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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
whetstonefires whetstonefires

Anonymous asked:

actually i wasn't sure what he meant by /southern/ pansy specifically. he's an angel wouldt he have said northern pansy?

starrose17 answered:

HA, that would have been a good twist actually, but it’s specifically an English expression, southern pansy meaning “posh English homosexual” because the English southern accent is stereotyped as being the posh accent, which Aziraphale definitely talks that way.

husbandpirates

I’m sorry southern pansy means what?? Omg

starrose17

….okay people really don’t know this! Yes, calling someone a pansy is calling them gay, and a southern pansy is a posh gay, so when Aziraphale says he’s not just a southern pansy he’s THE southern pansy, he is literally saying he is the gayest of all the posh gays XD

wolfiejimi

Reblogging for all the non-British (and British not-in-the-know!) fans who didn’t realise that “Southern Pansy” means Posh English Homosexual. 

I feel that this is important information.

neurodivergentcosmos

I internal joy screeched at that scene b/c he was reclaiming a derogatory term & it was so empowering to see! By reclaiming it he was saying to Shadwell (& Heaven too), “You don’t get to degrade me. I’m embracing that word as mine, not yours. I know who I am now.” AND THAT IS GLORIOUS & POWERFUL

flootzavut

… it never occurred to me that people didn’t realise what “southern pansy” meant, so I’m reblogging this for everyone who didn’t know.

whetstonefires

oh my gosh of course people did not all know lmao

whetstonefires

no wait i want to explain the link between ‘southern’ and ‘posh,’ because it’s slightly complicated.

simple explanation is: that’s where London is.

more complex: The Home Counties near London also historically had some of the best weather and farmland, that was also conveniently centrally located in political terms, so it got 1) more densely populated and 2) concentrated in the hands of nobs. there tended to be more yeomen farmers as you got closer to the Scottish border because there was less economic impetus to dispossess them.

This meant that when the Industrial Revolution came along, factories and plants tended to get concentrated up north, where there was less money to oppose it.

the North of England and South of Scotland thus collected increased populations of proles to work these plants and factories, and nowadays constitute something of a British rust belt, which has created a whole new category of cultural divide between north and south.

Shadwell is from the North of England (i have not the expertise to say where) and ‘hates all southerners’ for reasons that are tied to class, though the joke about how he ‘was by inference standing on the North Pole’ is still funny.

good omens history shadwell is an enormous caricature of a type that i'm pretty sure is a lot less relevant 30 years on his actual generation have mostly died off ya know? actual british people welcome to clarify anywhere my summary is inadequate please
kaelio tinsnip
theguardian.com

‘Roman Biro’ – complete with joke – found at London building site

Iron stylus uncovered at Bloomberg building site in City of London is ‘one of the most human finds’, say archaeologists
Dalya Alberge
petermorwood

@dduane showed me this story today, which is funny because I said something similar about these Roman bowls last week. The Romans really liked souvenirs, and this first bowl’s decoration is as “Celtic” as anything with knotwork that you’ll find in Ireland now.

image

A lot of small Roman items in museums - oil-lamps, knife handles etc. - with gladiators and chariot races on them are definitely sports memorabilia. They would have been painted in the various racing-team colours, or show different types of gladiator, or be in the shape of their distinctive armour, like these two lamps I saw in the Romisch-Germanisches Museum in Cologne.

image

One’s a Secutor, the other’s a Thraex, and fans of one would NEVER have bought the other; they and the chariot mobs were as much football hooligans as fans, and riots between opposing factions were common.

The stylus found in London is at the complete opposite end of the souvenir spectrum: if the helmets are specific, the stylus is really, really vague. It’s like a tin of sweets with a mountain view and “A Present From Wales” on the lid; next year in Scotland you see the same tin with the same view, marked “A Present From The Highlands”. Extra cred if the name of the place is in a font that’s almost but not quite the same as the rest…

image

The stylus actually goes one better by avoiding place-names completely since AB URBE means “From the City”, and that could be any city in the Empire. The full inscription reads:

“I have come from the city. I bring you a welcome gift with a sharp point that you may remember me. I ask, if fortune allowed, that I might be able [to give] as generously as the way is long [and] as my purse is empty.”

Diane wondered if the purse was empty because it had cost so much to have a message inscribed on iron - then we both realised it was a jokey seaside-postcard sentiment worded for nowhere in particular, so it could be sold in Londinium, Roma, Lutetia (Paris), Colonia (Cologne) or Novum Eboracum (New York) without changing a thing.

The letters look like they’ve been done with a dot-punch and the colour may be something added by the archaeologists to make it easier to see, but it still must have been quite an expensive gift, especially if I’m wrong about the coloured lettering and it’s actually bronze or copper. An iron stylus would certainly have cost more than one made of wood, and that could make the subtext of the message slightly (cough) pointed.

It may just be “Thinking of you while was away” BUT it could also be “Have you forgotten I exist? Take what this is for, and what I’ve spent on it, as a sharp (cough) hint to get in touch.” People then are like people now.

Which includes the use of sweatshops, because the person who made this was probably a slave…