The Criminal Alphabet (37 page)

See
Toby

Readies
is cash, from
the expression ‘ready cash', as in ‘He will sell the whole parcel, but he wants
readies for it'
(as opposed to getting goods or services
‘on
bail', that is on loan)
.

See
Bunce
,
Nelsons

If someone says you are
reels of
it usually means you are dirty and smelly (rhyming slang: reels of
cotton = rotten), as in ‘Have you washed that shirt? It's reels of'.

See
Abraham Lincoln

A
rib
is a ribbed
dirigible boat used for smuggling drugs, weapons or other contraband across
relatively short
stretches of water, for example, across the
English Channel or the Straits of Gibraltar. These boats are ideal because they are
light, low to the water and fast enough to evade customs patrols. The rib boat is a
boon for drug smugglers and no smuggler worth his salt would be without a fleet of
them. The boats can be deflated and folded up so as to take up very little space in
storage.

A
Richard
has two
meanings and both come from rhyming slang. In the original rhyming slang of the
1800s a Richard was a turd, but in the middle of the twentieth century
pony
became a popular term for excrement and Richard became
rhyming slang for one's girlfriend (Richard III = bird.

See
Pony (1)

If somebody says they are trying to
ring it
, it means they are trying to fake something or pretend
they are something they are not. It comes from the illegal and stolen car trade,
where vehicles will be rung – from ‘ringing the changes' – meaning to change all the
VINs (Vehicle Identification Numbers) and plates in order to disguise the identity
of a stolen vehicle for resale. For example, if you are committing fraud by using
somebody else's identification, you would say, ‘I'm going to ring it.' The term is
sometimes used in sport: when a ‘ringer' is put in place it means a different horse
or fighter has been substituted for the original one, which is likely to up the odds
for a loss or win.

See
Ringers and Clones

A
rubber cheque
is a
fake cheque proffered for goods or services in the knowledge that there are
insufficient funds to cover it. It's also known as a ‘bouncer', and is used widely
by
kiters
.

See
Kite/Kiters

An expression of reassurance used by the
young, as in ‘Yeah, blood, I know him, he's
safe
.' It can also be
used in reply to a greeting: ‘Yo, whassup?' ‘Safe, man.'

See
Sweet

Salmon
refers to tobacco
(rhyming slang: salmon and trout = snout; snout is slang for tobacco), as in ‘Gi's a
salmon, mate, I've left mine in my cell'.

See
Desperate Dan

To be
savvy
is to be in
the know, to have your finger on the pulse and know what's going on, from the French
savoir faire
, as in ‘I'd get Georgie to do the alarms, he's very savvy
around that stuff'.

Scally
is a Liverpool or
Scouse word for a criminal or ne'er-do-well, derived from ‘scallywag'
,
a deceitful and unreliable scoundrel. A lot of Liverpool criminals take
pride in their scally status.

A
scam
is a confidence
trick or other large-scale criminal enterprise that involves parting a victim from
their cash without the use of violence. The word is of American origin and could be
a carnival term (a lot of carnival workers, or ‘carnies'
,
have
their own slang words and phrases). Some believe it's related to the British word
‘scamp', someone who cheats.

See
Mark

Scratcher
is Dublin
slang for ‘bed' (rhyming slang: scratch yer head = bed). It's sometimes used by
British criminals to describe their cell, which is basically a small room with a bed
taking up most of the space. The word is also slang for signing on the dole, as in
‘I've just been down to the scratcher but my giro wasn't there'. Signing on at the
Job Centre is also known as ‘scratching on'.

A
send-out
is a lackey
or inferior member of a gang who will be sent to do the gang's bidding, for example,
to pick up guns or drugs.

If a youngster describes something as
sick
it means it's exceptionally good. The slang of the modern
young, like all previous slang, is designed to be confusing, but then, that's the
whole idea of it.

See
Boo yakka!

If someone tells you they are just going
for a
slash
, you should not assume that their intention is to cut
themselves or someone else. It's slang for urine, from the way a stream of hot urine
seems to slash through snow, dust and dirt. It's also known in rhyming slang as
Harry Dash, as in ‘I'm just going for a Harry Dash, me back teeth are swimming!'

A
slaughter
is a place
where criminals keep stolen or fake goods and also a place where they share out the
proceeds after a crime has been committed. It's called the slaughter because it is
where proceeds are cut up and distributed to those involved in a crime.

See
Carve-up

Sleeves
are cartons of
smuggled cigarettes, so called because they are packed in cardboard sleeves. Each
sleeve will contain 200 cigarettes with the name, logo and brand of the legitimate
maker. Because of the large amount of tax taken by the government on tobacco and
cigarettes, cigarette smuggling is a very lucrative criminal enterprise and the
money generated by it is sometimes used to fund larger criminal enterprises. A case
of the government aiding the criminal fraternity in their endeavours!

Spanish archer
is
breaking up a relationship. It's a play on words, as a Spanish archer could be said
to be ‘El Bow'.

