Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings

Because my f-list knows the answers to Important Questions:

a) What is the female equivalent of a "Lord Mayor"? Is she a "lady" or a "mayoress" or neither or both?

b) In your opinion: when did lube become an every-day product that can be bought in your friendly neighbourhood drugstore? I read "Life on Mars" slash occasionally, and whenever I encounter the casual mention of lube in the nightstand drawer, it strikes me as somewhat off. Wouldn't vaseline be more likely? I've honestly no idea - I can be dead wrong here. I just remember that when I was in my teens in the 1990s, it was "vaseline" that was associated with anal sex, because "lube" wasn't around all that much and could be only purchased in the rather more, ah, specialised shops. (When I was 17, I read about the use of Crisco as the product for anal fisting in a gay mag, and my then best friend and I bought some in a sex shop and used it to bake a cherry cake. We thought it was hilarious. But that's just by the bye.)

The fun thing about not being a native speaker of English is that I often learn perfectly ordinary vocabulary in the wrong context, namely through porn. Earning, as I do, my living through writing technical texts for English-language publications, I often have to use terminology such as "erections" (buildings), "lubrication" (machines) and "kinks" (mechanical parts). It's impossible not to connote them with filth. As I'm sure you all understand.

What's more, sometimes I'm not aware that a word I learn through porn (or porn-related discussions) has a perfectly ordinary meaning. Would you believe that I've only just recently learned what a "manhole" is? I've always thought it was a silly euphemism that is used for fun and giggles on account of being so silly.

And you've simply got to check out this finely pierced cock.

Can anyone help me with agricultural technology here? Rosina maybe?

How do you call the crop huddles you get after harvesting a field, when you bind the crops (wheat or whatever) together so that they form conic shapes? "Crop huddles" just doesn't sound quite right.

The discussions that evolved from my latest post on Harry Potter-influenced naming of children made me think of this site. It offers a list of the translations of HP names (both characters and objects) they use in various European languages. Some of them are funny. Did you know that Minerva is called "Minerva McSlurp" in Norwegian? And that "Moony" is "Luna"? (Quite an identity crisis coming up in OotP. Or maybe the Norwegian translator is giving us subtext.) The Finnish Padfoot is "Anturajalka", and I simply love the Czech versions of all female names, all of which come with the -ova suffix; Rita Holoubková, Madame Pomfreyová, paní Norrisová.... Snape is called Severus Piton (Italian), Perselus Piton (Hungarian) and Severus Kalkaros (Finnish.) Kalkaros? Kalkaroff? Subtext? I know that one of the meanings of "piton" in French is "large nose", but what does it mean in Italian? Or Hungarian, for that matter?

Can anyone tell me how you convince the Cat that it's time to vacate the chair and let the human sit on it with more than half a buttock?