P

Pacamac, The
The Pacamac was in vogue in the 1960s. The precurser to the cagoule, it consisted of a large sheet of brightly coloured polythene, cut and moulded into the shape of a coat, pliable enough to fold very small so you could keep it handy in your pocket and if it rained you could pull it out, put it on and spend the duration of the shower looking like a Durex Fiesta. The Pacamac had two drawbacks. First, it wasn't waterproof, and second, it made you sweat so much there was no point in wearing it in the first place. The modern equivalent of Pacamac wearers are people who wear transparent plastic raincoats with transparent hoods, obviously with the sole intention of imitating a large packet of crisps.

Parmesan
Cheese that smells of vomit.

Pools, Swimming
Place that's completely different when you go to it than when you see it on the TV. You dont hear Ron Pickering saying "And Moorhouse is ahead, he's racing for the gold, and as they come to the line - oh! he won't touch it because he's spotted a corn plaster floating in the irrigation channel. Meanwhile, Matt Biondi is coming up behind him with a polystyrene board, Biondi who's got a lot of work to do after he lost ten seconds at the start chucking his locker key in, diving in after it, and chucking it in again. And now he's coming up to the finishing line, but oh - his way has been blocked by some Pakistani children doing slow-motion Kung Fu in the shallow end. And now it would be over to the men's Olympic diving, but of course as usual the boards are roped off."

Power Cuts
Very popular in the UK in the 1970's. Responsible for the fall of the Ted Heath Government, the rise of monetarism and lots of children with roughly the same birthday.


A power cut

Pub, The
In 1979 Sham 69 sang 'We're going down the pub.' What of course they should have sung was 'We're going down that place where the tables are all wet, the toilets don't work, and you have to wait hours to get on the pool table for the privilege of watching the bloke who's been on it all night clear up after his first break.'
The pub is a rubbish place: at its very best, it's about as good as a bad evening at home, except it costs more and you can't hear the telly.
But perhaps the most rubbish thing about the pub is the 'choice' it offers between the saloon and the public bar. What sort of choice is that? Oh let me see now...either I can go into the saloon bar...or I can go into that bit where there's no carpet, no ashtrays, and no women, and spend the evening having to chat to some old bastard with a knife while waving a creased fiver in the air and still having to wait half an hour to catch the barmans eye.

Pyramids
The last remaining wonder of the Ancient World. A spectacular feat of engineering and imagination whose unique minty taste inspired the creation of the Cadbury's Pyramint.

Pyramint
Chocolate in the shape of a pyramid with a minty bit roughly where the burial chamber would be.

Email: marywhitehouse@hotmail.com