I’ve decided, that what I need now, is a catchphrase.

I’ve got catchphrase envy.

The catchphrase is different from the strapline.

Note my strapline above, “Never Knowingly Understood” - which I’m happy with - but it’s hardly ever going to be something that people in the street shout out when they see me.

I wish it were.

But it’s not.

Where to start?

Let’s start with Mrs Mopp.

Mrs Mopp (as portrayed by the great Dorothy Summers) was a famous character on the BBC radio programme It’s That Man Again or ITMA as it became known.

She would pose the same question to Tommy Handley, the show’s presenter, every week “Can I do you now sir?”

Repeating this seemingly innocuous phrase, many years after the programme had ceased to be broadcast, would render my mother and father speechless with laughter.

1950s BBC Radio was later a fecund breeding ground for the catchphrase. The Navy Lark was awash with catchphrases.

Sub lieutenant Leslie Phillips had four! “Ooooh nasty”, “Oh lumme!”, “ Left hand down a bit “ (God only knows what that was about) and my own personal favourite which he carried with him into the Carry On film series “Corrrr”.

And who can honestly say they don’t wake up without Nellie Pledge’s hilarious catchphrase “Have You Been Walter?” lurking somewhere close to the surface of consciousness.

Certainly not I, gentle reader.

But these all belong to other people. I want me own. My very own.

The thing about the catchphrase is that it has to grow organically, you can’t just demand it.

It has to catch on you see.

The rules are that it has to be memorable and completely meaningless out of context.

I am, therefore, modestly planting the seed of suggestion and handing it over to you lot.

Anthony “Oooooh, lance that boil” Roberts.

  • What catchphrase would you suggest? Leave your comments below!

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