On the Isle of Man we cannot say “rat”.
This is something to do with the words plague and parochialism.
Except, parochial is GOOD.
And before we move on swiftly…
I have to say a big hurrah to the Manx politicians who have been sensitive to the world stage and played their part but now seem to be coming down to appreciate that there is more to the plague story than meets the eye. Thank god for Vikings including Swedes..
But I digress…
I was told (and this could be complete rubbish) that paragliding pilots (who in the early days were mountaineers who couldn’t be bothered climbing down – for eg., John Sylvester (pictured in Bir, Himalayas) who sadly passed away earlier this year through natural causes…
…. have an expression called “feeding the rat”.
The rat referred to is a desire which we have in us and which needs to be fed.
In mountaineering parlance it means scaring yourself witless by scaling something beyond your capability (still making this up as I go along).
And when the peak is climbed the rat is fed.
But when the mountaineer is sat on his backside in comfort, back at home, the rat inside him starts to chew.
And it chews at his insides; and he becomes irrational and angry and mean (my rat is very well fed because of the largesse of my wonderful wife of 30+ years who understands this predilection)
I started this post because (due to my huge ego) it was all about me.
I wanted to show you a clip of me crashing a paraglider on an awesome supervised course (SIV) where you are trained to try and recover a bad situation without dying..Β
But the eagerness dissolved in the writing of this.
We are all “crashing paragliders” at the moment.
Be strong peeps.
And feed your rat whenever you get the chance.
