Animal Based Sayings

I recently received a letter which said: “Dear Sir, we would like to remind you that under ABSO regulations, the phrase ‘as hungry as an ant’ is not an officially sanctioned expression and must not be used again”. It was on letterheaded paper from a body called the Animal Based Sayings Organisation. It would appear that they control all usage of animal related expressions in the world.
I had casually compared my hunger to that of an ant in a passing comment in the kitchen. How they overheard me I will never know, but now that they have slapped an ABSO on me, I will have to compare my hunger to that of a wolf, or else eat something and stop whingeing about it. I could argue that ants can be hungry too, and a modern family taking their dinners through to the living room on trays to eat in front of the TV do have similarities to ants – especially if the “dum, dum, dum, dum, dum” music is playing in the background. I suspect however that arguments could be futile, their letter states that anybody who transgresses a second time will be “hunted down like a wounded fox by a pack of hounds.”
As well as being omnipresent, the ABSO also has a surprisingly long memory. I was also warned not to restore use of the Rodent scale for drinking session measurement. This was something we introduced in our college days to gauge the quantity of alcohol we had or intended to consume. It came from the expression “to get ratted” which only covered one level of debauchery. If you wanted to go out for a swift half then getting “ratted” wasn’t appropriate. Hence we coined the expression “to get field voled”. A leisurely drink would get you “moused” and a major bender would see you “coypu’d”. The bureaucrats at ABSO have decreed that it only “ratted” or “pickled as a newt” is permissible.
It looks like the nanny state gone mad, I thought. Shortly after thinking this, I had a call from ABSO reminding me that, technically, goats were a patriarchal breed and the correct phrase should be “billy state”.
It looks like I may have to change my leopard in mid-stream and let sleeping cats lie if I want to avoid being a dog’s dinner.

Must go, I can hear barking outside.