NO offence spared, a newly published book of insults has landed unapologetically on the desk. Pulp fiction, half of it, and twice as unoriginal.

Still, Prince Philip's in there, supposing that the Queen might decline a tour of the flight deck of Concorde - "unless it farts and eats grass, she's not interested" - as is James I's view that John Donne's poetry was like the peace of God, passing all understanding.

Some are familiar, like H L Mencke's observation that no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public or Lloyd George's anally retentive claim that Lord Derby was like a cushion, bearing the impression of the person who last sat on him.

It was Nancy Astor, apparently, who told Churchill that if he were her husband she'd poison his coffee - and Winnie who replied that if Astor were his wife, he'd drink it.

Some are simply lines from after-dinner speeches, like the line credited to Sunderland football manager Mick McCarthy: "Aye, they say the new striker I'm opposing is fast, but how fast can he limp?" Similarly, perhaps, the riposte apocryphally attributed to an affronted head waiter - but since this is an English O level sort of a column, we include it, anyway: "My position, sir, doesn't allow me to argue with you - but if ever it came to a choice of weapons, I would choose grammar."

EVERY bit as outrageously, last week's column pondered the fondness of the 17th century English for verbally abusing the Dutch - double Dutch, Dutch treat, Dutch defence. Few other countries escape.

Greeks tell the truth but only once a year (Russian proverb), Belgium is a country invented by the British to annoy the French (Charles de Gaulle), other people have a nationality, the Irish and Jews have a psychosis (Brendan Behan) and the old one about the half Italian, half Polish chap - nationalities may be inserted according to distaste - who made himself an offer he couldn't understand.

Much of it is effectively self-abusive. A hand jibe, as it were.

BARRY Wood in Sacriston (much more of which village in tomorrow's column) e-mails about Egyptian PT and leaves much to the imagination; John Briggs in Darlington writes of Chinese fire drill - apparently a phrase for total confusion.

Before breakfast last Wednesday, Phil Westberg had also e-mailed from South Africa with his views on "Spanish practices" - meaning restrictive or irregular ways of working.

Spanish gout was syphilis, adds Phil, a Spanish padlock was a chastity belt and a Spanish trumpeter a braying ass - as, it's supposed, in don key.

Wordsmith laureate Nigel Rees supposes "old Spanish customs" particularly to refer to 1980s newspaper workers' "irregular behaviour" in being paid for shifts - sometimes as M Mouse - when they were in bed 30 miles away.

He means the printers. The editorial boys, of course, were wholly beyond reproach.

THOUGH "Spanish customs" is said mainly to be a British phrase, it doesn't explain Groucho Marx's pun on "Old spinach customs" in the 1930 film Animal Crackers.

It was also Marx who said that he'd never belong to a club which wanted him as a member and that he never forgot a face but would be prepared to make an exception.

It was John Arlott, bard of the cricket commentary box, who supposed that John Snow running up to bowl was like Groucho Marx chasing a waitress.

Whatever he meant, it was unforgettable.

THE Rev Tjarda Murray, Dutch-born minister of the United Reformed Church in Darlington, concedes that the Dutch and the English have been poking fun at one another for centuries - but her folk, says Tjarda, were generally much more gentle.

In Holland, an "English screwdriver" is a hammer - "the Dutch say that an English workman fastens screws by driving them in with a hammer" - an English parakeet is a budgerigar, the English disease is rickets and English liquorice is allsorts.

"In Holland," she adds, "we take our liquorice pure."

Since she is a well bred Dutch lady, Tjarda also seeks to wish readers Prettige Kerstdagen en een Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar.

It is reciprocated, no doubt.

AS bairns, we also called liquorice sticks "Spanish" - another old custom? - while Phil Westberg recalls from his Darlington browtins up "the tubular yellow packets filled with aniseed powder or something which was sucked up through the liquorice stick." Weren't they also called Spanish something or other, he supposes? Readers will know.

LAST week's column also wondered if Sunderland were the only place in Britain where fish and chips are ordered in "lots", prompting a call from Aubrey Adamson in Birdsall, near Malton.

When first he came to North Yorkshire 20 years ago, says Aubrey, he was quite taken aback to hear fish shop talk of "one of each".

"It didn't seem to me to be very many chips. I was quite surprised to get a bag full."

Both Anne Gibbon in Darlington and Chris Eddowes in Hartlepool recall that Don Bee's fish and chip emporium on Seaton Carew sea front sold cod, haddock and halflot.

The story's almost stereophonic. "It took me quite a long time to realise that this wasn't a new sort of fish but a portion for the not quite so greedy. Only the hyphen had gone missing."

REFLECTING on last week's classified ads, Tim Stahl in Darlington points out that someone's been trying to sell a "guilt mirror". If he'd made such a mistake, muses Tim, he could never look at himself again. (It could be entirely innocent, of course, just framed.)

...and finally, a thought for those who believe they've never been so insulted in their lives.

The best put-downs (as A Book of Insult observes) are those "which demonstrate the linguistic skills and quickness of wit of their perpetrator compared to their victim."

Thus, immodestly, the course of self-serving psycho-babble on which the column once reluctantly found itself, led by a robot in red braces.

"I'm sorry, Mike," he said, perhaps detecting a yawn, "am I keeping you awake?"

"Not at all," we replied, "the exact opposite is the case."

Before something similar happens, Gadfly returns next week.