Booze And The Blowens

 I dreamed I was having difficulties with a wife (not Ailz and not my first wife entirely) and was telling myself I mustn't be egotistical or self-assertive and- in particular- there were certain things I absolutely shouldn't say- and then I said them.

Odi and Ben went home. It had been a flying visit.....

Judy has written a story set in Australia and commissioned a real life Australian to test its idioms. The real life Australian said a lot of Judy's slang was out of date. But that's the nature of slang, ain't it! Every generation asserts itself against the one before by rejecting its cant and substituting its own. I love slang. Especially outmoded slang. There's a poem by Henley (a translation of one of Villon's ballades) written in the thieves argot of his day which is an absolute tour do force.
I don't- as a rule- post other people's poems but this is out of copyright and deserves to be better known. I won't offer a complete translation. I couldn't. But "booze and the blowens cop the lot" means the same as the lines from the folk song that go, "I wasted all my tin/ On the ladies drinking gin..."

Villon's Straight Tip To all Cross Coves

"Tout aux tavernes et aux filles."

Suppose you screeve? or go cheap-jack?

Or fake the broads? or fig a nag?

Or thimble-rig? or knap a yack?

Or pitch a snide? or smash a rag?

Suppose you duff? or nose and lag?

Or get the straight, and land your pot?

How do you melt the multy swag?

Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack;

Or moskeneer, or flash the drag;

Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack;

Pad with a slang, or chuck a fag;

Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag;

Rattle the tats, or mark the spot;

You can not bank a single stag;

Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

Suppose you try a different tack,
And on the square you flash your flag?

At penny-a-lining make your whack,

Or with the mummers mug and gag?

For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag!

At any graft, no matter what,

Your merry goblins soon stravag:

Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

THE MORAL

It's up the spout and Charley Wag

With wipes and tickers and what not.

Until the squeezer nips your scrag,

Booze and the blowens cop the lot.