Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Some Light Relief

Following on from the nonsense about ID cards below, I think we all need some light relief.

Thankfully, your jovial and "Hail-Fellow-Well-Met" Pedant-General has just the very thing: A small conundrum for you to solve:

Picture the scene:
  1. Your precise misdemeanour is not known, but suffice to say that the bastards have caught you for it.
  2. You are miles from nowhere and there is no help in sight. In short, you are on your own. (don't worry - there isn't a bacon sandwich involved in any of this).
  3. The aforementioned bastards have tied you up in stout hessian rope and have hung you (upside down) from a tree.
  4. To compound matters, a very hungry lion has discovered you and waits below, licking his lips in anticipation.
  5. To compound matters even further, the bastards have placed a lighted candle below the rope that holds you out of reach of the lion, so that, in due course, the rope will burn through and that will be you.
At this stage, you would be permitted - even expected - to say "απορεω".
Pictorially, your situation is as shown below:



So, the question is: what do you do?

I will allow you a moment to consider your options. You may then click here to reveal the answer.

No peeking!

2 comments:

dearieme said...

Brilliant. My answer was rather feeble - to piddle the candle out a la the Spike Milligan medical. (Doctor: urinate in that beaker. Spike: what, awaaay over there?)

The Pedant-General said...

Ninme: know you NOTHING about these things?

Noise cancelling headphones require a good fit around the ears and for there to be some other signal that you do wish to hear to be played on top of the anti-phase background. Otherwise they will tend to produce a headache-inducing white noise.

Note that this, obviously, would have been a suitable objection had it been a lioness slobbering below you, but it is clear that this is a MALE lion and its shaggy mane precludes the good fit above.

More importantly, lions require keen hearing to ensure that they tread carefully and do not make a noise that might serve to alert their prey. They have thus evolved to be particularly wary of noise-cancelling headphones, the wearing of which is an obvious disadvantage from a classical Darwinian perspective.

Duh!


Dearieme: I dare say that, even in your roped up state and little chance of directing your micturation with any accuracy, your solution is just as plausible as mine....

Toodle Pip!
PG