Oldest profession (phrase) called “the oldest profession in the world", a profession which is carried on in Piccadilly, Regent street, and other parts of London with great energy every night … In the same year the "Pall Mall Gazette" reported a speech in which "Mrs. Ormiston Chant … implored us to stand shoulder to shoulder and destroy what Kipling has called 'the oldest profession in the world'". The phrase was frequently used as a euphemism when delicacy forbade direct reference to prostitution. Kipling was not the first to employ the phrase "the most ancient profession" in an opprobrious sense. The Irish poet Henry
Geraint the Blue Bard Geraint the Blue Bard Geraint the Blue Bard () is a reputed 9th century Welsh bard and harpist, although modern scholars are dismissive of his existence. He has been definitively shown by Welsh scholar G. J. Williams to be the invention of Iolo Morganwg, a talented author and antiquarian now infamous for his numerous literary forgeries. Iolo called him Geraint Fardd Glas or Y Bardd Glas o'r Gadair ("the Blue Bard of the (Bardic) Chair") and associated him with his version of the early history of Morgannwg (Glamorgan). Iolo makes the figure of Geraint, otherwise unattested in Welsh manuscript sources