99 YEARS OLD AND STILL THOUGHTFULLY INVERTED…

SOON after yesterday’s column appeared, an emissary arrived on horseback at Beachcomber Towers bearing a rolled- up parchment sealed with wax.

For those who may, for some inexplicable reason, have missed yesterday’s piece, I should explain that it concerned my attempt to live like a sloth and view the world from a sloth’s perspective ( which is mostly upside down).

When I had unwaxed and unrolled the parchment, I saw that it had, as I’d suspected, come from my esteemed correspondent Lady Clamydia Featherlight- Plume and consisted, apart from her ladyship’s customary salutations, of just three words ( two of which were hyphenated): “Two- toed or three- toed?”

I reached for my quill and replied immediately on the back of the parchment: “Three- toed,” and sent the horseman on his way.

Some hours later, he returned with a further message asking simply, “Why?” This time I replied more fully:

“As you know,” I said, “all sloths have three toes on each of their hind limbs. The Bradypus, or three- toed sloth, also has three toes on its front limbs. For that reason, I have always preferred the Bradypus to its cousin the Choloepus which has only two toes on its forelimbs. The symmetry of the Bradypus toes has always seemed to me to be more inherently satisfying.

“There was also the practical consideration of how to create the desired toe arrangement on my own hands and feet. A total of three toes or fingers can easily be created by strapping together two pairs of digits, but one is faced with a problem when trying to create two toes.

“Should the middle finger be strapped to the index finger and thumb, or should it side with the other two fingers? The three- toed option avoids this distressing dilemma.”

This time, having kept the horseman waiting longer than before, I refreshed him with a flagon of mead and sent him on his way.

Once more, he returned within a few hours with another message. It was not a question this time but simply a statement: “Sloths,” it said, “whether two- toed or three- toed, do not have opposable thumbs. Does this not expose a flaw in your arrangement?”

“No,” I replied firmly. “For as I explained yesterday, I Velcro’d my hands and my feet together to make it less of a strain hanging upside down. When one’s hands are Velcro’d together it matters not one iota whether the thumbs are opposable or not, for their lack of freedom of movement renders their previous opposability inoperative.”

The reply this time came quickly: “Not if your Velcro is applied only to the fingers, palms and backs of hands, leaving the thumbs un- Velcro’d and therefore free to oppose should the occasion arise.”

“The occasion,” I replied, “did not arise.” Thinking about it, however, I realised that her ladyship had a point. The Laurent- Perrier would have been easier to drink if I’d been able to clasp the glass between finger and thumb.