Going Bo-Bos - Rhyming slang

So an old British expression said to kids around bedtime is "going bobos" for going to sleep, now various sources around the internet seem to offer some strange origins of this expression. I have no firm knowledge or confirmation from any source but believe it to be from Cockney rhyming slang.

Bo Peep is rhyming slang for sleep, so "Bo Bos" derives from that, if you can't get to Bo Bos, try counting some sheep, it might help Little Bo Peep to know how many there are.

Here is Little Bo Peep, followed by her nursery rhyme

Little Bo peep has lost her sheep
And doesn't know where to find them.
Leave them alone and they'll come home,
Bringing their tails behind them.
Little Bo peep fell fast asleep
And dreamt she heard them bleating,
But when she awoke, she found it a joke,
For they were all still fleeting.
Then up she took her little crook
Determined for to find them.
She found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed,
For they left their tails behind them.
It happened one day, as Bo peep did stray
Into a meadow hard by,
There she espied their tails side by side
All hung on a tree to dry.
She heaved a sigh, and wiped her eye,
And over the hillocks went rambling,
And tried what she could,
As a shepherdess should,
To tack again each to its lambkin.

Me Old China

Step right this way for another bit of Cockney rhyming slang.

If you've ever seen your actual bona fide East End market stall (not the ones in Eastenders that sell fruit, flowers, CDs and occasionally clothes when they remember to stock it and who's running it) you may have seen a stall with a bit of crockery and a nice chap at the back stamping "China" on the bottom of them, as he sells you a genuine authentic piece of replica Wedgewood and hands it to you in a carrier bag that probably won't make it all the way home and you'll have to go back and get another one, he may say

"There you go me old china"

He isn't actually referring to the China but he is using a piece of Cockney rhyming slang for the word "mate", yes, China = China plate = mate.

Here is a piece of China with a couple of very close Chinas on

This very important entry was brought to you with the letter C and the number 7.

Cockney rhyming slang - tea strainers

A recent point of interest on BBC Radio 2's Ken Bruce Show has been about Cockney rhyming slang for shoes being "tea drinkers", despite the more valiant attempt of listeners to get a meaning from this, my genetically Cockney mind said that the person who said this has their rhyming slang in a tangle.

Tea strainers is indeed Cockney rhyming slang, so here's a pair

If you do choose to buy a pair of tea strainers and you are being served by a Cockney you are likely to get a pair of trainers and not a pair of tea strainers. As interchangeable objects you may be on tricky ground, whilst it may be possible to make a cup of tea in a pair of Reeboks, I'd definitely struggle getting my size 10s in a tea strainer.

Peter Sellers' A Hard Day's Night

Beatles' producer George Martin had been producing comedy albums for EMI prior to working with The Beatles. He had worked with Peter Sellers and subsequently Sellers recorded a number of comedy versions of Beatles records, including his Shakespearean rendition of A Hard Day's Night, it was much better than my own attempt at soliloquising Eleanor Rigby 45 years later of which there are no recordings.