Nonsense

One of the things that I love about the English language is how seeming gibberish can make sense to certain people if they have the right background and context. My friend once told me that she had "aeroplaned the boiler to 7" and it made sense. I lived with her in a golden age of easy to operate central heating boilers. The main control on mine was a slider that selected the function, if you went on holiday you slid the main control to a little picture of an aeroplane. We called that "aeroplaning the boiler". She now has a smart thermostat and the best you can do if you don't want heating but don't want anything to freeze is to set a low minimum temperature – in her case 7 degrees C.

I was playing a board game in which you had to get your teammate to say a certain word without mentioning it or any closely related words. I knew a scene in The Simpsons that he liked that mentioned the particular word. I just said "Nice name. Thanks I got it off a ..." and he correctly replied "hairdryer". Our opponents thought there was some kind of cheating or witchcraft at play.

At the weekend I wanted an ultrasonic cleaning bath, but I don't have one, so I had to make do with  a Lucky Lizard Super Fog. Years ago I was at a zoo and one of the lizard enclosures had a little machine for generating fog. It was made by "Lucky Lizard" brand and called a "Super Fog". It's a device that uses an ultrasonic emitter to excite tiny droplets on the surface of a bowl of water. I don't know what they're really called but I call them a Luck Lizard Super Fog even if they're a cheap Chinese off-brand copy.

Richard "Max Power" B