Large set of testicles; used to describe the perceived guiding force behind a particularly courageous or audacious action undertaken, usually, by a man.
"Standing up to that mugger by himself revealed John had a set of big brass ones."
After Richard Nixon became too big for his britches people became even more difficult for politicians to understand. (example of too big for one's britches)
Fogey/fogy /fougi/ sl. (early 18C+, orig. Scot) old-fashioned, stuck-in-the mud.
Person with old fashioned ideas which he is unwilling to change: Come to the disco and stop being such an old fogey!
You think me an old fogeyand an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O’Connel’s time. I remember the famine. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O’Connel did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. (James Joyce, Ulysses. Penguin Books,1992. p. 38)