The ‘Other Spear’, our Marine Namesake and an Interesting Challenge...

So I am not the only Spear pottering about in the South African blogosphere (and that of its expats and Diaspora). I am referring to a SA guy living in the UAE. He publishes a very cool blog called the The Spear does Arabia. Do yourself a favour and visit. When we comment on each others’ posts, it can be a little confusing to other bloggers, but here is how to distinguish: My comments will be under the name ‘Spear’ if it is blogger and ‘Hardspear’ for the rest. The Spear does Arabia’s comments will be as ‘The Spear’. Naturally our Avatars also differ. With respect to our Marine Namesake, there is actually a shrimp called the Hard Spear Shrimp (Parapenaeopsis hardwickii)

As to the challenge: I’ve found a very interesting challenge on a blog called Betty Noire (worth the read – please visit).The challenge is under a post called Scotch? Irish? Single Malt? The post deals mainly with two books by Douglas Adams of the Hitchhikers’ series fame, called the Meaning of Liff and the Deeper Meaning of Liff. In these books Douglas Adams and another author took the names of towns and villages in Britain and ascribed definitions to it. Read Betty’s post after reading this, she describes it more fully. Anyhow, here follows the gauntlet which Betty threw down: ..... So, to win a bottle of whisky, take a shot at making sentences with all three adjectives below. If you can do it in one sentence, that will get extra credit. Post entries in comments or send entries to bettynoire@rocketmail.com; all efforts will be published on the blog and the winner will be announced when I think I have had enough. It should be not much later than May. Entries will be judged on length; wit; meaning and spelling. And the three words are: swanibost - “completely shagged out after a hard day of having income tax explained to you” duntish - “mentally incapacitated as a result of a severe hangover” climpy - “allowing yourself to be persuaded to do something and pretending to be reluctant” I am tempted to say I will send a bottle of whisky of your choice, but I might have to limit this choice to scotch, irish or single malt.

I am definitely entering! I am also a fan of Douglas Adams’s Liff definitions. Some of them though, I suspect you need to be a guy to fully appreciate. Below are two which made me roll on the floor with laughter. Getting an unwanted, unbidden huby used to be a particularly pesky problem when I was a teenager and the phenomenon of a wimbledon only occurs when wearing tan coloured trousers to work, leaving embarrassing telltale signs that you have visited the urinal, which leaves one having to resort to Mr Bean-esque shenanigans with the hand blower in the men’s room. HUBY (n.)A half-erection large enough to be a publicly embarrassing bulge in the trousers, not large enough to be of any use to anybody. WIMBLEDON (n.)That last drop which, no matter how much you shake it, always goes down your trouser leg.