A Tribute to Victoria Wood

As someone who fist saw Victoria Wood live in 1987 I can verify it is definitely ".. beat me on the bottom with a Woman's Weekly."

However my favourite line is "..come and melt the buttons on my flame proof nightie.." Conjures up some wonderful images.

Well because of the fine members of LSF i have been introduced to The Ballad of Barry and Freda, what a fun masterpiece it is especially performed with Ms Woods style, yes now being a 'expert' on the song i concur with those who state it is "beat me on the bottom with a Woman's Weekly".

Now there is the basis for a alternative implement to use in a story.

Although I'm slightly sad that a tribute to a marvellous lady, should end up discussing semantic minutiae, I think I may have an answer.

"Woman's Weekly" is the trademark of a magazine, and they may have insisted that in print it appeared as "The" meaning the publication "Woman's Weekly", whereas 'a womens' weekly' could be a generic term for a number of magazines.

Of course in the informality of a live performance Victoria may well have preferred to use 'a' as it sings better.

(What a pretentious load of old bollocks!)

RIP Victoria, I'm sure you would have loved this discussion.

The fine lady was i believe noted as being a perfectionist, so we on LSF are merely following her lead with regard to her now famous little ballad.

Enough of this pretentiousness and back to Ms Woods Northern humour: "Life's not fair, is it? Some of us drink champagne in the fast lane, and some of us eat our sandwiches by the loose chippings on the A597."

Thank you jimisim for your educational insight, i never realised they delivered the the aged ones in loads, everydays a schoolday so they say

I have checked in the light of such conviction about the 'correct' wording - clips of Victoria Wood herself performing the song are quite easily found on the Internet (one is at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkfuE3Rt8IE&feature=youtu.be>
To be fair, in both clips I have found she definitely sings of 'A Woman's Weekly'. However, I have no doubt that the word 'THE' is more correct grammatically, and I suspect that she sang both versions - but never mind: it is a brilliant song.
I do agree with brodiejlb - VW herself might well be quite astonished to find us solemnly debating the wording of her song on a spanking website! I suspect she'd have thought us rather sad!

John Chester

She was wonderfully funny and as has been said, earthy and practical. I have now lost one of my lines. Travelling by train through North London suburbs, it occurred to me that "Victoria Wood" sounded just like one of those railway stations.

And her name was a pun in and of itself - as Victoria Wood can so easily be heard as "Victoria Would".