like a plasterer's radio

English

Etymology

A radio covered in dust, paint and plaster.

The portable radios used by plasterers and other builders while working tend to end up thickly covered in plaster and paint.

Adjective

like a plasterer's radio (not comparable)

1. (UK, slang) Thickly covered with some substance.
   • 2017 March 22, David Ross, The Man Who Loved Islands, Orenda Books, →ISBN:

     A track mark ran down through his remaining chest hair like a napalm strike in a Vietnamese jungle, and the flaking skin of his Latin torso now looked like a plasterer's radio.

   • 2023 May 25, Carlton Kirby, Sticky Bottle: The Cycling Year According to Carlton Kirby, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 33:

     It was an epic run to Montalcino, with Cadel Evans leading home a field of dancing statues: the rain left the entire peloton looking like a plasterer's radio by the end.

   • 2024 March 1, Tony Black, Last Orders: An anthology of short stories, McNidder & Grace, →ISBN:

     There was one blagger, another fucking Londoner called Mad Mikey, who'd parked his motor down at Leith Docks and came back to see it covered in seagull shit, looked like a plasterer's radio, and that was it for him.

   1. (vulgar, especially) Covered with semen.
      • 2017 March 22, Mark Catley, Scuffer, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

        But, if you have a daughter, does it torture you? The thought of her getting fucked? Some dude getting stuck in? Her face like a plasterer's radio?

      • 2018 April 8, Becky Clark, Fiction Can Be Murder, Llewellyn Worldwide, →ISBN:

        The seemingly never-ending streams of ectoplasm emanating from his musket soon had me coated like a plasterer's radio.

      • 2020 February 6, Chris Atkins, A Bit of a Stretch: The Diaries of a Prisoner, Atlantic Books, →ISBN:

        While I brush my teeth, he describes the explicit dream he's just had about his missus. 'She had a face like a plasterer's radio.'

      • 2024 September 28, Laurence Seidler, Busy Being Born, Book Guild Publishing, →ISBN:

        He was our brickie and started every sentence with: " If I was still a young man," followed by such gems of wisdom as: " I'd leave her looking like a plasterer's radio,"  […]