Apologists Haven’t A Brain In Their Heads

THAT is MY BRAIN!

At least that’s what the office told me when they gave me the disk of pictures. I have no other pictures of my brain with which to compare, and I’ve never seen my brain in person so as to recognize it from these hazy black and white pictures which I’m told came from a big magnet. It remains entirely possible that the pictures on that disk are pictures of somebody else’s brain.

Or that this is a Xerox image of something made entirely of playdough.(sic) I can’t prove that it’s not.

It may not be my brain on the disk, and in fact may not be pictures of anybody’s head at all but may be computer-generated. It’s not impossible.  Maybe the people with problems that require a brain-scan are the only ones who have brains.

In modern America VERY few people have even seen the inside of ANY mammal skull so as to see that there is a brain inside, let alone any human heads.  The number of medical and scientific personnel who claim to have seen inside a human head is a VAST minority of the total.  They except(sic) that we have sent what three or four rovers all the way to Mars and yet they don’t believe in God.

Atheists say that they have never seen God and that I have never seen God and they demand evidence.  They believe electrons exist, having never seen one. They believe the wind exists having never seen it. They believe gravity exists having never seen it. They believe in all kinds of things they have never seen. You know why? Because they’re not really skeptics. There are just some things they don’t want to believe, so they pretend that they are skeptics, when in fact, they are just rebellious sinners.

Except…. that the correct word is accept.  I would think that you would be familiar with one of the most important words of your faith system, considering the number of things that you are expected to blindly accept.  Perhaps you have never seen it in print, and are just taking someone else’s word for it.

Every med student in every medical college in the USA, Canada, and probably around the world, must assist in the dissection of a human cadaver.  The skull is sawed open.  The brain is removed and examined.  The same is true for most veterinary students, with a dog or cat.  This alone consists of tens of thousands of people each year.  And then there are abattoirs and meat-packing plants….

We can also include pathologists, and coroners and their assistants, and police officers and paramedics, who, too often, get to see human brains that didn’t need MRIs.  Until one of them finds a skull with no brain in it, I’m going to assume they all do, with the possible exception of yours.  They are a minority – but hardly a VAST one – totalling several million people.

While actually seeing God would be a good start to accepting His existence, not all evidence need be visual.  Do Christians have Faith that electrons exist?  Atheists accept that they do because they can see the actions they cause; televisions glow, cell phones communicate with each other, and ovens get hot.

Atheists (and everyone else) can feel the wind blow, and see its effects, from tornadoes, to kids’ kites flying, to wind turbines.  We don’t need to see the wind to know that it exists.  I can see gravity working every time I drop something.  It will accelerate toward the center of the Earth (or any other celestial body).

On Earth, its speed of fall will increase by 9.8 meters/second/squared.  It has done so each and every observed and measured time.  Only when a dropped pen starts drifting upward will I doubt the existence of gravity.  You can tell me that God makes my light bulbs shine or that angels hold my feet (and every other object) to the ground.  I will rely on reasonable expectations based on a history of testable and repeatable actions.

I will believe the hypotheses of reputable scientists, who have shown their work, rather than the far less coherent and parsimonious claims that Christians make.  I will believe in space/time curvature rather than angels.  Atheists often say that they have not been presented with sufficiently convincing evidence, but evidence is information which convinces, or tends to convince, regarding any given matter.  If it does not convince to some degree, it is not ‘evidence,’ it is just another unverified claim.

I want to believe the most true things, and the fewest false things as possible.  Despite your desperate attempt at mind-reading and fortune-telling, I am not a rebellious sinner!  After 2000 years of asking Christians for evidence, the best they seem to be able to come up with is, ‘You just have to have faith, and you won’t know until you die.’  That is unacceptable to me – no sin involved.  👿

One-Liners On The Menu

The waiter asked me how I found my steak….
….I told him, “Accidentally!  I just moved the tomato slice, and there it was.”

