riddle

Given my plans to zip up to London on Saturday, I'm already vaguely compiling a shopping list. This, That, and The Other, and if I can find a reasonable sushi place for lunch, unless I get seduced by Wagamama first . . .

Let's see. Monday is a Bank Holiday. Everyone at work, and my mother when I see her, are luxuriating in the slow happy sensation of a forthcoming three-day weekend.

It's the time of month when I keep a beady eye on Archonia for new manga. It does little good to jump up and down and scream "come on come on come on", though, as I don't think they can hear me in Belgium from here. (And how come GetBackers Vol 6 isn't out yet, huh, huh? My desire is itching.)

We spent the morning stuffing envelopes with just-arrived Data Quality Reviews and Coding Clinics. I grew sick of the sight of the man on the cover of the DQR.

Wrote this for something else; didn't use it, so here it is for your entertainment, and perhaps, in a year's time, my own confusion. "I knew the solution then . . ."

Riddle

They called me a lady, I sailed like a man:
My name has been pretty since e'er I began.
I wore the fine calico, read by my side;
I pleaded my belly and swallowed my pride...
I start at beginning, the first of the crew:
But thirteen days later, I'm found nearly new.
The third is the same (and is still in the middle),
The fourth is a squeal (though perhaps that's a
fiddle.)

When moving to surnames, we'll go where there's honey,
Then drip it and pour it through circles so runny.
Repeat me the middle of what came in octet,
Symmetrical middles are lovely in sestet...
The second to last is the first of the end:
We finish with Why? And go right round the bend.