V
Vegetarianism
The condition of not eating meat.
Imagine you have just prepared a magnificent meal, a whole saddle of beef for instance, but when you come to serve it one of your guests informs you that they are a vegetarian. That is when you discover the ultimate test of a friendship Vegetarianism, you see, is the delusion that chickpeas taste like coq aux vin.
Victorian
Pertaining to the reign of Queen Victoria, 1837-1901.
A time which the ladies in blue dresses like to think of as the golden age of the Empire. A time when the British Army had a free licence to kill anything which moved. A time when hypocrisy rained supreme and the penalty for stealing a sheep was to be hung, provided you were not a farmer of course.
Video cassette recorder
A device for recording images and sound.
A machine which creates the delusion that thirty six hours of television viewing will fit into a twenty four hour period. Also a machine owned by those with no sense of humour or taste, at least not when you see the repeats they keep watching. The ability to capture a moving image, a frozen instant in time, would be a very precious one. In the past it belonged to only the few, those who could afford expensive equipment, and they no doubt recognised it’s worth, even if they did sometimes shoot things they should not have been shooting. With the advent of the camcorder the potential is there for everyone to capture precious moments in time, such as one of their friends being pushed into the swimming pool, or their dog pissing against the neighbour’s fence, or their infant children throwing a bowl of food across the kitchen. A camcorder then is a device for creating animated embarrassment, or entertainment for those who find television sitcoms too difficult to understand.
Violence
An aggressive act in a physical form.
It can take many forms, including putting an Oxo cube into a friend’s vegetarian meal, but mostly it is man in his natural state as opposed to woman in hers. It is also the response of the inarticulate, whatever their creed or class or language, a proof that the line of argument was flawed all along.
VIP
Apparently; a very important person.
One who does not have to queue at airport departure lounges, or wait for taxis, or stand trail for rape.
Virginity
Literally, not have been broken.
More commonly; not having had sexual intercourse, and most common of all; the condition of a woman who has not had sex with a man, or is about to give birth to a Saviour. It is the preparatory state before hedonism, that which is prized in women and derided in men, a state which exists before reality sets in.
Virtue
A state of goodness.
A state of having nothing to give away, or a state which is marginally more interesting than a bag of cold fish and chips in Luton.
Vocabulary
The words which we know.
The big words which make us sound clever when we are talking to people who don’t know many big words.
Volunteer
One who does a job without being paid to do it.
Of an individual, one who wears leather patches on the elbow and/or Laura Ashley dresses. Of an organisation, one which takes on the less palatable responsibilities of government, and is frequently derided by the public and the tabloid press for having done so.
