all mops and brooms

A dated British slang expression meaning intoxicated or drunk. The image is evocative if slightly opaque — someone so dishevelled or uncoordinated they seem like a bundle of mops and brooms, all tangled and unsteady. It belongs to an older British tradition of colourful, indirect drunk-synonyms (three sheets to the wind, half-cut, three sheets in the wind). Rarely used today outside historical fiction or folk idiom enthusiasts, but a fun example of how creative English slang for drunkenness can be.