I told him I didn’t find any oysters in my oyster soup….
….He said, “Would you expect to find angels in the angel cake?”

He said, “These are the best eggs we’ve had for years.”….
….I told him to bring some that hadn’t been around that long.

I asked for a cup of coffee with no cream….
….He said they were out of cream.  How about no milk?

I told him he had his thumb in my soup….
….He told me not to worry, because it wasn’t hot.

Doctor, I keep thinking that I’m a bridge….
….What’s come over you?

Doctor, I have a ringing in my ears….
….Don’t answer it.

If Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus….
….why did three random guys show up with presents?

A guy goes in to see a psychologist and says, “I can’t make any friends….
….Can you help me, you fat slob?”

When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam….
….I looked into the soul of the guy sitting next to me.

Some of us learn from the mistakes of others….
….The rest of us have to be “the others.”

Footwear made from banana peels….
….are slippers.

Isn’t it ironic that procrastination….
….is something that you can do immediately?

If I got 50 cents for every math exam I failed….
….I’d have $6.30 now.

People who raise poultry….
….are literally chicken tenders.

I have a clean conscience….
….I haven’t used it once yet.

I never knew what happiness was, until I got married….
….and then it was too late.

Know any jokes about Sodium?….
….Na

I love chocolate….
….but it makes my clothes shrink.

Some people say that their body is a temple….
….Mine is a bouncy castle.

If I’m lucky, my internal organs….
….will never see the light of day.

They used to time me with a stopwatch….
….now they use a calendar.

Dirty Too Fibbing Friday

For a couple of weeks pensitivity101 gave us some unusual words to tantalise our fibbing expertise. This time she decided to turn it on its head and give us a list of familiar words to re-define.

1. What is a broom?
   

It’s what my grandson said when I first taught him to ride a motorcycle.  Broom!  Broom!

2. What is a doughnut?

It’s a method of attempted suicide, using the tight-assed car companies’ wheelbarrow-wheel excuse for a spare tire, because the bootstrap method doesn’t work.  Safety regulations say that you are supposed to travel only a maximum of 50 kilometers, at a maximum speed of 50 KmH, using one.
I’ve been on the Expressway, doing 115 Kmh in a 100KmH zone, and been passed like I was standing still by someone with one on a drive/steering wheel.  I don’t know how the drivers keep the car in a straight line, with it leaning toward me and the ditch.  I slow down, and give them lots of room.  When one of those things goes bad, it’ll take 3 or 4 other vehicles with it.  😳

3. What is a penny farthing?

It’s the change you’ll get for a pint of Porter, at the pub out Pensitivity’s way.  The civilized portion of the country had already gone decimal with their coinage, and was leaning toward the Euro, before the rational Brexit decision was made.  They don’t cotton to that Daylight Saving Time stuff out there.  Their clocks are always set at 1890.

4. What is a blanket?

Also known as a wet blanket, he is the death of the party, present only because he’s some sports stud’s wing-man.  He’s the one who, while everyone else is enjoying a little booze, a little grass, and some AC/DC, is prattling endlessly about the cultural significance of carved Popsicle sticks.

5. What is a socket?

It’s a tag-line from the old Rowan and Martin Laugh-In TV program.  Would I lie to you (again)?  Don’t believe me??  Look here  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6HIzYXZzI0

6. What is tapestry?

It is/was Carole King’s 1971 album.  I was wrong. I thought it contained the song that she wrote while she was still volunteering at the blood donor clinic, You’re So Vein.

7. What is e-mail?

He/she/it/they are a member of the newly formed LGBTQ2S+, (A random group of symbols, almost as strange and meaningless as the name of Elon Musk’s 7^th son – X Ӕ A-12) unsure whether it is more blessed to give or to receive – perhaps a bit of both if the company is congenial.

8. What is a shower?
   

He’s a guy with an unbuttoned Mac, and a compulsion to display his shortcomings.