In Ireland, a
steamer
is
a homosexual, but in the UK steamers are usually young, violent thieves and robbers.
Originating in inner-city shopping centres in the mid-1980s,
steaming
was the practice of running into shops
mob-handed
, and
proceeding to steal or ‘lift' every item of value on display. Steaming gangs usually
consisted of twenty or more teenagers (sometimes up to fifty) who would descend on
shopping centres, usually high on drugs and alcohol, and
rush
into
the targeted shops (those that sell high-value items), creating mayhem and stealing
valuable property. Because of the aggression of the gangs and their sheer numbers it
was almost impossible for shop owners or members of the public to stop them. Once
the premises had been looted, the gangs would quickly disperse in different
directions in order to make pursuit all but impossible. Steaming fell out of favour
in London due to the ‘postcode wars', in which young gang members were busy shooting
and stabbing each other in turf wars and disputes. Having a gang of teenagers on the
high street now will almost certainly attract a large police presence. Steaming has
been replaced by the slightly more sophisticated crime of motorized
smash-and-grab
, or ‘steals on wheels', as it is also known.

A
straightener
is a fair
fight arranged between two people in order to settle a difference or dispute. The
rules are that no weapons should be used and no other person should get involved,
but anything else goes. Opponents can use fists, boots, head and teeth in order to
inflict damage on each other.

See
On the Cobbles

A verbal qualifier often used in
conversation by criminals and prisoners, meaning ‘This is the unvarnished truth', as
in ‘There's twenty
grand
in that safe, straight up'. It's also
sometimes used to question the truth or seriousness of a comment or statement, as in
‘What? Straight up?'.

See
Billy Bullshitter

Rhyming slang for pest, and frequently
used in prison as a light insult where there are plenty of people with enough time
on their hands to become
string vests
, as in ‘That Freddie is
becoming a right string!'.

To
strong-arm
someone is
to intimidate and put pressure on them in order to achieve your own ends.
Strong-arming on
The Out
can take the form of the ‘protection
game', where violent or heavy criminals threaten to cause trouble in pubs and clubs
and demand a regular payment in order to ‘protect' these establishments from
anything untoward happening to them. The Kray Twins were experts at this sort of
strong-arm tactic in the 1960s. The law would call it demanding money with menaces.
In prison, and particularly in youth prisons, there's a lot of strong-arming –
putting pressure on and inciting fear in weaker prisoners in order to steal their
canteen, food or other property. Strong-arming in adult prisons is frowned upon by
ODCs (Ordinary Decent Criminals) and is classed as bullying. In some of the
top-security jails a strong-armer will be given a good talking to by other prisoners
and, if they persist, then they will pay
the price for their
actions either by being seriously assaulted or being run off the wing by way of
threats. In these cases, some of the strong-armers will seek the safety of the
protection wings, where, no doubt, they will have an even weaker bunch of prisoners
on which to practise their dubious behaviour. Like all bullies, strong-arm men who
throw their weight about in prison get their comeuppance. On the other hand,
strong-arming of the public on the outside is seen by some criminals as a perfectly
legitimate crime. Some strong-arm men are in demand as debt collectors for criminals
who cannot use the law in order to retrieve what they are owed by other
criminals.

See
Heavy

Sweet
is a word much
overused in prison and means that everything is good. It can be used as an enquiry,
as in ‘Sweet?', or as an instruction: ‘Keep him sweet' (‘Do not upset him'). It can
also be used to describe your own state of wellbeing, as in ‘Don't worry about me,
I'm sweet'.

A
tenner
is £10 cash. A
£10 note is known as a tenner or a ‘cockle' (rhyming slang: cock and hen = ten).
‘Cock and hen' has been shortened and corrupted over time to become ‘cockle'.

To ‘have a
tickle'
is to
be involved in a successful and lucrative criminal activity or enterprise. It comes
from the fact that tickling makes people smile or laugh, as in ‘I see
Tommy had a right tickle on that bank job in Fulham, fifty large
all in
readies
'.

See
Readies

A
ton
is £100. The word
was originally used in the motor trade and then adopted by criminals, many of whom
used their ill-gotten gains to invest in used-car fronts – before drugs became such
a lucrative investment, and comes from a ton being a measurement of a hundred cubic
feet.

Up the road
is Scotland,
so any Scottish criminal who talks about ‘going up the road' is talking about going
back to Scotland.

See
Jockneys

If you walk into a pub and ask for a
Vera
, you'll be ordering a gin (rhyming slang: Vera Lynn =
gin). Vera Lynn was a British singer and actress who had a 1940 hit with ‘The White
Cliffs of Dover' and became known as the Forces' Sweetheart.

See
Vera and Phil
,
Veras

A
Vera and Phil
is
rhyming slang: Vera Lynn and Philharmonic = gin and tonic.

Modern slang for cigarette rolling
papers, which are also known as ‘skins' (rhyming slang: Vera Lynns = skins). The
phrase came into popular use during the acid house/rave craze of the late 1980s when
Veras
were used to ‘skin up' cannabis joints.

Vex
is a youth slang
word, from ‘vexatious', for getting annoyed or angry, as in ‘Don't get me vex, blud,
or I'll be coming strapped'.

To be
webbed up
with
someone means that you are very close to them professionally, as in ‘I see Charlie's
webbed up with that Russian firm who are doing the dodgy MOTs'. People you may be
webbed up with as a criminal are not necessarily people you would class as close
friends. It can also be used in the negative as a description of being stuck with
something or somebody, as in ‘I got webbed up with those poxy Betamax video
cassettes that nobody wanted', meaning you are stuck with something you do not
want.

See
China