Liz, "jimmy" is from "Jimmy Riddle", which is rhyming slang for ... well, I wouldn't expect a nice well brought-up young lady like you to know about these things.

Giac, "blackguard" is usually one word today, and it's always been pronounced "BLAGGard" for as long as I can remember, which admittedly only takes us back to the 1950s.

"Seeing a man about a dog" in my part of the coutnry usually means "going out somewhere, but I'm not telling you where". Alternatives to "jimmy" are "going to turn me bike round", "going to shake hands with the vicar", and the wonderful "going to point percy at the porcelain", which came from Barry Humphries' "Barry McKenzie" cartoon strip in Private Eye magazine in the seventies. BH/BMcK also popularised "chunder" for "throw up"; apparently it comes from the days when convicts were transported to Australia, and every watch one such unfortunate would be picked to do lookout duty in the crow's nest: eventually the motion would prove too much, and with a cry of "Watch under!" they would do the Technicolor Yawn onto the deck below.

Steve