Ask and you shall receive...

In response to Friday's post soliciting random questions for me to answer honestly, I have done.

It was actually quite fun to do and I'll probably do so again when the mood hits.

Below are all answers to every question that was posed:

Christy asked:
If you could drop everything and travel somewhere in the world right now, where would it be and why?

Scotland. 

Were Canada in the throes of winter right now I may be more inclined to say Australia or some more tropical clime, but since I’m enjoying a delightful summer, I’d love to spend at least a month tramping around the highlands of Scotland, sampling some of the finest single malt scotch that ever graced God’s green Earth and lose myself in the skirling drone of a set of bagpipes barely visible through the mist rolling in off the loch.  While eating haggis.

Och Aye!!

Alec asked: 
On your way home from work you bump into God (don't worry, no one's hurt) and get to ask one question or make one statement. What do ya do?

More importantly: Toilet paper: over or under?

When I meet God (assuming for the moment that (s)he’s actually willing to assume a recognisable corporeal form such that I may interact with it), I’d like to ask that we both, for a moment, assume that the spiritual evolution of Man were likened to a 100 metre sprint.  Where, in that analogy, are we?

Barring the courage to ask that (for fear of having a pretty good idea already), I’d ask for next week’s winning lottery numbers.

Just as importantly, the TP question.  Though vinny (in his comment below yours) thought the answer to this one obvious with the presence of a toddler in the house (especially given the incremental increase in the number of exclamation points he used with each successive sentence in his comment), I have to disagree.  Toilet paper must (MUST!) always fall over the top of the roll.  If I am enthroned at your own house and find it falling under, I will do you the favour and swap it for you.  I am very obsessive about this, so don’t press me.  I’ll snap.  Same goes for paper towels.

Francois asked:
Alec: That isn't even a question in the mind of a parent. Think about it! The madness!! Reverse the polarity!!!

My Q:
It's your funeral (you died doing a sexy dance for your wife). Your two grown-up sons (who were told you died in your sleep) and your wife step up to the podium and deliver their eulogies in one word each. What do they say?

Bonus Q:
If you're a mer-person, is it ethical to eat fish?

How about what I’d like for them to say at the end of all things?  And hyphens count.

Amy: Partner.

Declan: Role-model.

Tavish: Present.

Mer-person: Who's Simon and what am I doing standing at a podium?  And has anyone seen Daryl Hannah?

I think it would be perfectly ethical for a mer-person to eat fish.  After all, it's the human top half of the creature that does the consuming.  By the time the fish part knows what's going on, it's just poop.  When we get to talking fairy tale creatures, all regular bets are off.

Holly asked:
GREAT questions, fv.
So, here's my question: "How does fv manage to pose such great questions?"

Francois (aka – vinny, fv) asks good questions because he combines a higher than average (non spoon-fed) intelligence with a mind that is also capable of grasping some of the more esoteric and ‘softer’ nuances of human nature not so readily available in black and white.  An enviable combination.  This has had the side effect of making him a bit of a pedantic smart-ass on a semi-regular basis, and that, combined with a certain innate hubris, has inculcated a degree of social ineptitude that regularly marks him a pariah when, really, you should have just gotten to know him better.  Though there are other times when he's just being an ass, and knows it.

Maybe that’s why I seem to get along with him.

Now, c’mon, this was supposed to be about me!

Paul asked:
List 3 songs that...
Nope. I'm only joking. OK, how about this one: It's Declan's wedding. What is your toast?

I paused over this one the longest and am having a hard time coming up with something suitable.  I don't want to spell out an entire toast, because I can get rather long-winded when given time and a keyboard. 

Generally, I would express my paternal love for both my son and his new bride, the daughter I never had.  The importance of fair play and fighting inside a marriage and that it's hard work.  But so very worth it.  To please approach marriage with a realistic point of view, for the idealistic patina will wear off and it'll be the two of them making a life together after the honeymoon's over.  To learn from what he saw in my own marriage to his mother, both the good and the bad, and create something new.

And it would take me at least 15 minutes to get it all out since I'd be a blubbering idiot up there.

Mark asked:
Mostly on top, or mostly on bottom?

‘Mostly’ implies a frequency such that I have (recently) either a habit or a preference.  Please make mental note of the presence of a toddler AND an infant in my house and you’ll quickly come to conclusion (as I have) that I’m ecstatic with ‘any’.

Elizabeth asked:
Assuming all your loved ones (oh, and the dogs) were safe, what one thing would you try to grab on your way out of your burning house?

Even though I’ve espoused my undying love for such things as my Anakin Skywalker Force FX lightsabre on this site, I place little relative value on most of my physical possessions.  In this instance, I’d follow the 3-P rule of house fires: People, Pets and Pictures; in that order.  So, since we’ve assumed the first two are safe (and I love how the first part of that question was phrased), I’d grab the photo albums.  I’d also be sorely tempted to run downstairs and tear the computer hard drive out from its mess of cables since ALL the photos are on that.

Lord Krala asked:
When's your birthday?

According to the Chinese Zodiac, I was born in the Year of the Tiger, and I share the same birth date with such luminaries as Franz Ferdinand (Archduke of Austria), Josef Stalin, Ty Cobb, Betty Grable, Steven Spielberg and Brad Pitt.

Linda asked:
What was your Life's Hardest Lesson?

The importance of loving one’s self first, before being able to truly love others.  (I'm still working on it.)

It took five years in a bad relationship and narrowly avoiding what would have been a horrible marriage to have the importance of that one pounded into me.

Uncle Tom asked:
you have the ability to go back in time or forward into the future and either influence or witness, once. What event or time would you go to and what would you do there?