9. What is a sandbag?

A golfing groupie  😳  (See; Tiger Woods)

10. What is chocolate?

It is the delightful concoction that causes my tummy to get round, and the world go ‘round, but sadly, not my blood circulation system.  The plaque I want is like the one that the wife’s godmother got from the Queen, for turning 100, not the stuff that clogs my arteries.

Flash Fiction #287

PHOTO PROMPT © Brenda Cox

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

After Richard got his Business degree at Louisiana U., he was thrilled to get an entry position in Chicago.  He loved the South, but revelled in the global culture in the North, especially the food.  When his friend, BillyJoeBob flew up to visit, he excitedly took him to the Market, to sample the foreign fare.

Bubba said, “Ain’t none too sure ’bout this Chink food.  I hears they eats funny meat, and stuff that grows in ditches and swamps.”

Astounded, Richard replied, “Bubba, you’re so narrow-minded, your ears rub together.  Don’t y’all remember chitlins, gator steak, poke salad, and crawfish?”

***

If you’d like to join the Friday Fictioneers fun, go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

Smitty’s Loose Change #19

Ding-dong!  The wicked witch of COVID lockdowns is dead – or at least mortally wounded.  Someone threw a pail of hand-sanitizer on her.  Earlier in August, I spent an exciting weekend.  On Saturday, we attended the celebration of the wife’s aunt/godmother’s 100^th birthday.  Now I have a goal to shoot for.

On the Sunday, I attended an al fresco meeting of the Free Thinkers, in the park.  Damn the Woke Generation!!  In conversation, as I do in my blog-posts, I mentioned, “The Wife.”  A feminist jumped all over me for using that expression, “like she was just some object.  You should refer to her as, ‘My wife”

A male, unasked, unwanted and unneeded, came to my rescue by saying that the term ‘My Wife’ could indicate ownership and control.  Damned if I do.  Damned if I don’t!  Whatever happened to ‘Just keep your damned mouth shut?’

***

An overnight success, after twenty years in the business

Musical archeologists, searching for the lost Ark of the Goldie-Oldies, recently dug up what may be one of the earliest examples of PC/Woke.  They unearthed the 1961 novelty song, My boomerang won’t come back by Charlie Drake.

“My Boomerang” is not exactly a paragon of political correctness, even by 1961 standards. In the song an Aboriginal meeting is described as a “pow-wow”—something more appropriate for Native Americans—while their chanting sounds more African than Aboriginal. (Oddly, many of the Aboriginal speakers in the song have either American or British accents.) Most of all, Drake raised eyebrows with the chorus: “I’ve waved the thing all over the place/practised till I was black in the face/I’m a big disgrace to the Aborigine race/My boomerang won’t come back!”

After the BBC refused to play the tune (despite its popularity in record shops), a new version was recorded, substituting “blue in the face.”  When the song was initially released in the USA it also contained the “black in the face” lyric which was shortly changed to “blue.”

***

The word “monosyllable”…. has five syllables.

***

The problem with religion right now is that it hasn’t evolved.  Instead of being open and searching for ways to be relevant in today’s world, it’s gone all defensive and protective, and it has regressed into lowest-common-denominator sound bites – and fundamentalism.

***

I recently saw a picture of a washroom at Tim Horton’s, Canada’s national coffee and doughnut shop.  The toilet brush holder was a Starbucks mug.

Tim’s provided the coffee and donut balls for the recent outdoor meeting in the park.  They sent two 1-gallon, plastic-lined cardboard flasks of coffee, two boxes of Timbits, a bag of plastic cups, lids, stir-stix, sugar, and creamers.

Down at the bottom of the bag, unasked for, and unexpected, they included a dozen metal lapel pins that read

 O Canada
Right the wrongs

apparently referring to current, Indigenous atonement proceedings.  All very commendable but – when I go to a coffee shop, I want coffee and donuts – not political statements.

I do not see as wrongs, things that Snowflakes, afflicted with White Guilt, claim as wrongs.  When Europeans came to Canada, they operated under the same legal system that the Indigenous did – Take what you need – Hold what you can.

