Ahh. Clean off the hook. You know they'll never get The Word outta me. Special forces training (I hadda correct that from <force straining> a quite different thing).

I'll give you my credit card PIN number and my grandmother, but you'll find neither is real.

I'm actually in a rail station just now, passing time. As an incentive to get people booking online they've made you pay more to turn up in person. I could choose between paying 66 euros for a ticket at the ticket desk (as done since the age of steam) or paying 36 euros by using the 'internet machine' across the hall.

I've been 'away' for a few days, in both sense. The strain isstarting to show. I just hope the train does likewise.

This should not dissuade males who speak Romanesque languages from shouting "honey, je suis homme!" or even "Mel, homo sum!". I wouldn't say the last one to Mel Gibson, though - he has studied ancient languages such as Latin, is a strong Old Catholic retro-believer ("every sperm is sacred, and every sperm whale is scared spermless...") and he's also tough and would beat me up.

His people gave my people a ceremonial dagger about 20 years ago, which probably binds me to lifelong spineless fealty.

I could try pretending it never reached me. It's not as if Mel ever checked ... maybe his people did. Hmmm.

I went for the condensed version, which can be completed in 4 days (plus the <peak but don't touch> rite ... a ritual which involves climbing all the Scottidh mountains over 5000m in height.

When Scotland declares independence, it may claim part of Nepal as compensation for being forced to run the British empire and provide the intellectal capital of the Anglophone world, when both antidisestablishmentarianism and pneumonoultramicroscopicsdilicavolcanoconiosis were rife.

However, HM the Queen will never allow Scots independence, as (1) her fave holiday cottage in Balmoral would be reclassified as an overseas property investment, despite the lack of an actual sea between it and Windsor Castle. (2) She is *not* gonna play Rule Britannia over something called the 'Former United Kingdom'.

As titular head of the Anglican church, she'd be entitled to insist on *Former United Christian Kingdom* ... but Liz doesn't swing that way, and hates crossword puzzles.

King Charles III (in waiting) will be a different story. Like his great-great-grandfather Edward VIII (son of Queen Victoria), Chaz will be determined to accomplish something in a necessarily short reign.

Edward chose actresses. Chaz may opt for *carbuncles*, a category that includes living architects, their buildings, conceptual art, and the populated bits of Scotland.

ISR: this isn't working out, I'm leaving you.

EGY: whaaat? You can't. I mean, this is too sudden. How will we finish my pyramid? Can't you try a few more years, see how things are when we have a pyramid or two?

ISR: No, I'm leaving, it's over.

EGY: But you're a slave!

ISR: My point exactly.

EGY: But, but what'll you do?

ISR: Well, Moses knows this talking Bush...

EGY: Moses? You've been seeing Moses behind my back?

Uh, don't get me started. :p

Gawd, not more politics! :s Heh... those are cute though.

Here's one, in <Deffi>'s honor -

Scenario: Indian women, standing in a long queue. A man dashes by them at breakneck speed, holding an envelope.

Explain scene. ;)

Well, <Annie>, hate to tell ya, but the language is the giveaway. First, you don't specify what kind of 'Indian': we'll assume the original, from Bharat.

Then you say 'queue'. This is a Britishism. Americans talk about standing in line, not forming queues. Your idiolect is usually more American than not, but I've put that down to universal netspeak. Unless you've begun to talk (eh) that weird amalgam of British and American (eh) which is teh Canadian tongue?

Good move.

I need to know the colour of the envelope. Brown, white and pink signify differently. So does one's estimate of what constitutes 'breakneck speed' -- is this fast, very fast, extremely fast, or liable to snap a human neck with massive g-force increases?

<I need to know the colour of the envelope.>

The municipal bill type - white with print on it, and perforated edges.

Well, got it yet?! You almost had it figured out yesterday already.

Story of my life. I almost had *me* figured out once, but I lost it.

There's a story about a scientist - either the psychologist William James or a colleague - who experimented with psychoactive drugs about a century ago. (It's been a long way down for certain innaresting molecules ... from scientific laboratories to street corners in 100 years.)

Anyhow, I think James mentions this in 'Varieties of Religious Experience'. Guy experiences the conviction that he understands the key to the cosmos, and resolves to make notes. On coming round, he remembers nothing. And all the notes say is "a distinct odour of petroleum".

With the perforated edges... where it says

.

.

.

<Tear along the dotted line>

But I've got mild synaesthesia and associate colours with sounds and sounds with smells very easily. It's strong enough, just, to override purely verbal connections like April/apricot, or others of that ilk - never mind secondary links such as April = cruellest month = lilac.

There are several ways into such questions. When I taught Eng Lit, I used to tell students about something Anthony Burgess wrote. A fictitious poet has had a childhood accident with a dish of scalding prunes. He grows up with a purely personal horror of prunes, which nobody can grasp without knowing his story. He writes lines such as "And Death, terrible as prunes" -- bad poetry, because the semantic link only resonates for the writer. In the good stuff, it resonates for the reader too. In the really good stuff, it does both, working on different levels.

Or not.

I genuinely find it fascinating. Interesting opening followed by subtle maneuvers, jockeying for advantage, underlying tactics - and then a point split in a position where either player might have won. Or lost.