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Thanks for the pear-shaped stuff, guys.
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I didn't understand part of Alan Bennett's "The Uncommon Reader".
****
Her Majesty the Queen is having a summer holiday at Balmoral.
"It was a foul summer, cold, wet and unproductive, the guns(*1) grumbling every evening at their paltry bag(*2)....
...in the web butts(*3) on the hills the guns cracked out(*4) their empty tattoo(*5) as the occasional dead and sodden stag was borne past their window (*6)."
*1 - hunters?
*2 - how few they managed to shoot?
*3 - [huh?]
*4 - [I can't even guess]
*5 - [ditto]
*6 - it was rainy weather, so any deer shot were wet when carried past...[a window? what window? of a "duck blind" for deer hunting?]
****
Could one of you "blokes" help me out with explanations?
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You've got it all right, really.
A 'butt' for shooting is a sort of hide that's sheltered but not conspicuous:
http://www.dswa.org.uk/userfiles/file/Leaflets/Shooting-Butts-updated-Sept-2005.pdf
A web one would I think be a canvas-covered green one to blend in with the terrain, like your duck blind. Just about everything, especially in the military (though this isn't that) involving martial or hunting in the UK for a long time, less so now, was made of canvas webbing (even soldiers' 'pattern equipment', belts, kit, etc., tents and shelters too).
A 'tattoo' is a lot of things, but mainly a RHYTHM. Here it refers to a rattling rhythm beat out by the thump of the shotguns. There are also tattoos that are beaten out on drums. I remember once reading that 'tattoo' comes from 'taptoe', a Dutch term for a drumbeat that was played every night in town camps in the 17th Century, to tell innkeepers to turn off their taps and let the soldiers get back to their billets. The term is 'beat a tattoo'.
Tattoo is also the term for a big military display, such as the international one on Edinburgh Castle Esplanade every year which is televised. I think you have them in the US too.
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P.S. It probably takes place towards the end of the summer, at grouse shooting season.
The stag would be sodden possibly from rain, but mainly from the moisture of the dew up at Balmoral.
Another different kind of butt is a target for archery.
Lest any dwell on the euphemistic, which I'm sure David never would.
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Thanks for the translation, William.
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Also to outdo or beat someone, as in playing cards.
But if you outdo someones fart - is that a trump trump?
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Although Coral Browne was an Australian, I think you could explain this to me, since they were a colony:
In describing the relationship between Sir Godfrey Tearle and the (much, much younger) Jill Bennett, Browne said
"I could never understand what he saw in her, until I watched her eating corn on the cob at the Caprice."
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Im guessing here DIB but perhaps he meant she sucked it like a cadburys Flake, rather than nibbling sideways?! 
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"Open wide and say 'ah' ".
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It was a famous uk advert where a sexy girl - usually sitting in a window with hair blowing gently - sucked a cadburys chocolate bar very seductively. Theyre bound to be on youtube.
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Sorry DIB, My fault for mentioning the flake ad!
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