No-one owned the land, until a government, representing several nations and cultures, laid claim.  “Survival Of The Fittest” says that those most able to adapt, are most likely to endure.  Natives were expected to join the changing society.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Many of the wise ones adapted, and became modern, productive Canadians.  The rest want to wear buckskins and feathers, whine that progress has passed them by, and party like it’s 1799.  😥

’22 A To Z Challenge – K

 

I went looking for sauerkraut, –I don’t know why.  I should be able to smell it – and found a Cabbage-Head instead.

I am sometimes sooo… happy that I am saddled with the simple name of Smith, when I research the meanings of other people’s.

A reader made me aware of surname.com, but it only concentrates on English, Scottish and Irish names.  Bing has become more reliable, offering results from several sites.  One of them often does the job.  I also rely on Google Translate, though it does have its drawbacks.

I recently ran into a new, female blogger, who had married a man by the name of Kohlhepp.  This is a rare German name that I had never run into, here in ex-Berlin, Ontario.  I had to look it up.  The biggest problem with Google Translate, is that it does so literally, word by word, rather than idiomatically, with the meaning of the entire phrase or clause.

When I entered Kohlhepp, I got back cabbage–jerk.  Now, does jerk mean a sharp tug, or is he the guy with the big desk in the corner office?  Another rare, local German name is Dreisinger.  I know that it means Three Singers – but which three?  The Magi??  Larry, Shemp and Moe??  A Christian-based name from a church choir??

I may snicker a bit to find that Kohlhepp is a cabbage harvester, but in Germany, that’s an important job.  Somebody gotta make all that sauerkraut.

Here in Canada, we have an up-and-coming Federal politician named Poilievre.  In French, pois are peas, and lievre is a form of ”lever,” which means to lift or raise.  If Tennessee Ernie Ford were still alive, he would Bless his little pea-pickin’ heart.

Dirty To Fibbing Friday

The last of the career diplomats having finally vacated their all-expenses-paid, five-star Conference on how to waste taxpayers money, pensitivity101 was able to sweep up another list of esoteric words for us to test our imaginations on.

1. What are you if you are Mabsoot?
   CONFUSED!!!
   One translation program says that it means extendedness – like a family clan – in Urdu.
   One claims that, in Arabic, or Hebrew slang, it means a happy person. Another insists that it means a life-lesson and challenge. We would have to know just which delegate spewed this gem out.  Was it a Little-Sheet-Head Camel-Chaser pull-start, or a curry-flavored, forehead-dotted push-start??
2. What does it mean to nidificate?

That’s the scientific term for the Nesting Instinct that some pregnant women get.  What is the Nesting Instinct? It is the name given to the distinctive urge to clean, tidy, and organize that occurs during pregnancy. One of the many pregnancy symptoms that they experience, the nesting instinct generally kicks in around the fifth month of pregnancy, however it can also occur much earlier or much later.  Of course, some women have that instinct all the time.  A chocolate box, and a chocolate Lab dog, are better companions and conversationalists, than a lot of men.

3. What is a pabouch?
   

It is a baby, or the way a baby was carried by Indigenous American women as they performed little, day-to-day tasks, that didn’t involve being big man around the teepee.  Everything old is new again, so many modern women are using the same system, although I expect the Woke/Cancel Culture Vultures to soon start carping about Cultural Appropriation.

