The Little Fishes Of The Sea,
They Sent An Answer Back To Me.
The Little Fishes’ Answer Was
“We Cannot Do It, Sir, Because...”
It has recently been drawn to my attention that I failed to give you the answers in timeous detail. My apologies to you all for this oversight. I am lazy and sometimes bored by the banality of it all – and arrogant, too. Those three, surely, are good and sufficient reasons for doing as I please, are they not?
I do not propose to give you all the answers all at once. Instead I will bore you all by re-iterating the questions one by one, or, Ark-like, two by two, over the next few weeks, and by giving you the answer to each question as it pleases me to order them. Nasty, ain’t I?
So, Question (5) was ‘Why is bizarre singular?’
The answer which I was looking for is really very simple. The word ‘bizarre’ is the only borrowing into English from the Basque language, Euskara, and that, therefore, makes it quite singular, or unique.
Question (10) was ‘Just because you have had to listen to the sparrows’ twittering is no excuse for staying out on the tiles all night! Just what do you think that you are playing at, eh?’
The answer is, again, simple! You would be playing Mah-jong. The twittering of the sparrows is the noise made as one mixes the tiles before building the walls, according to the more poetically minded amongst us, that is.
What? You’ve never sat up all night playing Mah-jong and drinking far too much Armagnac (Cognac, at a pinch) into the bargain? What manner of a person are you? For Heaven’s sake, wild oats are made to be sown! Get on with it!
Just because I’m nasty and bored I’m also going to give you an extra question, which none of you will, I hope, be able to answer (well, Hugh will be able to, of course, but I hope that he will give the rest of you a chance and send his answer to me privately). Here it is:
What, or where, links Tiberius (the Roman Emperor), rieving, a three-headed giant and radioactivity together? It’s all in the asking, you see! The answer should come to you if you take a warm bath!
More later. Enjoy!
