Three words, first word...

We've been teaching the kids how to play charades recently which they seem to really enjoy. We've been through the basics of word count, small words and categorisations. We've still to tackle syllables and sounds likes and have invented a new category in 'computer games' (thumbs playing a control pad).

This is Ewan's category of Song.

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Notes on Judaism...
I think if I was to ever choose a religion, I think I'd choose Judaism. Not for any reason than it seems to have some wonderfully cooky rules and some wonderfully cooky ways of circumventing those rules. One of my weekly podcasts had a game of Jewey or Fiction. You had to guess which was the made up rules that Jews have to follow and the ways of circumventing it. I'll put them below, without GoogleCheating, which one of the following do you think is the made up Jewish custom?

#1: The bible prohibits work/labor on the Sabbath, the day of rest. Religious Jewish define this prohibition very broadly and consider a multitude of tasks n simple actions to be considered 'work.' Among them the prohibition of 'separating,' defined as removing anything undesired from desired things. Examples of this would be filtering water or even picking out bones from fish before eating. This prohibition ultimately led to religious Jews creating the boneless popular dish called 'gefilte fish.'

#2: Many things are prohibited for Jews to do during the Sabbath. Among them is carrying any item outdoors. This includes carrying home keys in your pockets or even pushing an infant in a stroller. To allow for such activities, Jews put up a string around their neighborhoods thus encircling it all and making it as if it was one large common area and things may be carried within its perimeter.

#3: The bible, in efforts to restrict cruelty to animals, does not allow a farmer to muzzle his ox while threshing his field. The Talmud revered book of religious Jews, entertains a loophole for Jews to employ where farmers would have contracts drawn up with neighbors that would temporarily switch ownership of oxen during threshing. This would result in the farmer not muzzling his own animal but rather his neighbors animal thus not violating the biblical prohibition which says 'thou shalt not muzzle YOUR ox.'

#4: The bible prohibits shaving ones face. While all religious Jewish abide by this biblical prohibition, non ultra orthodox Jews allow cutting/trimming ones beard. In recent times though, with the advent of electric shavers, the option of shaving is now available to religious Jews who do not wish to violate the biblical prohibition. The logic is that electric shavers employ a 2 blade cutting method which act like tiny scissors and are merely cutting the hair very short and not actually shaving it.