I still drop in from time to time.... like now for...

I still drop in from time to time.... like now for instance.

Whilst on the meaning of names, according to the dictionary 'swap' means to 'exchange, barter or trade one thing for another'.

A long while ago, I knew some people who went to parties where men exchanged, bartered or traded their wife for another wife for the evening. The actual mechanism seemed unnecessarily complex and involved some form of car key lottery between participants. Certainly not my scene, but it was the 1970s and everyone seemed to enjoy it. I'm sure this practice still continues today if you look hard enough but I prefer a good book and a cup of tea myself.

Swap is also a computing term which means 'to move information from fast-access memory to slow-access memory', often referring specifically to the use of disks as 'virtual memory'. I have no idea what this means, which I am absolutely fine with.

A 'Swap' is also a financial instrument which appears, in-part, to have caused the global financial crisis. When used correctly, these instruments allow one party to swap a series of cash flows with another party usually as a hedge. When used incorrectly, one party receives a small amount of money and assumes a huge amount of risk from the other party. The money received is spent on champagne, fast cars and dodgy 1970-style parties and when the risk eventuates, the loss is simply passed on to the taxpayer via the government.

As an acronym, SWAP seems to have a number of uses. I particularly like 'Severe Weather Avoidance Procedures' and 'Solution Without A Problem', both of which are quite apt.

So, I am either a verb, a techy term, one of the causes of the GFC or any one of numerous acronyms.

Anyone want to swap?