Bar Mitzvah.     A public house in Jerusalem into which you are only admitted if you have been circumcised.

Basketball     A ball game of five or six players per side, which all the family over seven feet six inches tall can play.

Bathroom     A place which parents have great difficulty getting their children into, but after they have reached puberty have even greater difficulty getting them out of. As their offspring usually discover masturbating at the same time, adults can expect to spend lengthy spells waiting to do their ablutions.

Batley     West Yorks town, pop (1991) 42,572. Heavy woollens. Shoddy. (The town, that is, not the fibre made from old cloth)

Battle of the Bulge     This occurs when men travelling on the top deck (usually) of a bus, achieve tumescence, caused jointly by the motion of the bus and the lewd meanderings of their minds. If prompt action isn't taken to remove the bulge before they reach their stop, possibly by thinking about something more mundane, like work, they will be forced to bend over and walk like Groucho Marx when leaving the bus. Every man on the bus will know why they are doing this because it has also happened to them many times in the past.

Base Metal     A really cowardly, selfish, despicable piece of metal.

Beatles, The     Superb, immensely talented and musically gifted trio, plus Ringo Starr.

Ben Doon     A Scottish mountain very popular with homosexuals.

Ben Elton     A mountain of right on politically correctness.

Ben Zedrine     A mountain of only 2562 feet in height, but which seems much higher when you're on it.

Bernard Matthews     Inventor of blotting paper which looks like turkey.

Bible     Christian scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. A source of comfort. Apart from churches, bibles are chiefly found in hotel bedrooms, probably because the guests will need something to restore their faith after receiving the bill for the phone charges and mini bar.

'Big'     An appendage preceding the names of certain members of the footballing fraternity. Used in this context 'Big' is something of a blanket expression, for as well as being physically big some of the people who have been designated in this way have other characteristics. For example Big Jack Charlton, loud. Big Joe Royle, fat. Big Steve Bould, bald. Big Ron Atkinson loud, fat and bald.

Big Band Jazz     A kind of music which originated in the United States. Leading exponents were Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Earl Bostic, and We're American And Don't Have Any Titles So We'll Just Pretend We've Got Them Smith.