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My 3 year old asked me how Santa knows when you are sleeping and I told him “metadata” - he asked how he knows if you’ve been bad or good, and I told him, inte

My 3 year old asked me how Santa knows when you are sleeping and I told him “metadata” - he asked how he knows if you’ve been bad or good, and I told him, intelligence sharing agreements between five eyes nations. I hope he has a sense of humor about this when he gets older (but he probably won’t remember it)

stephenr 3y ago
Just as likely he'll start asking you to check under his bed for the monsters "mega dada" and "the one with five eyes"!
- gerdesj 3y ago
  Yes, do be careful with cunning quips to young 'uns! There are lots of legitimate "lies to children" as Terry Pratchet used to say but they can come back to bite you later. One of those euphemisms for a while, in the UK, was "gone to Devon". I think it arose naturally from gone to heaven being miss-heard. Devon is a popular holiday destination, so going to Devon is a reasonably often heard phrase. Even young enough Devonian (1) children could probably manage to accept that as an explanation! I can remember being aged around six in an infant school in West Germany. I'm a British Army brat, this was around 1976. We were sat in a circle around the teacher and assistant towards the end of the day and they were asking questions like what were we going to do for the holidays. Several kids responded that they were going to the UK. I had no idea what they were on about. It wasn't important enough to me at the time to ask and I obviously found out later. Even later on, I discovered just how complicated "the UK" really is as a group of entities! (1) I have ancestry going back sixteen generations in Devon and Cornwall, a thicket in Northants, and a direct male line that vanishes into Hanover. Oh and possibly a C18 serial killer from near Devizes.
  - InCityDreams 3y ago
    Iserlohn, Soest, Bruggen?
    - gerdesj 3y ago
      Bracht and Paderborn are our postings closest to those (also Rhine D (MG), Soltau and Bielefeld)
- erik_seaberg 3y ago
  I kinda want to see a Laundry Files book where “Five Eyes” is an oblique reference to a demon the intelligence services have enlisted.
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stephenr 3y ago

Just as likely he'll start asking you to check under his bed for the monsters "mega dada" and "the one with five eyes"!

gerdesj 3y ago
Yes, do be careful with cunning quips to young 'uns! There are lots of legitimate "lies to children" as Terry Pratchet used to say but they can come back to bite you later. One of those euphemisms for a while, in the UK, was "gone to Devon". I think it arose naturally from gone to heaven being miss-heard. Devon is a popular holiday destination, so going to Devon is a reasonably often heard phrase. Even young enough Devonian (1) children could probably manage to accept that as an explanation! I can remember being aged around six in an infant school in West Germany. I'm a British Army brat, this was around 1976. We were sat in a circle around the teacher and assistant towards the end of the day and they were asking questions like what were we going to do for the holidays. Several kids responded that they were going to the UK. I had no idea what they were on about. It wasn't important enough to me at the time to ask and I obviously found out later. Even later on, I discovered just how complicated "the UK" really is as a group of entities! (1) I have ancestry going back sixteen generations in Devon and Cornwall, a thicket in Northants, and a direct male line that vanishes into Hanover. Oh and possibly a C18 serial killer from near Devizes.
- InCityDreams 3y ago
  Iserlohn, Soest, Bruggen?
  - gerdesj 3y ago
    Bracht and Paderborn are our postings closest to those (also Rhine D (MG), Soltau and Bielefeld)
erik_seaberg 3y ago
I kinda want to see a Laundry Files book where “Five Eyes” is an oblique reference to a demon the intelligence services have enlisted.

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