4. What is quab?
   It’s the sound that a Danish duck makes. It’s a matter of accent. Norwegian ducks, like the one that Hagar the Horrible owns, pronounce it ‘kvack.’
5. What is tacenda?
   It’s the new Iceland/Thai fusion food. Essentially, it’s a Sno-Cone with hot sauce.
6. What does it mean to be ulotrichous?
   It’s a recently-coined neologism describing the actions and attitudes of the newly-formed Woke/Cancel Culture Thought Police. It is being judgmental and Holier-than-thou, with a side order of time travel. Remember when your teacher threatened that, “This will go on your permanent record!”??!  Well, it’s all coming true!  People are being tried, convicted, and sentenced in Star Chamber, kangaroo-courts of public opinion, of 1984-style thought-crimes – things they wrote and said, decades ago, before learning better, and changing.  😯
7. What is waftage?
   It is a measure of how far and fast a bean and jalapeno burrito fart will spread in a closed room. If the dog gets up and glares at you, and your girlfriend’s eyes are teary, even if you’re not watching Eat, Pray, Love, you have good ventilation.
8. What does it mean to yaff?
   That is a type of left-handed Lithuanian, or inverse, knitting, where the pattern appears on the inside. It’s not as pretty, but it is claimed to be warmer. Do not confuse this with TINK – which is KNIT backwards – where you have to rip out about 26 rows, because you made a mistake back there, and if you don’t go back to correct it, Aunt Eileen’s jumper is going to end up looking like a Moebius Strip.
9. What is to yuke?
   To yuke is to play the uke, or ukulele. When exploring European sailing ships began stopping at the Hawaiian Islands, individual sailors sometimes traded hand-made, miniature 4-string guitars, or lutes, to the natives.

Sadly, they usually didn’t stay around long enough to explain about tuning them.  The natives developed a slack-sting playing style.  Like the oboe (below), and the Chinese two-string bowed banjo, they produce an eardrum-piercing, atonal cacophony, only exceeded when Fran Drescher played The Nanny.

10. What is zabaglione?

It is a Music College in Parma, Italy, where the only instrument they teach is the mournful oboe.  I don’t know how much career opportunity there is in always being ‘The Duck’ in the Peter and the Wolf Symphony.  The rest of the orchestra claim that they use the oboe to tune up to.  I think they’re just trying to drown out that awful noise.

My Sister F**ked My Sex Life

While the rest of my cohort were learning about social intercourse – getting a little grope and grab, having a bit of slap and tickle – I was being press-ganged, almost every Friday and Saturday night, into babysitting for my sister.

From the time I turned twelve, until I turned sixteen and got a real girlfriend, I was voluntold to take care of her five young children on weekends.  Wed far too young, she married a country-born party guy.  He was raised on a farm, a mile and a half off the main highway, seven and a half miles out of town, before the turn-off to his place.

Back before marijuana was invented, alcohol was the drug of choice.  He had a circle of friends that he’d partied with, and even after he got married and sired five children, he still wanted to go drinking with them, and she, eagerly, wanted to go along.

I would show up at their house about nine o’clock.  Theoretically, the kids would be in bed, hopefully asleep.  The pair would leave, and we were on our own till some time the next day.  It is just as well that they did not try to drive home drunk, late at night, but that was not a rational decision.

The parties lasted until they ran out of booze, or the last drinker passed out in a chair or on the couch.  They would get a bit of sleep, and return home, semi-sober, some time the next day.  The record was a Sunday where I dressed and fed the kids breakfast, and later lunch, and their parents, missing for 15 hours, wandered in at two PM.

One Sunday morning they were driving home, and they passed a county road sign that said

SPEED
30
MILES

Hungover-ly claiming that meant that he should speed for 30 miles, he jammed his foot down on the accelerator.  Soon, they were flying down a gravel county road at 75/80 MPH.  Suddenly they came over a small rise, 100 yards from a T-intersection with the highway, on a road he should have known like the back of his hand.

He slammed on the brakes, but slid right across the highway which was fortunately almost empty, because church was still in session.  They slid down into a shallow ditch, and slammed into the far bank.  He bent the heavy steel front bumper on the car, and the windshield popped out and flew into the long grass – unbroken.  He stowed it in the back seat, and had it re-installed the next day.

I was supposed to be paid 35 cents an hour for my services.  A normal night/morning should have got me five dollars.  He earned twice what my father did, but my reward was often whatever change he had left in his pocket.

