. In the sporting world, Lord Gnome CC is a nomadic cricket team, founded in 1963 and named after the fictitious proprietor. Lunchtime O'Booze, a "spineless hack" on the "street of shame" (Fleet Street), who works for an "absurd proprieter" (Lord Gnome). Described as "legendary" in journalism circles by the Canadian historians J. L. Granatstein and Robert Bothwell. After his death in 2021, it was revealed that classical music executive John Boyden had been the magazine's first music correspondent, under the penname Lunchtime O'Boulez. , also referred to as "Knacker of the Yard", is a senior (and possibly unreliable) police officer. The name alludes both to knackers' yards, where old horses are sent to be put down and their carcasses disposed of, and to "Slipper of the Yard", the nickname given to real-life police Chief Superintendent Jack Slipper of Scotland Yard. The name may be used in reference either to individual policemen ("Another top Knacker resigns"), or to the police in general ("These allegations are being looked into by Inspector Knacker"). If the story refers to police activities in Scotland, Wales, or Ireland, the name may be changed to "McKnacker", "Dai Knacker", or "O'Knacker", respectively. Mr Justice Cocklecarrot usually presides over court cases. Beachcomber wrote a humorous column in the Daily Express for over fifty years, and Cocklecarrot J. was a regular feature. is a fictitious firm of solicitors retained to engage in lawsuits both real and fictional. These are often frivolous, pointless, cynical or without foundation (see Arkell v Pressdramabove) but not always. Danny La Rue, a well-known drag performer, appeared on the front cover in a photograph taken at the Royal Variety Performance of him with Liberace, who was ballooned as saying "I think your English queens are wonderful". La Rue supposedly responded by threatening to "go to the family solicitors, Rue, Grabbit and Son" (he was aggrieved at the implication that he was homosexual). In more serious cases, Private Eye often cites "Carter-Fuck", a derogatory reference to Peter Carter-Ruck of the law firm Carter-Ruck, which had a reputation for taking on defamation cases at great expense to clients and claiming particularly high damages, regardless of the gravity of the case. is an imaginary public school, run by Mr R. J. Kipling (BA, Leicester). The headmaster's name is part of the joke regarding the name "St Cake's", in reference to Mr Kipling cakes. Articles featuring the school parody the "Court and Social" columns of The Times and The Daily Telegraph, and the traditions and customs of the public school system. The school’s motto is (“He who pays gets in”), although variations on this arise from time to time, such as when the school decided to admit only the daughters of very rich Asian businessmen, and the motto became "All praise to the prophet, and death to the infidel". While the school's newsletters feature extraordinary and unlikely results and prizes, events such as speech days, founders' days, term dates and feast days are announced with topical themes, such as under-age drinking, drug abuse, obesity, celebrity culture, anti-social behaviour and cheating in exams. The school is sometimes referred to as "the Eton of the West Midlands", in reference to that area's relative lack of such schools and the magazine's founders' attendance at Shrewsbury School in that region. is a Greater London suburb which is the location of various parody institutions, and is often given as the origin of fictional letters. In 1971, Richard Ingrams said simply that Neasden was used "to denote the contemporary urban environment".Richard Ingrams, The Life and Times of Private Eye, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1971, p. 23. Stories from the world of football are satirised in "reports" by E.I. Addio (a reference to the football chant Ee Aye Addio) about the mythical and notoriously under-performing club Neasden F.C., which plays in the depressing North Circular Relegation League, with quotes from its manager "tight-lipped, ashen-faced supremo Ron Knee (59)" and "the fans" (implying that there were only two) Sid and Doris Bonkers. Sid and Doris Hill are occasionally given as the fans' names, a pun on the suburb of Dollis Hill, which is near Neasden. The club's recent misfortunes lampooned the recent tribulations of major clubs in the national news.