Idiom of the day: clever clogs

I heard it in an episode of Peppa Pig last night:

Peppa: “That’s the biggest shadow ever.”

Suzy Sheep: “It must be a giant.”

Doctor Elephant, laughing: “It’s not a giant. The shadow is being made by a cloud.”

All the children, together: “Wow!”

Peppa: “What sort of cloud is it?”

Doctor Elephant: “Um, it’s a . . . big cloud.”

Edmund Elephant: “It’s called a stratocumulus.”

Doctor Elephant: “Yes.”

Narrator: “Edmund Elephant is a clever clogs.”

The term showed up at A.Word.A.Day earlier this week: “noun: Someone perceived to be intelligent or knowledgeable in an annoying way.” The Oxford English Dictionary has it as a compliment and a slight: “a clever or smart person, a wiseacre.” Edmund, I fear, is a bit annoying.

You can see the British version of the scene, which I’ve typed from, at YouTube. It’s different from to the American version, in which Edmund says it first: “I’m a clever clogs.”