The very smelly jelly

Is this jellyfish transparent or translucent to you? 

Well, that's the somewhat strange and deceptively smelly question that jellyfish have come to signify for me ever since a certain celebrated writer-blogger, who shall remain nameless but not blameless, took issue with my description of a jellyfish in a short story - of MY OWN INVENTION - as transparent not translucent. 

How he (whoops) took issue with said jellyfish, despite never having seen the thin-skinned thingamajig with his own eyes (because I made it up!), was by writing a thinly-veiled take down of my transparent jellyfish story in a subsequent blog of his, posted immediately after he was required to read the story for the competition he was running, ostensibly on his three-year-old's 'weirdness' in which he claimed said weird kid knew the difference between transparent and translucent and could use them correctly in a sentence.

Yeah, right. 

If said celebrated writer-blogger really did have a three-year-old who knew the difference between transparent and translucent then he, who created him, or at least helped to, one presumes, and is quite a bit older than three, with plenty time to learn the ways and words of the big wide weird world, would not assume that all jellyfish, fact and fiction, are TRANSLUCENT. He would have more of an open mind to the full range of jellyfish out there in said wide weird world and at least believe in the possibility of transparent jellyfish.  

I'm just saying; I realise it's something of a first world problem. 

I will also admit that the image I showed to accompany my transparent jellyfish story was of a translucent jellyfish. But that was before I knew how picky some people can be about jellyfish skin. And as the image was credited to a photographer who was not me, that is really no excuse. It was clearly not my jellyfish. 

And having been on a mission to find and photograph a jellyfish that was transparent ever since, six months later I can finally rest my case and get back to my life - such as it is, making up stories that are both too real and yet factually fucked. 

And that there ends the story of the very smelly jelly.