I’d rather not influence, since we’ve made our own bed here in the grand scheme of things.  But I’d be very keen to witness the construction of the Great Pyramid at Giza.  That would settle a lot of things.  Mind you, being a fly on the wall manger-side in the stable would be right up there.

Grampa asked:
If a man says something in the woods and nobody hears, is he still wrong?

I don’t know, is he married yet?  Everything’s relative, after all.

(A different) Mark asked:
So Simon, let's say you pull a thorn outta the Pope's butt, and he grants you one wish, what'll it be?

Bonus Question: Where does my question originally come from?

To the pope, I’d ask that the pedagogues of the Catholic world, from now unto eternity, propagate the doctrine of Christ using Love, rather than Fear, as the impetus.  That’d be nice.

Bonus: this question of yours, Mark, seems to be based on the fable of the mouse pulling the thorn from the lion’s paw.

JuJuBee asked:
Just what IS the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow, anyway? European or African, your choice.

The most difficult question posed yet, and one worthy of much introspection, possibly even bloody debate.  A no-holds-barred Swallow Cage Match that will echo through the ages.  (Pay-per-View only.)  Given the dynamic nature of winged flight (regardless of species of bird or its relative state of laden-ness), there will be a large variety of answers – all correct – that depend on factors not provided in the original question.

Thus, I present here just some few potential answers that cover only a fraction of the possible circumstances.

: slower than light, faster than spam.

: 35 miles per hour with a tail wind.

: faster than a laden swallow of similar dimensions.

: at least twice as fast as a mosquito (with or without West Nile virus), and most probably much faster than that, even.

: exactly as fast as a bowling ball when dropped from an equal height in a perfect vacuum.  (Note: may only be performed once per bird.)

: zero, unless startled.

Rick asked (just under the wire):
How did the drunken debauchery go?

What's your favorite epic poem? In any medium, including film, clay tablet or runestone.

The debauchery went amazingly well.  We all had a fabulous time together, it being my first time ‘out’ since Oktoberfest late last year.  The details of any stag party are, perforce, sacrosanct to the participants thereof unto eternity, but there was one photograph that sort of summed up the day quite nicely.  I don’t have a copy of it yet, but it was taken back at The Farm after lunch at Hooters: James, the groom-to-be, was standing wearing his new vintage #11 Mark Messier Edmonton Oilers hockey jersey, him crowned by a rather large, wide, black-brimmed “Admiral’s Hat” and wielding – quite dangerously – a full-scale replica of Connor MacLeod’s katana sword from the movie, Highlander.  The latter two items courtesy of the army surplus store we browsed after the casino and before returning to The Farm.  And this was before we started drinking (much).

I rolled into bed at home by 3 AM Sunday morning and was brusquely awakened by having an infant thrust into my languorous grip at 7 AM.

Good times.

For the poem: I have intentions to read Homer’s Iliad and The Odyssey some day.  Perhaps once that happens, it’ll be one of them.  Or Beowulf.  But for now, my exposure to epic poems has been lamentably limited. For the nonce I will claim Robert Service’s The Cremation of Sam McGee as my fave.  And if anyone wants to disagree about its status as ‘epic’, you just c’mere and say that.

Holly asked:
If this is still at the top, then I'm still allowed to pose another question. Here's that question: "Why is this still at the top?"

See my response to Rick's answer just above re: the stag party. 

Domesticity and debauchery do not free time comprise.  Plus, my sister-in-law and niece were visiting for the weekend.  Ergo, a lunch-hour reply on Monday.

Comments

[Paul]

Somewhere, there is a website where some geeks (probably MIT students) have made the appropriate calculations and determined the average wingspeed of an unladen sparrow. I don't remember if it was the European or African they based their work upon.

[rick]

Deftly phrased answers.

And if someone wants to disagree with Sam McGee's epic status then they can talk to me when you're done with em.

[Holly Capote]

Simon, I really, really, REALLY like this answer: "To the pope, I’d ask that the pedagogues of the Catholic world, from now unto eternity, propagate the doctrine of Christ using Love, rather than Fear, as the impetus. That’d be nice."

[Linda]

You just continue to get awesomer all the time, my good man.
And what you thought and wrote on your lunch hour would take me like a week. And still would not be nearly as eloquent or expressive...

[Tasha]

Hee. You make me laugh.

Also, I notice you have Brad Pitt's birthday. It's funny, cuz I have Angelina Jolie's, right down to the year.

[Mark]

Nobody's going to be a complete arse and say, "I would have answered it like this..." Come on, is EVERYBODY who reads Simon's blog nice?

Loved your Pope answer most of all, and I'm not even Catholic. Never read Beowulf? Oy. Read it, and then read the book called Grendel, a great account of the story from the other side.

If you've seen The 13th Warrior, then you've seen a bad rip-off of Michael Crichton's fairly good Beowulf rip-off, called The Eaters of the Dead. I recommend that book, for certain, if you aren't going to brave the epic poem itself.

[Mark S]

Actually, Simon, my question was from The Simpsons, but, of course they got it from the Mouse/Lion fable. Moe asks it of Lenny:

Moe: So Lenny, let's say you pull a thorn outta the Pope's butt, and he
grants you one wish, what'll it be?
Lenny: Hmm, only one, huh? Well... I've always wondered what it'd feel like to
wear something that's been ironed.
Carl: [whistles impressed] That'd be sweet. What about you, Moe?
Moe: Ah, gee, I was gonna say a night with Joey Heatherton, but an ironed
shirt... damn, that's tempting.

I had just watched the episode recently and thought it was a fitting question for you.

As for Epic poems, Beowulf was ok, but I did like Paradise Lost by John Milton.

[the Mater]

Brilliant epic of your own.

Sorry I missed this Q&A but hope you do it monthly. It's a great mental exercise for your readers and for you :>)

The reply to the Pope was spot on!