"Duck's Dinner"
It means, according to Sydney Baker's Dictionary of Australian Slang, 1943
A drink of water without anything to eat.
Like all the entries in my calendar, this one has an additional note at the bottom of the page:
Hunting the MallardI'm just impressed that anybody remembers a rite which only takes place once every century.
Once each century, this strange and obscure tradition has been reenacted at All Souls College, Oxford. According to legend, during reconstruction of one of the college's buildings in 1438, a mallard was flushed from its nesting site. On the second January 14th of each century, a specially chosen Lord Mallard and six assistants, armed with liquor, lantern, and staff, have set out to right an ancient wrong by finding the elusive duck (which is rumored to have grown enormously in nearly six hundred years), singing a ballad whose refrain is "O, by the blood of King Edward/ It was a swapping, swapping mallard."
