Quid
On the record“A million quid a minute.”
Pounds sterling. The plural is still “quid”.
Chapter I
Big Ones
Money & currency · 17 entries
The Hornimans count in millions and the street counts in grand. Most prices in the show are said as bare numbers, like “an offer of 18” or “4,000 a key”.
Big ones
On the record“…for four big ones.”
Millions. Here it's the £4m that Freddy's £8m debt gets knocked down to.
Mil
On the record“I'll accept offers in excess of 150 mill.”
Short for million. Bobby Glass takes bids for the empire this way.
Grand
On the record“Twenty grand to nick a van.”
£1,000.
Bare money
On the record“I'd be earning bare money…”
A lot of money. “Bare” is London street English for “loads of”.
Readies
Check the tape“Got the readies?”
Cash, ready to hand over.
Cash in hand
On the record“Bang! Good price. Cash in hand.”
Paid in notes, with no record. Toni Blair's terms.
Paisa
On the record“…when it comes to cleaning paisa, we are the best in the street.”
Money. In Hindi and Urdu it's the smallest coin, and it's common in British Asian slang.
Shekel
On the record“I ain't paying that posh c— another f—ing shekel.”
An old colloquial word for a coin, or for money. Bobby won't pay Lord Hawthorne another penny.
Out of pocket
On the record“Bobby's still out of pocket 16 million.”
Down on the deal. The Botticelli cost the Glasses £16m.
Skimming
On the record“…the five-grand's worth a week you've been skimming.”
Quietly taking a share of the product or the takings before anyone counts it.
Cut
On the record“…your cut will be substantially bigger…”
Your share of the proceeds.
Brown envelopes
On the record“…there'll be no more brown envelopes.”
Cash bribes, named after the envelope they're handed over in.
Contract
On the record“He bought your contract. The 100 million you owe to Uncle Stan.”
A debt that has been sold to a new owner. Whoever holds the paper holds you.
Collateral
On the record“I'd like to offer my estate as collateral for a loan of 100 million sterling.”
Security pledged against a loan. Eddie pledges Halstead itself, at 15% interest.
Disreputable lenders
On the record“…borrowing money from some disreputable lenders”
The upper-class way of saying “loan sharks”.
Buying low
On the record“No, I'm buying low, babe.”
Buying an asset while it's cheap. City language from a gangster.
Chapter II
The Puff Game
Cannabis · 15 entries
The Glass business is weed and only weed, grown under stately homes and, from Season 2, under Italian palazzos. The vocabulary moves between the street and the boardroom.
White Widow Super Cheese
On the record“Sweetened with a bar's worth of white widow super cheese.”
Two real strains, White Widow and Cheese, combined into the house product. It's the Halstead crop's calling card.
A bar's worth
On the record“…a bar's worth of white widow…”
Unclear. In older London slang “a bar” is £1; newer usage makes it £1 million. As a sweetener on a £4m settlement, the million reading fits better, but the line never says which.
Puff
On the record“We transport £80 million worth of puff through it every year.”
Cannabis. Old-school British slang.
The puff game
On the record“I used to think the puff game was too much hassle.”
The cannabis trade.
Weed farm
On the record“100,000 square foot of weed farm hidden under the hangar.”
An industrial grow-op. The Glass model is to hide them beneath old money.
Product
On the record“Growing our product underneath aristocratic palazzos.”
The trade's corporate word for its own drugs.
Strains
On the record“I've got loads of different flavors and strains.”
Cannabis varieties, bred for potency and taste.
Smoke and a toke
On the record“So I have a smoke and a toke, we break bread…”
Smoking a joint, as a social ritual.
Crack weed
On the record“Growing sativa marijuana seeds in the same soil as coca plants… Crack weed.”
Freddy's big business idea. It is botanically impossible.
Laced
On the record“'Cause we laced it with stuff.”
Mixed with another substance. Jimmy's experimental batch causes mania.
Clinical trial
On the record“Signing up for one of your clinical trials.”
Cover story for testing experimental weed on people.
Wacky-tobaccy
On the record“…an eighth of premium-grade wacky-tobaccy…”
A jokey word for cannabis.
