‘a verandah over the toy shop’: meaning and origin

The Australian-English phrase a verandah over the toy shop denotes a man’s protruding belly.

In Australian English, the noun verandah denotes an open-sided roofed structure over a shop.

In this phrase, the expression toy shop denotes the male genitals—cf. family jewels, used in the same sense.

These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the Australian-English phrase verandah over the toy shop that I have found:

1-: From The English slanguage, by Andrew Moncur, published in The Guardian (London and Manchester, England) of Thursday 18th September 1986:

The Australian English slanguage, relatively rarely heard in its full beaut form over here—where it’s as scarce as rocking horse manure—is about to be brought home by the BBC.
That should make the average truckie, taking a perve, with a verandah over his toy shop, as happy as a bastard on Fathers’ Day.
On the other hand, the BBC TV series dealing with “the world’s most widely-spoken and influential language”—English—could make purists as mad as a gumtree full of galahs.
(Another glossary: a truckie is a lorry driver; to perve is to gaze lustfully; the verandah in question is a paunch; a galah is a galah.)

2-: From Girls’ Night Out (Sydney: Pan Books, 1987), by the Australian-British author Kathy Lette (born 1958):

Cover him in kisses. Promise that your Dag Days are over. No longer will you wear blue with black or sprout maverick patches of armpit stubble. You promise not to poke fun at his paunch in public—no more jokes about a verandah over the toy shop.

3-: From Bourse Sauce: Due South, by Ian McIlwraith, published in the Financial Review (Sydney, New South Wales) of 10th September 1991:

Santa training courses start in October—so pull out that red suit with the fur trimmings, and get accustomed to sticky fingers and wet patches on your knee. A small veranda over the toy shop probably wouldn’t hurt either.

4-: From The Face (London: John Blake Publishing Ltd, 2001), by the British author Garry Bushell (born 1955):

Debbie Hodges watched the stranger saunter in and liked what she saw. The bloke was mid-thirties, she thought; about six-foot-one and powerfully built. His dark-brown hair was closely cropped in a vain attempt to disguise premature balding and he had the start of a beer belly but she’d never minded a veranda over the toy shop. Everything about him, the way he walked, the way he held himself, said this was a fella who could handle himself.

5-: From Divorce—it’s all the rage for females over 40, by Kathy Lette, published in the Evening Standard (London, England) of Tuesday 26th September 2006:

Women hit their sexual prime in their forties and men in their late teens. Ask any married woman the difference between a husband and a toy boy and she’ll tell you the same thing: about three hours. Whereas middle-aged women are still gymed and slimmed, many middle-aged men, to invert a sexist expression, are “letting themselves go”. Untrimmed nose hairs, sagging shoulders, beer bellies (or what we Aussies call “verandahs over the toy shop”) can give a husband the appeal of a tepid rissole.

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