There are numerous pairs of beautiful swans gracing the rivers and tributaries that lace our city centre and for the most part, are much cherished by the community. However, it's THAT time of year now ... when the grown-up swans start 'chasing' away the teenage cygnets. I was watching them this morning. They really DO shooh them away with a " get out into that big wide world, sow a few wild oats and find yourself a decent partner-for-life!" No consideration for the lack of flight practice or incomplete plumage, which is still a bit grubby looking. Oh - those poor cygnets! They mistake roads and paths for rivers and try to land, often killing themselves in the process, but more often causing mayhem, be it within their small brain or amongst the traffic. Bless them.
Chalky just won a round "Animal-Vegetable-Mineral-Abstract" and I must say that it's quite tiring work holding the chair. But at least I get to do some work now. Also, I was rather hoping that Wol would win (he was so close too) as he was very sporting about the previous photo-finish
Yes - it took 67 questions before the correct answer. I did warn you all, when the game was mooted, that it IS time-consuming being in the chair which makes me wonder if I can 'service' another go so soon after my last one. Especially as it appears I have to undertake yet another of those tiresome gender realignments that seem to plague my on-line existence :-)
[Hux] .. please don't beg! [mind you - I had to do the same with Raak after my last victory. Anyone seen him? If he appears I might just gift him this one]. My gender realignment comment was very tongue-in-cheek - not easy to convey on screen [see my posting in AVMA].
I thank parents everywhere who endow their young with wacky and not normally used first names. The only pleasure I get from marking 'homework' is when I come to completing the official sheets which has such names displayed in full resplendence.
[Ibid] And you should take care of backwards spellings too... imagine being lumbered with Dibi Rab Nif Sex Rex... Or is it just my brain that works this way?
I like rain, and confuse my hosts whenever I'm in a warmish, dryish country (say, the South of Germany) and run outside as soon as the heavens open. [Ibid] I'm sure people have enough odd ideas about me already... and this posting won't have helped.
[pen, BM] I remember rolling about the floor laughing when my father called Val Doonican - Nacinood Lav! I was young. It's stayed with me though and I still call Star Trek - Kert Rats. I'm also quite fluent at joined-up backwards writing [mirror writing] but I'm a calligrapher so I s'pose that's not too unusual.
The only backwards thing I can do easily is the writing - with my non-dominant left hand. I also find it easier to do if I'm writing with my right hand at the same time..
I used to enjoy mucking around with the 'mirror' writing when I was a bit younger than I am now. Still, living in the southern hemisphere perhaps enhances the skill?
Ah, the fun we had playing with each other's names spelled backwards... [Chalky] a calligrapher? I did calligraphy O level (an 'A', natch!). My handwriting used to be pretty spectacular but it has gone downhill ever since - I blame it one reporting on town council meetings and magistrates courts without bothering to learn shorthand. [dominance] My right side is *so* dominant... I even find it difficult to kick a ball or take a step downstairs if I have to use my left foot first.
Although right handed, I can use a computer mouse with either hand. In fact I can use two computer mice at once on two different computers. I can write better with my right foot than my left hand though.
[epolenep] Yes - calligrapher, although I do lots of other stuff with lettering aswell - hotel/pub signs, blackboards [hence the Chalky moniker] although I haven't used actual chalk for years. It was the '0' level that started me off aswell - but this is the first time in my life I've 'done it for a living'. After college in London, my career was in publishing, broadly speaking. My name, backwards, is very Russian.
I am reasonably ambidextrous, although my right hand has had many more years practice at writing than my left. If I draw with my left hand, it's a little slower and less steady, but the emotional content of the drawings can be quite, how to say, extraodinary. I use a mouse with my right hand at work and my left at home. No particular reason. I have no eye dominance either. [snorgle] That's cos we're symmetrical. There's a whole area of visual and developmental therapy about that sort of thing - why it's easier to mirror actions than translate from one side of the body to the other. [Dujon] dunno. I've never actually bothered, believe it or not. [rab] Fascinating. I know people who must listen to the phone with their right ear, to the extent that when they have to write something down, they have to do this weird crossover thing to hold the phone there. [typing] I'm soooo glad I learnt to touch-type in high school. It saves a lot of time.
I can still sing a fair chunk of Waltzing Matilda backwards (I believe this originally came from a character in one of the later series of the Adventure Game)
(Dujon) It's oktas, old son. None here for several days. Water shortage next year unless we get a soaking wet winter, at least in the SE. (flerdle) One of my teachers was nicknamed Chalky, but his name was White. We also had Pinhead. We used to recite "we call him Pinhead because he is bald and his name is Steele". Taught maths; a nice man. A mate married his daughter. (re sinisterity) I'm totally southpaw, except for mouse, scissors, toothbrush and bumwipe. RH is stronger, LH cleverer. BTW an anagram of my name is "rough stud, he". I wish. :-)
[Anagrams] Ain't that the way... an anagram of my name is 'Just When I Rent It' and my father's (much to my mother's amusement) worked out to be 'Rich Tart When Rid'. [Sinisterity] Mouse, Scissors, Toothbrush, Bumwipe?!!! *chortle* Word disociation, unless I'm mistaken!
An anagram of my name - 'THE VODKA PANTRY' - seems I can't get away from the Russian connection. Incidentally, never touch the stuff. [penelope] Wot! your name's not penelope?!?
Here I am trying to guess all your real names and can only conclude you're a rather bizarrely monikered bunch what with Horst de Ughu (Rosie) and Petra van Kodthy (Chalky) in our midst. Mind you, that Dexter 'Anal' Relhirdy-Bach sounds like a dubious character...