The expression lead balloon, which means a complete failure, seems to originate from about 1924, when the phrase appeared in a "Mom N-Pop" cartoon which I have been able to locate:
It is claimed that Keith Moon described a bad gig as being "like a lead balloon" and this led to the naming of the pop group Led Zeppelin. That accords with the group being heavy metal, as a lead balloon would certainly be heavy.
I have only seen the phrase used occasionally in bridge, and it was suggested in one article that a lead balloon was an opening lead that blew several tricks so was a complete failure. When defending 1NT doubled yesterday, we managed to make four tricks fewer than our entitlement, and that was a top to bottom swing.
East opened 1NT, 12-14, in third seat, and my double as South ended the auction. I led the king of clubs, and North played the jack, the normal card, promising the ten. I did not know whether partner had JTx or Jx (or even a singleton jack), so decided to continue with the king of clubs and a small club, establishing my eight. North discarded the eight of hearts, reverse attitude, on this. East now led the king of hearts which I won and partner played the seven. If anything that suggested a spade from South, but East could have the king or queen in which case North will have something in diamonds. I cashed the eight of clubs, and partner discarded the three of hearts, which may well have been forced. I decided to play a diamond, but that just led to an overtrick. A spade switch would have been more successful, collecting +300, and an initial spade lead more successful still, collecting +500 as the defence now has eight(!) tricks in the black suits. North did not want to discard a diamond as that might be expensive if I had an honour, and a spade might also cost if I had Axx in the suit.
At least we conceded the overtrick, which was -280, and we did not have to put up with the opponents chanting "ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY" in the style of the darts fans at Ally Pally. And I nearly forgot. Lead is one element whose chemical symbol (Pb) has none of the letters of the element. Can you name the other eight? No googling the periodic table!
It's generally common elements whose symbols came from their Latin (or other ancient language) names. The ones I can think of are: Gold (Au), Silver (Ag), Iron (Fe), Sodium (Na), Potassium (K), Mercury (Hg). I can't get the last two. Tin's symbol Sn shares a letter, so doesn't count.
ReplyDeleteTungsten (W)
ReplyDeleteI am sure the other one would be a pointless answer on a TV game show. Indeed I did not know what its chemical symbol was.
ReplyDelete