French Wench Fancy

There are some words and phrases that make humour and other kinds of wordplay difficult if not impossible to translate to other languages. It’s a simple matter of how language develops in different geographies and within different cultures.

One phrase which will probably not translate outside of English is “French Fancy”. It was often used as I recall by Les Dawson, legendary British comedian as an inference that someone was having extra-marital relations as in “having a French Fancy”. Quite tame but subversive nonetheless.

This has meant that since childhood I have always had a problem with that particular confectionary. Not because they are horribly sweet and prone to making your teeth rot if you so much as look at them but because I always get an image in my head not unlike the inset picture whenever anyone offers me one.

Then of course there was the line from a later comedy show (the Fast Show I think) who lampooned Dick Emery’s buck-toothed vicar. A WI member uttered a line to the effect of “vicar can I press you to a cream slice?”

Patisserie porn. Nice.