Squiffy, from the Mouth of a Brit

According to the boy, "'squiffy' was a term used in the early part of the century but I haven't heard it for a long time in modern idiom; it means drunk/pissed. The play 'the inspector calls' has it quite a lot but I'm sure there're tons of other literary references" (punctuation mine). So there we are. Maybe it's like punchy, as Bronwen said, and it means drunk in England because everything means drunk in England, and it means slanted or whatever it was here.
I like the questions you raise, Karen, and will respond to them later. The real question for me: is blogging about books allowed when there's nothing else to do at the bookstore?
By the way, "The Phantom Tollbooth": still soooo good. :)