The Interthingy has failed me

[avevale_intelligencer]

We caught (or were caught by, as seems increasingly the case) part of an episode of All Creatures Great And Small the other week, in which a farmer had been dosing his animals with something called "Mafeking Oil" rather than going to the vet. We wondered what Mafeking Oil might be when it's at home (or indeed anywhere else) and so I Googled.

Nothing.

I Yahooed.

Nothing.

Not even a reference to the episode itself.

It is of course entirely possible the vile jollop was an invention of Herriot's, or the episode writer's, but it nags at the backbrain that I've heard the phrase before in another context. It seems highly unlikely that there would be nothing on the web about it if it existed...but not impossible, I suppose.

Does anyone have the slightest idea what I'm talking about?

Comments

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Hm. Nearest I can find to anything useful is a different spelling:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=mafficking

So Mafeking Oil might be oil found in/imported from/attributed to the town of Mafeking, while mafficking oil might be an oil used in some form of, er, celebration...

It wasn't Tristan's mafficking oil, by any chance? =:o}

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

My guess is that it's the oil based preparations as used for rinderpest in Mafeking, and it was just convenient shorthand by a vet familiar with that particular affliction of livestock ... but that's just a guess!

[howeird]

Okay, so I am ROFL right now because I just know that with my Yankee accent I would have heard "Mafeking Oil" as "my fuc*ing oil".

Just sayin'