Digging It, Swan Poker and a Badger with an Assault Rifle

“But what does it all mean?” It’s time to hear that anguished cry of all humanity and take decisive action, in this instance by answering six random questions sent in to an internet blog.

I can dig it he can dig it she can dig it we can dig it they can dig it, you can dig it, oh let's dig it. Can you dig it, baby?

With so many people able to dig it I don’t think manpower is going to be an obstacle to some pretty serious digging, so clearly whatever it is that’s being dug is going to get very deep very quickly. My worry is that once everyone’s lost interest in it and wandered off sooner or later some hapless passer-by, maybe even a child, could fall in it and be badly hurt. I flatter myself that I probably can dig it with the best of them, but if everyone else really is absolutely dead set on digging it I think the more responsible thing for me to do is to offer to be the one that fills it in again afterwards, baby.

I was wondering, are you thinking what I'm thinking?

That’s exactly what I was wondering too, so yes.

Why does the Queen own all the swans?

The Queen retains the right to ownership of all unmarked Mute Swans in open water in the United Kingdom. This arrangement dates back to 1823 when the Queen, or King George IVth as she was then, played all the unmarked Mute Swans in a poker game. The swans had already lost all their property (some sticks and mud) but tried to win it all back by staking themselves and all their children in perpetuity on one last desperate hand. But George IVth knew that Mute Swans have a “tell”: when they are bluffing they break a man’s arm.  The King fractured a humerus, but the swans lost the hand, the game and their freedom. Understandably they don’t like to talk about it.

Why does imaginary times imaginary give a negative?

Imaginary numbers don’t really get on with each other, and if they are forced into the kind of intimacy that goes along with multiplication they are bound to turn negative.  Other dysfunctional kinds of numbers to watch out for are the Irrational Numbers, which are unbearably capricious, and the Irritable Numbers whose product is invariably an Irascible Number.

When is right?

It’s right now.

What's the best way to protect yourself against a rabid badger?

It depends on the rabid badger’s mode of attack, if any. If it’s a rabid badger with a Heckler and Koch G36 assault rifle then a thick kevlar vest is your best option. Being short-sighted and lacking prehensile digits a rabid badger knows it hasn’t the prowess with firearms to risk a head-shot. If instead the rabid badger is trying to publish salacious details about you in a national newspaper then try a super injunction, though check that the rabid badger isn’t au fait with Rabid Badger Twitter or other rabid mustelid social networking sites like FoamyStripeyFacebook or OtterNutterBeBo. If the rabid badger is making sly digs about you to humiliate you in front of your friends, then maybe you and the rabid badger should reflect on what it was that attracted you to each other in the first place and maybe spend some quality time together to recapture the magic.

So that’s what some of it all means. Keep the questions coming in and with luck we’ll get the rest of the universe explained in no time.