From: kehoea@parhasard.net   
      
    Ar an dara lá de mí Bealtaine, scríobh Ross Clark:   
      
    > [...] More interestingly, one of the new industrial wonders of the   
    > Exhibition was--- pay toilets! Designed by George Jennings, and apparently   
    > referred to colloquially as "monkey closets", they cost one penny to use.   
    > Whence the expression "spend a penny", which survived longer than the   
    > Crystal Palace.   
      
   On its last legs now, I would say, but I don’t watch much British TV lately.   
      
   I wonder if there an online resource for dying English phrases. I remember the   
   Duden Oxford German-English dictionary translated „futsch sein“ as ‘to   
   be gone   
   for a Burton’ and when the phrase came up in a German conversation exchange   
   locally I realised the latter phrase has no currency locally.   
      
   --   
   ‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /   
   How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’   
   (C. Moore)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)