Forty Winks....?

Why do we talk of having FORTY winks? Why not thirty-nine, or forty-four or even,dare I suggest, forty-two? It's a question I suppose Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable or, these days, an internet equivalent should be able to answer I guess. But it remains a puzzle. If you have any ideas as to the derivation of this quaint and somehow very English phrase, answers in a comments post please.

Whatever the number of eye movements, rapid or otherwise, an afternoon snooze remains one of the great remaining pleasures of a British Sunday. I've just surfaced from my cat nap, and I will defend to the end a Briton's duty to doze on the original day of rest. I guess political correctness and respect for our multi-faith society means I ought to really say "a" day of rest, but nobody ever said you had to be a believer to enjoy a day's refrain from the concerns of the rest of the week, did they?

A sleep during one's normal waking hours can be so much more satisfying than the shut-eye undertaken in the hours of darkness. But why restrict it to Sundays? Why not take on one of the less controversial aspects of the European lifestyle, the siesta? Give us a referendum on that and I bet the result would be a unanimous "yes". Productivity would soar, crativity would flourish and everyone would be refreshed ready to count beans again after counting sheep. Yes, I'm all in favour of that. Let's get Britain snoring!

NICE CREAM
The strains of "Girls and Boys come out to play" brought this rather old boy dashing out to the ice cream van while writing this blog yesterday. It's another of those great British institutions is the ice cream van, though if the EU had had their way a few years ago it would have gone the same way as the threatened demise of the milkman some years back. Why do we have to have these pointless rules from Brussels which serve no-one's best interests? The one that really gets me is having to list all the ingredients of toiletries on the packaging- but in Latin! Now what possible use is that to anybody? Presumably the bureaucrats would say it's to help medical teams in the event of an emergency involving all these chemicals, but is it really necessary to go to these extremes? What's wrong with the local lingo so that consumers unschooled in the classics can actually understand what's in their products. If you mean water, why not say so rather than confusing the issue with Aqua!
I suppose it's another of those things we just have to live with, but my non-milk fat semi-soft aerated confection in a flour-based edible receptacle complete with granulated chocolate flavoured compacted pieces and fructose topping was very tasty indeed, and Mum agreed as she had one too. It's a 99 to you and me.

Memories too of following the ice cream vans as boys and putting our own words to their chimes. "Your Ice creams are terrible/watery" seemed to do the trick with this particular tune in getting a freebie.