They lived in a lovely house, but it was beside the plywood plant where he was the accountant, in a commercial neighborhood.  Their nearest neighbors had five teenage boys, all known to police.  The man who lived on the street behind them was a known pedophile voyeur.  I quietly stepped into the three girls’ bedroom one night, to pet a cat on the window sill, and caught him peering in the window.

The area was populated by three families who interbred back and forth, till the average IQ was about 90.  They didn’t need a babysitter so much as an armed guard.  With five young children at home, I can sort of understand their need to get away for a while.  Month after month – year after year, this dedicated partying pair left five small children in the care of a young teen boy.  I did what I could, but I got screwed, when I could have been out getting laid.

Mathematical Humor

A young Math PhD got a job at a research facility.  His boss took him on a tour of the facility.  Nearing lunchtime, he showed him to the cafeteria.  As they entered, his boss yelled out, “47!”  Everyone in the room laughed uproariously.  Minutes later, another man entered, and shouted, “13!”  Again, everyone laughed.

Curious, the newbie asked what was going on.  His boss explained that most of the staff had worked together so long, that they had reduced their jokes to numbers, to save time.  The next day, as he was entering the cafeteria, he bellowed, “Negative four.”  The room dissolved in hilarity.  He looked questioningly at his boss.  “I was just kidding.  Why all the mirth?”  The boss replied, “They’ve never heard that one before.”

***

On a chilly Halloween night, a woman goes to the door to find a single tween boy.  He doesn’t have much of a costume, just street clothes, and an odd hat.   She asks him what he is supposed to be. He replies that he is a pirate.  That explains the hat, but he’s alone, so she says, “Where are your buccaneers?”  He tells her, “Under my buckin’ hat.”

***

A Jewish grandmother is giving directions to her grown grandson who is coming to visit with his wife.

“You come to the front door of the apartment. I am in apartment 301.   There is a big panel at the front door. With your elbow, push button 301.  I will buzz you in. Come inside, the elevator is on the right.  Get in, and with your elbow, push 301. When you get out, I’m on the left. With your elbow, hit my doorbell.”

“Grandma, that sounds easy, but, why am I hitting all these buttons with my elbow?

………”What. …. .. You’re coming empty handed?”

***

Why Italian Fathers and Grandfathers pass their handguns down through the family.

An old Italian man is dying. He calls his grandson to his bedside, Guido,   I wan’ you lissina me. I wan’ you to take-a my chrome plated .38 revolver so you will always remember me.””But grandpa, I really don’t like guns… How about you leave me your Rolex watch instead?”

“You lissina me, boy. Somma day you gonna be runna da business, you gonna have a beautiful wife, lotsa money, a big-a home and maybe a couple   of bambinos. Somma day you gonna come-a home and maybe finda youa wife inna bed with another man.  Whatta you gonna do then? Pointa to you watch and say, ‘times up’ “?

***

An attractive blonde from Cork, Ireland, arrived at the casino. She seemed a little intoxicated and bet twenty thousand dollars in a single roll of the dice.

She said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I feel much luckier when I’m completely nude.”
With that, she stripped from the neck down, rolled the dice and with an Irish brogue yelled, “Come on, baby, Mama needs new clothes!”

As the dice came to a stop, she jumped up and down and squealed. “Yes! Yes! I won, I won!” She hugged each of the dealers, picked up her winnings and her clothes and quickly departed.

The dealers stared at each other dumbfounded.

Finally, one of them asked, “What did she roll?”

The other answered, “I don’t know – I thought you were watching.”

MORAL OF THE STORY

Not all Irish are drunks, not all blondes are dumb,

…… but all men…are men!

***

COLONOSCOPY IN SAN FRANCISCO

Being nervous, and embarrassed about my up-coming colonoscopy, on a recommendation, I decided to have it done while visiting friends in San Francisco where the beautiful nurses are allegedly more gentle and accommodating.  As I lay naked on my side on the table, the gorgeous nurse began my procedure.