An eighth
On the record“…from any number of a thousand certified high-street outlets.”
An eighth of an ounce, about 3.5 g. The standard retail quantity, here imagined on sale legally.
Gateway drug
On the record“It's a gateway drug, Your Grace.”
The claim that cannabis leads to harder drugs, and the central argument in the legalisation plot.
Class A · Class B
On the record“…the gap between Class A and Class B drugs was a vast chasm.”
UK legal tiers under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Cocaine is Class A and cannabis is Class B.
Chapter III
The Chop Game
Cocaine & the chemical trade · 10 entries
The Glasses see cocaine and meth as other people's trades. The words for them come from rivals, from customers, and from Freddy.
Gear
On the record“So he's saying Toni Blair knew about the gear.”
A catch-all word for drugs. In Season 1 it's the cocaine hidden in the Lamborghini; in Season 2 it's the stolen weed.
Coke
On the record“He knew the f—ing car was full of coke.”
Cocaine.
Chop
Check the tape“…five grams of chop.”
Cocaine.
The chop game
On the record“That's why we don't get involved in the chop game.”
The cocaine trade, and the line the Glass firm draws.
Uncut
On the record“One hundred and fifty kilos of super premium uncut cocaine.”
Pure, not yet bulked out with fillers, so worth more per gram. The 150 kilos were valued at £3–3.5m.
The powder
On the record“…vast gains to be had from dealing in the powder.”
Cocaine.
Henry the Hoover
On the record“…hoovering up lines of cocaine like a f—ing Henry the Hoover.”
Snorting heavily. Henry is the smiling red vacuum cleaner found in British homes.
Key
On the record“4,000 a key.”
A kilo. Susie's deal with Vargas is 200 of them a month.
Meth
On the record“Meth. He's made billions from it.”
Methamphetamine. It's Stanley Johnston's business, and one the Glasses won't touch.
Shrooms
On the record“Pocket full of shrooms.”
Psilocybin mushrooms.
Chapter IV
The Wash
Laundering · 6 entries
Money is only profit once it has been washed. Season 1 turns on a three-month laundering delay, and Season 2 on whose city the money passes through.
Washed
On the record“…the money can't be considered profit until it's been washed.”
Laundered, meaning passed through legitimate businesses until it looks earned.
Clean
On the record“I gave Susie the 15 clean…”
Already laundered and safe to spend.
Dirty money
On the record“…trying to wash his dirty money.”
Money from crime, before it has been laundered.
A very reasonable 5%
On the record“Minus a very reasonable 5%.”
The launderer's commission, taken here on £15m.
Cash cleaner
On the record“This place here just started off as a normal cash cleaner…”
A front business that exists to launder money.
Bonded warehouse
On the record“…goods can be stored without the need to pay any duty.”
Customs-controlled storage where import duty is put off until goods leave. A legal no-man's-land.
Chapter V
The Heirlooms
Paintings, wine, watches, falcons · 12 lots
Old money keeps its wealth on the walls and in the cellar. This is every valuable object the series puts a price on, laid out as a sale catalogue with the figures quoted on screen.
Lot 01
The Gainsborough
“You could sell the Gainsborough.” Eighteenth-century English portraiture on the Halstead walls, and the first thing someone suggests selling.
Unpriced
S1·E1 · E2
Lot 02
Romanée-Conti 2002 & the cellar
“Are you a fan of DRC?” The late Duke's wine collection, sold to Stanley Johnston together with the money in the safe.
Cleared a £4m debt
S1·E1
Lot 03
Patek Philippe 1518
Churchill's watch, now on Johnston's wrist. One of these usually sells for about a quarter of that.
£9–10m
S1·E2
Lot 04
A shotgun
“Apparently, that's worth over £200,000.” A sporting gun, priced like a house.
£200,000+
S1·E2
Lot 05
A missing testicle
Lord Bassington's grotesque relic, the centre of a blackmail demand for half a million.
£500,000 (blackmail)
S1·E4
Lot 06
Opus X & Dalmore 25
The late Duke's favourite cigar and a 25-year-old single malt. Luxury you smoke and drink.
