It's all just swings and roundabouts

Well, this week Squid on the grill comes to you from sunny Sugarland, Texas. This is a town just outside of Houston. I'm down here for business. A petrochemical plant in Qatar is buying a paging/alarm system from my company's Italian subsidiary. This is being organized by a U.S. company, which is working with a British company. Confused? Me too.

Anyway, one of the British guys comes from Cirencester, a town very close to where I grew up. It has been good to spend some time with someone from "the old country", and I quickly bounced back into the way I used to speak.

Trouble is, one of my colleagues is having a hard time with some of the more colorful expressions being used. He keeps looking at me with a "huh" expression, and I have to translate. See if you can do any better. Below are three of the expressions causing difficulties, with the translation in new "Inviso-text" (thanks, TV Guy). Simply click and drag your mouse pointer past the "Translation:" for the answer.

Here goes:

It's all just swings and roundabouts

Translation: Swings and roundabouts is a shortened version of the fairground proverb 'What you lose on the swings you win on the roundabouts', current from the beginning of the twentieth century in various forms. It is used to mean that things will balance out in the end.

Move the speakers up a noggin

Translation: A noggin is a person's head, so to move something "a noggin" is to move it a small distance, i.e. a head's length.

We'll need to do a little jiggery-pokery

Translation: Jiggery-pokery is defined as underhanded manipulation or dealings.

Well, there you have it. Other terms such as "queue" (for "line") came up while we were waiting to get into a restaurant. I suggested that "If we do a little jiggery-pokery, we might be able to shorten the queue a noggin. After all, it's all just swings and roundabouts."

Legends

Every society has legends. Powerful stories, passed on from generation to generation, to awe, inspire and instill virtue and character in the youth of the time.

For example, ancient Greeks told of Odysseus, the mighty and cunning warrior who devised the plan for the Trojan horse, and suffered at the hands of various gods as he struggled to get back home to his beloved wife.

The Romans would recount the story of Romulus and Remus, twin boys fathered by the god Mars, who avoided an early death at the hand of their jealous grandfather, and went on to found both the city and empire of Rome.

Even in Britain, my home country, people still tell of King Arthur, the chivalrous leader of England, , vanquishing foes with the help of a magical sword and his knights of the round table.

So, what legend do we have in the good ol' 21st century U.S. of A?

I'll tell you.

Bengay.

That's right, Bengay. Other civilizations had Ben-Hur, we get Bengay.

Let me explain... I was watching TV the other night when an ad came on.

Some people I know tend to mute the sound during ads. I do not like this practise. Maybe I'm not strong enough to turn away, but muting ads doesn't make me stop watching them, it just makes me try to lip-read. I can't lip-read, so this becomes very frustrating. So, stop muting the ads already, OK? If you want to avoid them, just turn the TV off for a couple of minutes.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah, an ad for some adhesive bandage first aid thing came on. You know the sort of thing, someone breaks a leg or loses an eye, and everything is made better by an adhesive bandage (with or without current character logos). Then, as everyone smiles (including the person with the formerly broken leg or missing eye), a retired auctioneer on speed reads the 4,378 word disclaimer.

Anyway, during this ad, the announcer was quick to state that this was the only bandage infused with the LEDGENDARY BENGAY!!!

I don't know about you, but I have never (and probably will never) gather the kids around to hear of the awe-inspiring LEGEND OF BENGAY.

But if I do, and one of the children trips and falls on me, causing me to pull a muscle, I'll know exactly which adhesive-bandage-type-product to use.

Oh, the Windows have lovely Vistas...

You may have heard by now that the new Microsoft Windows Vista is about to hit the stores. As with all new releases of Windows, Vista will, of course, install easily and perform flawlessly.

For those of us who actually use computers while awake, in addition to the new Vista Support Center, Microsoft have pledged to continue to support all previous versions of Windows.

Right.

In shocking news, a copy of the new Microsoft Support Center Upgrade Plan has been discovered. Here's what will supposedly happen when a Windows user calls Microsoft for help...

Call answered on second ring (by computer, of course)

Credit card information obtained through touch-tone keypad input.

Music and Vista ads, while credit card information verified.

Caller invited to press keypad button #1 to #0, to indicate version of Windows, with the following results:

#1 - Windows Vista: Forward call to Bangalore, as normal

#2 - Windows XP: Laugh heartily

#3 - Windows 2000: Laugh even more heartily, and joke about "Y2K"

#4 - Windows ME: Pretend that version never existed

#5 - Windows 98: Act as if the caller had just said their mother had died

#6 - Windows NT: Initiate remote "Blue Screen of Death" and hang up

#7 - Windows 95: Direct user to telegram-based support line

#8 - Windows 3.1: Direct user to smoke-signal-based support line

#9 - OS X: Trace call and forward information to Microsoft "black ops" agents

#0 - Linux: Scream and hang up