Albatross (metaphor) attention to her merchandise, while the potential customer keeps asking questions about the product, like "What flavour is it?" and "Do you get wafers with it?". Finally the man buys two albatrosses for nine pence each. The salesgirl then shouts she is selling "gannet on a stick." Later during the episode, several other characters in other sketches shout "Albatross" for seemingly no reason at all. Albatross (metaphor) The word albatross is sometimes used metaphorically to mean a psychological burden that feels like a curse. It is an allusion to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798).
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner every where, | Nor any drop to drink" has appeared widely in popular culture, but usually given in a more natural modern phrasing as "Water, water, everywhere | "But not a drop to drink""; some such appearances have, in turn, played on the frequency with which these lines are misquoted. The poem is referenced in the script of the 1939 film "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes". The Iron Maiden song "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" from their fifth studio album "Powerslave" (1984) was inspired by and based on the poem, and quotes the poem in its lyrics. A 1971 episode