Spot the Frippet: angel.

But where can one spot an angel, you may ask? William Blake spotted them quite often in trees, but then William Blake was…

...special.

Well, there are still angels to be found if we look.

In aquaria or rivers:

 Photo of freshwater angelfish by mendel

In the sea:

 

Australian angel shark

Or, if you're lucky, you may find part of an angel cake (the whole cakes are extremely transitory):
 

If the cakes and fishes are hard to find then a grocer may stock the very fine long pasta called angel hair (or angel’s hair, as it says in my Collins dictionary, the hair apparently all coming from one single and astonishingly hirsute angel).

Even if all these things are difficult to spot then most of us will be familiar on a daily basis with angel gear, which, rather disappointingly, does not consist of a long white kaftan-like robe sprinkled with the light of a thousand stars, but is instead an Australian term for the neutral gear of a motor vehicle, especially when used to coast downhill.

If you want to see a real with-wings type angel, then angelology (yes, I'm afraid that really is a word) suggests that there are many types available for spotting, namely seraphim, cherabim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels, and angels.

If all else fails, I suggest in this season of goodwill (ha!) being an angel yourself and making someone a much-needed cup of tea.
 

Sunderland School for the Blind, 1924.

Spot the Frippet: angel. This word comes from the Greek angelos, which means messenger.