beer and skittles

Found as early as 1837, in Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, where it appears in the form, “It’s a reg’lar holiday to them—all porter and skittles”. The most common form, as a negative admonition, appears to have been popularized by Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown's School Days (1857, see quotation below).

• "Well, well, we must bide our time. Life isn't all beer and skittles—but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishman's education."
• "Being a soldier's wife isn't all beer and skittles."
• "His plight reveals a truth that's often obscured by the envy of newspaper readers; that it's not all beer and skittles in restaurant-critic land."
• "Such highly intensive deployment left little wriggle room, something with which Dunster is all too familiar. "It hasn't all been beer and skittles," he says dryly."

• peaches and cream
• bed of roses
• bowl of cherries
• sunshine and rainbows
• beatitude
• bliss
• delectation
• delight
• ecstasy
• euphoria
• lust
• nirvana
• pleasure
• rapture
• ravishment
• transport

• good times