What if there had been Three Wise Women instead of Three Wise Men? They would have asked for directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable and brought practical gifts.
Reindeer supplement their diets with rodents, eggs, placenta and shed antlers when greenery is in short supply. A reindeer can pull twice its body weight for up to 40 miles.
These are just three of the titbits in The Christmas Book that was one of my gifts from CJ and family. I like to relax over Christmas: mentally (I lead such a mentally challenging life the rest of the year!) and physically. Faced with some of the information in books like this I find life too challenging and I do wonder sometimes at the facts that are presented to us in such books.
How on earth, for example, does a reindeer catch a rodent - any rodent. Who tested reindeer to destruction to find their pulling limit? (or did they get all this information out of The Laplanders Guide to Reindeer?). How does that person (it must have been a 'he' because no female would do anything quite so loopy) know that he tested the reindeer with the most stamina? After 40 miles what happens? (CJ suggestes that the reindeer collapses and dies... just retaining enough strength before its demise to bite to death the sod who made it do the work.) Can it pull half its weight for 160 miles?
For someone who has one of the least enquiring minds possible why do I ask these questions? Who knows? Who cares?
Reindeer supplement their diets with rodents, eggs, placenta and shed antlers when greenery is in short supply. A reindeer can pull twice its body weight for up to 40 miles.
These are just three of the titbits in The Christmas Book that was one of my gifts from CJ and family. I like to relax over Christmas: mentally (I lead such a mentally challenging life the rest of the year!) and physically. Faced with some of the information in books like this I find life too challenging and I do wonder sometimes at the facts that are presented to us in such books.
How on earth, for example, does a reindeer catch a rodent - any rodent. Who tested reindeer to destruction to find their pulling limit? (or did they get all this information out of The Laplanders Guide to Reindeer?). How does that person (it must have been a 'he' because no female would do anything quite so loopy) know that he tested the reindeer with the most stamina? After 40 miles what happens? (CJ suggestes that the reindeer collapses and dies... just retaining enough strength before its demise to bite to death the sod who made it do the work.) Can it pull half its weight for 160 miles?
For someone who has one of the least enquiring minds possible why do I ask these questions? Who knows? Who cares?
Posts
I think the phrase is spick-and-span though with the modern problems of e-mails it may have been updated... There are 16 explanations on this page alone -
ReplyDeletehttp://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/spick-and-span.html. So, I suggest, we all use our own imaginations and create an imaginary origin since it is obvious no one really knows. It's a pity they didn't have an Oxford Dictionary of Catchphrases in the 16th century!
Have just seen that spick and span had two comments already so I obviously posted mine in the wrong place - oops...
ReplyDelete