“Don’t worry, at this stage of the procedure it’s quite normal to get an erection,” the nurse told me.

“I haven’t got an erection,” I replied.

“I have,” replied the nurse.

Don’t get a colonoscopy in San Francisco

***

A young Arab boy asks his father, “What is that weird hat you are wearing?”

The father said, “Why, it’s a ‘chechia’ because in the desert it protects our heads from the intense heat of the sun.”
“And what is this type of clothing that you are wearing?” asked the young man.
“It’s a ‘djbellah’ because in the desert it is very hot and it protects the body,” said the father.
The son asked, “And what about those ugly shoes on your feet?”
His father replied, “These are ‘babouches’ which keep us from burning our feet from hot sand in the desert.”
“So tell me then,” added the boy.
“Yes, my son?”
“Why are you living in Dearborn Michigan and still wearing all this shit??!

***

International Fibbing Friday

Since pensitivity101’s security clearance is higher that Top Secret, she was recently asked to be a charlady at an International Committee Conference on Averting Needless Travel Expenses from Unnecessary Conferences, held in beautiful Blechly-on-Stench.  She came out of the men’s washroom with a double-handful of foreign words that she invites us to fib about.  Since they’re politicians’ words, and already coated with lies, no-one may notice.

1. What is an abbozzo?

This is a term that I learned from my bent-nose, ex-co-worker, Melvin Goombah.  It is the giant hug I give someone when they buy me a calzone.  I could show you a sketch that a street artist did of me embracing someone who did.

2. What does it mean to absquatulate?

I don’t know, but I’m getting my ass out of here as soon as possible, before anyone discovers that my vocabulary is not as broad as I claim it is – and I’m takin’ the petty cash with me for travel expenses.
3.  What is a biggin?

She’s probably not talking about my well-endowed uncle, Ivor Biggin.  I’ll have to put on my thinking cap about this one.  It might even be a benefit to take a short nap.  I’ll probably sleep like a baby after I have a hot toddy.
4.  What is a daedalist?

I am soooo… glad that it has nothing to do with the Catholic Church pedophile scandal.  That’s about diddleists.  He’s a competitor in the Tour d’Estonia bicycle race.  It doesn’t get the interest and coverage that the Tour de France does.  Estonia being much smaller than France, the entire race is usually over in less than 47 minutes.
5.  What is gamophobia?

It is a fear of romantic involvement or marriage.  I thought I had it once, but my girlfriend assured me I didn’t, and that we were getting married.  And I wasn’t even pregnant!!?
6.  What is a holm?

Holm is the Swedish name for a string of hospices where aging actors and actresses live at the end of their careers and their lives.  For extra humidity, to help moisten their lungs, they are often built down on river flats.  Both Celeste Holm, and Sir Ian Holm have stayed at one.
7.  What is jettatura?

Obnoxious words and phrases evolve to hide their objectionable backgrounds.  In the US, nigger became Negro, and then Black, Colored, and finally, African-American.  So too, has Monied Society become the Idle Rich, Glitterati, and the Jet Set, and, at last, Jettatura, a Portuguese term that hides the fact that they’re still lighting $100 cigars with $100 bills, and carrying Gucci purses and Hérmes scarves worth an average family’s annual income.
8.  What is a keffel?

The things I learn at my Eurofood store!!  While they concentrate on European comestibles, they told me that a keffel is a type of Nigerian pancake, made with flour from ground-up crickets.  It is best, served with poinsettia-jelly.
9.  What is meant by labtebricole?

To B, or not to B??  Turns out that it’s not two Bs.  Someone was a tad generous with the consonants.  The word is preferably spelled LATEBRICOLE.  That’s something that I discovered when I emerged from my hermit cave – my Osama bin Laden spider-hole – to get good enough Wi-Fi reception to research it.
10. What is a lacuna?

Apparently, there’s a hole – a gap – in my language knowledge, as big as the one in Terry Thomas’ teeth.