Well peoples, I would like to draw everyone’s attention to the comments posted to the previous Journal entry. If those who wish would like to take a peek, that will save me from bringing any of them to the “front page” here.

After the serious stuff that has gone before, it is possibly time for a bit of light-hearted liplabour or my reputation will be getting one-sided… and also distorted since many of my online friends know me quite differently again, finding they need to watch where they put their legs or one will be found longer than the other.

Oh, Nooningscaup? Just an old word referring to the labourer’s resting time after dinner.

Playing with AltaVista’s Babel Fish automated translation service the other day reminded me of all the good laughs you can have playing with words. Babel Fish might know a lot of languages, but it takes a very technical approach that can provide for hilarious reading. If you need cheering up, try writing a little paragraph in the textarea box then choose a language into which you would like your paragraph translated. Don’t worry that the result means nothing to you - unless you already know that language - and then click again to have it translated into yet another language you don’t know. And now for the fun part. Ask Babel Fish to convert what it came up with back into English. Was that really what you said in the beginning? What on earth could you have been thinking?

As a kid we used to play a game with a storybook (Alice in Wonderland was always a good choice) and a box of little cards each with one noun written upon them. One person was the designated reader and would start reading, stopping each time when coming to a noun, and we would take it in turns to supply a substitute noun from the box. The reader would continue as though nothing was amiss, and often the more fluent the process, the more bizarre the story, and it would often become so funny that the “round” ended when we all rolled around on the floor cracked up with laughter. For some reason the vision of a Duchess sitting on a guinea pug and nursing a knitting needle once had me in stitches. I don’t know if kids ever play these games anymore, unless there is a digitalized version of it online somewhere around. No doubt Google knows where they are.

Cleaning out my computer files I came across a couple of attempts I once made at rewriting Wordsworth. Being rather a fan of his, I can’t think why I was rewriting him, but it was probably a bit of verbal doodling while waiting in between interruptions, my life being full of those and giving rise sometimes to a mindset of distractions.

Sorry Wordsworth
©Judah

I wandered lonely as a shroud
Looking for a ghost to wear
When all at once a shriek so loud
Sounded in my startled ear
My weakened knees and fluttering heart
Had me feeling none too smart

And then an echo echoed long
Followed by an eerie wail
That stretched into a hideous song
Of spooks and wraiths beyond the pale
My stomach heaved and I was sick
And ran away almighty quick

(er, try again…)

Sorry again, Wordsworth
©Judah

I wandered lonely as a shroud
Looking for a ghost to clothe
When suddenly an echo loud
Of shrieks and moans around behove
That I had stumbled on a wake
A party of the dead forsake

These night time wanderings I must stop
They do my wits not one bit good
If sleep would not escape to drop
My mind into this haunted wood
I might have more that’s sense to make
Some rhyming words of worth to spake

Oh Wordsworth I have let you down
This fan of yours in pensive mood
Is vacant when the words don’t crown
Inspiring thoughts in solitude
And all she hears are eerie cries
Of creatures that volatilize

(end)

Yes, well. I don’t think Wordsworth is easily improved upon.
But enough of this nonsense.
Would you prefer some more serious stuff next time? OK, I’ll see what I can do.