Unpriced
S1·E5
Lot 07
Mama's Monet
“I've had to sell all my stocks and Mama's Monet.” How a lord raises cash to buy into Eddie's consortium.
Sold
S1·E8
Lot 08
The Glass empire
Bids for the whole business, at “in excess of 150 mill”. It was a test of loyalty all along.
£235,000,000
S1·E8
Lot 09
The Botticelli
A small Old Master bought as a bribe for Marco Moretti. Bidding opened at £2m, it should have cost six, and it turned out Cico already owned it.
£16,000,000
S2·E1
Lot 10
White saker falcon
A million-pound bird that a whole episode's deal depends on.
£1,000,000
S2·E4
Lot 11
Grandmother's necklace
The bride's “something old”, worn at Eddie's wedding.
Heirloom
S2·E6
Lot 12
Halstead
The estate itself, pledged to Stanley Johnston at 15%. By the finale Bobby Glass has bought the debt.
£100,000,000 (collateral)
S2·E5
Chapter VI
The Firm
Underworld jargon · 16 entries
The working vocabulary of people who steal, inform, and spend time in prison, spoken with Scouse, Cockney and public-school accents.
Grass
On the record“No one likes a grass, especially me.”
An informer. The origin is disputed; one theory is rhyming slang, “grasshopper” for “copper”.
Rat
On the record“There's a rat in the kitchen.”
A traitor inside the operation. It's also the episode's title.
Inside man
On the record“He had another inside man. Keith.”
A mole.
Nick
On the record“Stage one, nick the key when no-one's looking.”
To steal. “The nick” is also a police station or prison.
Fixer
Check the tape“…supposed to fix problems, not create them.”
A go-between who arranges deals. Cico does neither.
Guv'nor
On the record“…he's still the guv'nor.”
The boss. From “governor”.
Dodgy
On the record“…your dodgy mates.”
Shady or untrustworthy.
Geezer
On the record“Tried to bring the geezer back to health.”
A man, a bloke.
Gaff
On the record“Instead of a wage, I just took shares in this gaff.”
A place: a home, a venue, a business.
Stretch
On the record“Last count, he was six into a ten stretch.”
A prison sentence.
Spot of bother
On the record“…he's got himself into a spot of bother.”
Serious trouble, said as if it were minor.
Soft lad
On the record“Oi, soft lad!”
Scouse for idiot. Tommy Dixon's greeting.
Where the bodies are buried
On the record“…by which I mean his tax records.”
Incriminating secrets. For Johnston, these are literally his tax records.
The basket
On the record“When you have the basket, give me two clicks.”
Radio code word for the baby, Tarquin.
Banger
On the record“…to get the f—ing banger in.”
Here it means the bomb. It can also mean a sausage, an old car, or a firework.
Shiv
On the record“Give me the f—ing shiv!”
An improvised blade of the kind made in prison.
Chapter VII
Off the Books
Claimed, but never said · 8 entries
Online glossaries of the show list these words. None of them turned up in the transcripts of Seasons 1 or 2. They're real slang, or rumoured slang, but not dialogue from the series.
Street rate card
- Score£20not in the series
- Pony£25not in the series
- Ton£100not in the series
- Monkey£500not in the series
- Grand£1,000heard on screen
Classic London money slang. The series skips almost all of it in favour of bare numbers.
Charlie
Off the booksCocaine. Standard British slang, but it isn't said in either season's transcripts.
Snow
Off the booksCocaine. Not said in the series.
Skunk
Off the booksHigh-potency cannabis. It means strong weed, not low-grade street weed. Not said in the series.
Bush
Off the booksCannabis, mostly in older or American usage. Not said in the series.
The hard stuff
Off the booksHard drugs, or spirits. The Glass firm makes the distinction, but not in these words.
Heavy salad
Off the booksDescribed online as Ritchie slang for a big deal. It doesn't appear in either season, and we found no established usage for it.
Cheeking
Off the booksDescribed online as hiding contraband between the buttocks to smuggle it into prison. Not said in the series. In custodial usage it more often means hiding a pill in the cheek of your mouth.
A bar = £1 million
Off the booksThe show only says “a bar's worth” and never defines it. See Chapter II.