Colloquialisms / Background

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Word/Phrase	Meaning or background Information
Particleboard	Particleboard is a wood-based panel manufactured under pressure and heat from particles of wood (flakes, chips, shavings, sawdust and similar) and/or other lignocellulosic material in particle form (flax shives, hemp shives, bagasse fragments and similar) with the addition of an adhesive.
Pie and Mash	Pie and mash is a traditional working-class food, originating in the Docks of London. The dish has been popularised as "a Cockney classic". It typically consists of a minced beef pie, mashed potato, and a parsley sauce known as liquor.
Polly	Polly is the name of our tractor. Like Ivan the Engine, also welsh if I remember rightly. And when I come to think about it, not like Ivan, as K drives Polly, she doesn’t drive herself, Polly that is.
Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling	Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. Kipling's works of fiction include the Jungle Book duology, Kim, the Just So Stories and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King".
Bricklayer	The quotation is from The Bricklayer's Accident Report a story told by Gerard Hoffnung at the Oxford Union, December 4th, 1958. It is an account of a bricklayer's misfortunes when lowering some bricks in a barrel from the top of a building.
Afrobeat	The musical genre Afrobeat originated in the 1960s and 1970s as a blend of traditional Yoruba music with jazz, West African music (Highlife, Fuji) and funk. Afrobeat was created by the Nigerian legend, Fela Kuti, who was achieved acclaim for his musical talent and involvement in post- colonial African politics.
Absolute alcohol	This is ethanol also commonly called ethyl alcohol containing less than one percent of water by weight. We used for our work Ethanol 96-98%.
Atrial fibrillation	Atrial fibrillation (AFib) is an irregular and often very rapid heart rhythm. An irregular heart rhythm is called an arrhythmia. AFib can lead to blood clots in the heart. The condition also increases the risk of stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications
Cologne Cathedral	Construction of Cologne's Cathedral commenced in 1248 and was halted in 1473, restarted in the 19th century and was completed, to the original plan, in 1880. It is 144.5 metres (474 ft) long, 86.5 m (284 ft) wide and its towers are approximately 157 m (515 ft) tall. It is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe and has the second-tallest spires after the Minster in Ulm. Its two huge spires give it the largest façade of any church in the world. The choir has the largest height to width ratio, 3.6:1, of any medieval church.
Commercial Road	Commercial Road is part of the A13, 2 miles (3.2 km) in length, running through the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End of London.
BP (24h)	24-hour Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (ABPM) involves your blood pressure being measured at regular time intervals over 24 hours as you move around, going about your normal daily activities.
Carotid Arteries	There are four carotid arteries, with a pair located on each side of the neck. This includes the right- and left-internal carotid arteries, and the right- and left-external carotid arteries. The carotid arteries deliver oxygen-rich blood from the heart to both the head and brain. To examine them a Carotid Ultrasonography is carried out.
CT	Computer tomography (CT) is an imaging procedure that uses special x-ray equipment to create detailed pictures, or scans, of areas inside the body. It is also called computerized tomography and computerized axial tomography (CAT).
CVI	Chronic Venous Insufficiency (CVI) is a condition that occurs when the venous wall and/or valves in the leg veins are not working effectively, making it difficult for blood to return to the heart from the legs.
Dixon of Dock Green	This was a BBC television series about daily life at a London police station, with the emphasis on petty crime, successfully controlled through common sense and human understanding. The central character was a mature and sympathetic police constable, George Dixon, played by Jack Warner in all of the 432 episodes, from 1955 to 1976.
DIY	"Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts.
Deep Impact	The primary mission of NASA's Deep Impact was to probe beneath the surface of a comet. The spacecraft delivered a special impactor into the path of Tempel 1. Launch date: January 12, 2005 at 7:47 PM GMT+1. Max speed: 103,000 km/h. Impact date: July 4, 2005, 05:52 UTC
Döstädning	The purpose of the Swedish tradition called döstädning, or, literally, “death cleaning” is to get your life and worldly possessions organized before you depart the firmament.
ECG (24h)	This technique involves continuously recording an electrocardiogram (ECG) over 24 hours. This is usually done with a Holter monitor which is a small, battery-powered medical device that measures your heart's activity. It is usually done as an outpatient and is safe and painless. It can help to diagnose symptoms such as palpitations, which don’t happen very often.
Galileo	Galileo is a German television program series produced and broadcast on ProSieben television network.
Glühwein	Glühwein (roughly, "glow-wine," from the hot irons once used for mulling) is a traditional beverage that is offered during the Christmas holidays. Glühwein is usually prepared from red wine, heated and spiced with cinnamon sticks, cloves, star aniseed, citrus, sugar and at times vanilla pods. It is sometimes drunk mit Schuss (with a shot), which means that rum or some other liquor has been added. Fruit wines, such as blueberry wine and cherry wine, are occasionally used instead of grape wine in some parts of Germany.
Grünkohl	Grünkohl is curly-leafed kale, a type of cabbage, traditionally harvested after the first autumn frost.
