Getting the flannel up.

When we lived in New Zealand (1980), we were told that there were three million humanoid bipeds and fifty-five million woolly quadrepeds known as "ovis" in Latin or "oi" in Old Irish. (So when Paddy calls out to you and says "oi!" he isn't exactly being complimentary.) If you are driving in Auckland (population one million) and turn a corner and there in the road is a flock of sheep, they have the right of way. And if you hit one, there will be mutton to pay. "Getting the flannel up" was an expression used at Cambridge University and is the equivalent to the expression "pulling the wool over someone's eyes."