Wonderful Words and Funny Phrases 2

Thought I'd squeeze in a little blogette before I start work officially!
Carrying on from the other day I was talking about words and turns of phrases and their origins. I like the fact that we are still continuing to invent new words and phrases, although we are still copying American-isms (though I suspect that will diminish as Chinese and Indian culture starts to have more influence).
Any of you remember Eddie The Eagle? He was a guy who took part in the Olympics but managed to mess up everything he did, and became a running joke for a while, so people starting using the phrase 'Doing an Eddie the Eagle', and that tradition of celebrating peoples misfortunes or notoriety has carried on...how about 'Doing a Maxwell' for another! And we also use language to lampoon our polititians, talking about Blair-isms, or 'Two-Jags' Prescott, so maybe it's one of the ways we uptight Brits have of making our feelings felt! But I also love weird phrases which are witty as well as pertinent- like 'mad as a box of frogs' or 'one sandwich short of a lunch box'...where on earth do these come from? And who makes them up? I wonder if our over-the-top (another one!) PC society is so careful to not use terms that cause offence, that we are forced to invent other ways of describing things? Or is it the fact that like poetry, a well chosen phrase can say an awful lot with out appearing to say much at all!
I know that as a child I picked up all sorts of old fashioned terms from my Mum and Dad and their peers and was laughed at at school when I used them, so very quickly worked out what was OK and what was not. But I know this early conditioning runs pretty deep as I know lots of people who complain that they start using their parents favourite phrases when they themselves have children! So some phrases still continue and some go out of fashion....we still use terms like 'Smelt a rat', 'I saw red', 'throw the baby out with the bathwater', 'knows which side his bread is buttered', ' having her cake and eating it'. And some phrases are very old -'Goodnight, sleep tight' is supposed to come from the Elizabethan period when beds had mattresses that were tightened with ropes, and 'Mind your P's & Q's ' comes from the time when pub drinks were measured in Pints and Quarts. If anyone out there has any more origins of phrases I'd be fascinated to hear them.

Anyway it's turned out to be a bit more than a blogette, so I really must now get on with some work- not least because the Belly Dance Spectacular is coming up this very Sunday!!! Whoo hooo!