Plonk (wine) fancy affair. For example, if a party guest is worried about the social level of the occasion, a host might assuage his or her concerns with the phrase: "Oh, just bring a bottle of plonk." Indeed, probably the most famous literary use of "plonk" comes in Willy Russell's play "Educating Rita". Working-class Rita decides she cannot attend a party to which academic Frank has invited her, since she is ashamed of the wine she has bought and feels out-of-place. When Rita reports her anxieties to Frank the following week, he castigates Rita for being too self-conscious, reassuring her: "It wouldn't
George Valentine (poet) George Valentine (poet) George Donald Valentine (1877-1946) was a Scottish sheriff, and writer of romantic-style short stories, plays and verse. He graduated from the University of Glasgow and was considered for Examinerships in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at both Glasgow and St Andrews Universities. G. D. Valentine wrote both under his own name and the pseudonym, George Henderland. Valentine's first published work was "The Heart of Bruce", a long poem, taken up by Alexander Gardner of Paisley in 1912. In the 1920s, two further original works, "Reasons of State" and "Saul: A Dramatic Poem" appearsed under the same imprint. It