Guy Fawkes	Guy Fawkes became synonymous with the Gunpowder Plot (an attempt to blow up the House of Lords and the King), the failure of which has been commemorated in Britain since 5 November 1605. His effigy is traditionally burned on a bonfire, commonly accompanied by a firework display.
Histology	A compound of the Greek words: histos "tissue" and logia "science". This is the study of the microscopic anatomy of cells and tissues of plants and animals.
Kettle of Fish	“A pretty kettle of fish” means an awkward state of affairs, a mess, a muddle. "Another kettle of fish" means a different thing altogether There was, it seems, a custom by which the gentry on the Scottish border with England would hold a picnic by a river. The custom was described by Thomas Newte in his Tour of England and Scotland in 1785: “It is customary for the gentlemen who live near the Tweed to entertain their neighbours and friends with a Fete Champetre, which they call giving ‘a kettle of fish’. Tents or marquees are pitched near the flowery banks of the river ... a fire is kindled, and live salmon thrown into boiling kettles”.
Land of Nod	My use here of the "Land of Nod" refers to the mythical land of sleep, a pun on Land of Nod (Gen. 4:16). To “go off to the land of Nod” plays with the phrase to “nod off”, meaning to go to sleep.
Master Sun's Rules of Warfare	The Art of War (孫子兵法; literally: "Master Sun's Rules of Warfare") is an ancient Chinese military treatise dating from the 5th century BC. Attributed to the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu (孫子), the text is composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare. It is commonly thought of as a definitive work on military strategy and tactics.
Mettwurst	Mettwurst is a strongly flavored German sausage made from raw minced pork preserved by curing and smoking, often with garlic.
MRT	Magnetic Resonance Tomography (MRT) also called Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). MRI is widely used in hospitals and clinics for medical diagnosis, staging and follow-up of disease. Compared to CT, MRI provides better contrast in images of soft tissues, e.g. in the brain or abdomen.
NIHSS	The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale, or NIH Stroke Scale (NIHSS), is a tool used by healthcare providers to objectively quantify the impairment caused by a stroke and aid planning post-acute care disposition, though was intended to assess differences in interventions in clinical trials.
NOAC	NOACs are non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants and are administered in fixed doses without anticoagulant monitoring for stroke prevention in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation.
Pooh sticking	Poohsticks is a sport first mentioned in The House at Pooh Corner, a Winnie-the-Pooh book by A. A. Milne. It is a simple sport which may be played on any bridge over running water; each player drops a stick on the upstream side of a bridge and the one whose stick first appears on the downstream side is the winner.
Raclette	Raclette is a Swiss dish, also popular in France, based on heating cheese and scraping off the melted part. Raclette cheese is a Swiss cheese marketed specifically to be used for this dish.
Rupert Bear	Rupert Bear is a children's comic strip character created by the English artist Mary Tourtel and first appearing in the Daily Express newspaper on 8th. November 1920.
TCM	Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a broad range of medicine practices sharing common concepts which have been developed in China and are based on a tradition of more than 2,000 years, including various forms of herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage (tui na), exercise (qigong), and dietary therapy. It is primarily used as a complementary alternative medicine approach. Its philosophy is based on Yinyangism (i.e., the combination of Five Phases theory with Yin–Yang theory), which was later absorbed by Daoism. Philosophical texts influenced TCM, mostly by being grounded in the same theories of qi, yin-yang and wuxing and microcosm-macrocosm analogies.
TGA	Transient global amnesia (TGA) is a sudden onset of anterograde amnesia accompanied by a temporary period of retrograde amnesia, primarily affecting middle-aged and older individuals. Episodes typically last from 1 to 24 hours. Mine was 4 hours.
TIA	A transient ischemic attack (TIA) is a short period of symptoms similar to those of a stroke. It's caused by a brief blockage of blood flow to the brain. A TIA usually lasts only a few minutes and doesn't cause long-term damage. However, a TIA may be a warning. About 1 in 3 people who has a TIA will eventually have a stroke, with about half occurring within a year after the TIA.
Transthoracic Echocardiogram	A transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE) is a test that uses ultrasound (sound waves) to create images of the heart. It's the most common type of echocardiogram (echo) allowing one to see the heart, its four chambers, the four heart valves and nearby blood vessels.
Too much Yang due to a deficiency in Yin	In Traditional Chinese Medicine inflammation of the intestines is generally considered a Yang condition. This is because inflammation is often associated with heat, excess activity, and overactive metabolic processes, all characteristics of Yang energy. However, the specific diagnosis depends on the underlying pattern of disharmony. Here’s how it could be classified: Excess Yang (Heat) Pattern: If the inflammation presents with symptoms like diarrhea with a burning sensation, abdominal pain, foul-smelling stools, fever, and thirst, it is likely due to Damp-Heat in the Intestines. Deficient Yin Pattern: If there is chronic inflammation with dryness, constipation, and a burning sensation due to lack of Yin fluids, then it could be Yin Deficiency with Empty Heat.