Longest “ah hah!” moment
Discussion
Wasn’t quite sure how to word the title to this thread. What I’m trying to capture is when you figure something out after a long time. Hope this example that happened yesterday illustrates what I mean.
A week or so back I was reading a thread on PH and someone used the word octopus in relation to a certain part of the human anatomy. For some reason it suddenly came to me yesterday that the title of Limp Biskit’s album, The Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavoured Water was a reference to the same body part! I had never thought about the meaning of the title before. So probably around 15 years between hearing the name of the album and figuring out what it meant!
Have you had similar “inspirations” many years after the event?
A week or so back I was reading a thread on PH and someone used the word octopus in relation to a certain part of the human anatomy. For some reason it suddenly came to me yesterday that the title of Limp Biskit’s album, The Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavoured Water was a reference to the same body part! I had never thought about the meaning of the title before. So probably around 15 years between hearing the name of the album and figuring out what it meant!
Have you had similar “inspirations” many years after the event?
Caught a clip featuring Red Hot Chili Peppers on Glastonbury C2000ish, and loved the baseline. I don't have any peppers albums so kept singing the baseline and generally annoying pals who do. Blank looks everywhere.
Trawl through YouTube Peppers songs but no joy. I remember Flea having a helmet with a flame on top while he was playing it- surely a great clue. Nope.
Hear the same baseline in various clips over next 18yrs but never manage to record it.
Roll on to last year and the song appears behind F1 race preamble that I'm recording. I jump out my chair and spend next 20 mins downloading Shazam but the noise of engines and voiceover thwarts the didital detective. Arrrrgh!
6 months later and someone sends me the youtube link of that same F1 montage and I'm as I'm idly reading the comments..someone asks if anyone knows the background music - and gets a reply!!
I check it and am literally jumping around the room to the bafflement of my family. I got the answer!! And the reason I didn't get there sooner is that although the baseline is very Flea like - and it was used in a RHCP montage, it wasnt actually by them!
All makes sense now and I'm happy to get on with the rest of my life.
But there is an epilogue...
So few weeks later I'm at pub with some mates and I play them the song I had just found (no background story, just the song), one of them says
"they are the lyrics for a Chili Peppers song"!
Sooo anyone wanna guess the tune?
Trawl through YouTube Peppers songs but no joy. I remember Flea having a helmet with a flame on top while he was playing it- surely a great clue. Nope.
Hear the same baseline in various clips over next 18yrs but never manage to record it.
Roll on to last year and the song appears behind F1 race preamble that I'm recording. I jump out my chair and spend next 20 mins downloading Shazam but the noise of engines and voiceover thwarts the didital detective. Arrrrgh!
6 months later and someone sends me the youtube link of that same F1 montage and I'm as I'm idly reading the comments..someone asks if anyone knows the background music - and gets a reply!!
I check it and am literally jumping around the room to the bafflement of my family. I got the answer!! And the reason I didn't get there sooner is that although the baseline is very Flea like - and it was used in a RHCP montage, it wasnt actually by them!
All makes sense now and I'm happy to get on with the rest of my life.
But there is an epilogue...
So few weeks later I'm at pub with some mates and I play them the song I had just found (no background story, just the song), one of them says
"they are the lyrics for a Chili Peppers song"!
Sooo anyone wanna guess the tune?
Who remembers Two little birdies sitting on a wall?
My Auntie Tillie used to do it when I was very small and as I got older she just stopped.
When I was 26 We had our first daughter, a couple of years later it suddenly popped back into my head and it was then, about 30 years after I last saw it done that I realised how it worked. Now that was an aha moment.
My Auntie Tillie used to do it when I was very small and as I got older she just stopped.
When I was 26 We had our first daughter, a couple of years later it suddenly popped back into my head and it was then, about 30 years after I last saw it done that I realised how it worked. Now that was an aha moment.
Smitters said:
My mum must have been mid fifties when she suddenly blurted out "Eyore is a donkey!".
Transpired she's never been sure what animal he was and hadn't considered the name a clue.
Similar to work colleague a couple of years back who suddenly had his own "Ah haaaa...." moment in front of about 6 of us as we were having a chat about Wallace and Grommit, and more specifically Sean the sheep. We were having a chuckle at Sean and his name, and the fella was like" What's so special about the name?". Transpired she's never been sure what animal he was and hadn't considered the name a clue.
I asked him "When a sheep has had it's coat cut off, how would you descrfibe it?"
He had about 10 seconds pause, then "Ahhhhh haaaa....., fecking hell"

When I was about 9 years old we went on a family holiday driving around Scotland. At dinner one evening I remember Dad asking abut the dinner menu and Tarbled Oats - which I assumed was some local delicacy.
Was a good few years before I realised he was enquiring about the table d'hote menu.
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