Oh, now I know.

Thanks to another U.K.’er, Martin, who wrote the following to me yesterday:

Hi Matt,

W. was being rude – to ‘take the piss’ is slang in the UK for trying to fool others or taking a liberty, a ruder version of ‘taking the mickey’.

I don’t know when it was that people decided that the phrase ‘taking the mickey’ needed to be altered to be more rude, maybe in the 1980’s. But now in the UK you hear the phrase all the time – the Prime Minister is taking the piss if he thinks we’re going to do such-and-such, the boss is taking the piss, my neighbour is taking the piss, etc.

It all shows the poor state of our culture now, and W. was expecting you to know the meaning; he needs to do more Hindu pushups, by the sound of it.

Best wishes,

Martin

Martin, thank you for clarifying. I guess I coulda looked it up, but me made the mistake of thinking my grammar was his grammar, similar to the song, “This Land is Our Land, This Land is Your Land.” Didya know that this song we sung every day in school was written by a communist?

Anyway, me thinks this Mr. W. doesn’t just need more Hindu Pushups. He needs to take a walk on the wild side. A long, long walk. In so doing, he’d have a change of heart. Walking airs out the errors in one’s thinking.

There’s a reason I’m filming Volume Two of Warrior Walking this weekend.

If he thought I was “taking the piss” on Warrior Walking – Volume One, he’s going to be gargling with it in the next one.

Matt Furey