"Bail Up!" was the warning and instruction to halt given to the coach when it was being held up at gunpoint by bushrangers in 19th century Oz.

But my first exposure to bails and bales was on my grandfather's dairy farm. Hay bales have already been dealt with but there were two sorts of bail. One was the mechanism used to restrain each cow's head while being milked; it was a lever that was held in the locked position by a simple ratchet and the cow munched on some fodder during the milking. The other "bail" was used in cricket. The bails are the two little turned pieces of timber that sit on the tops of the three stumps to form the wicket; if either (or both) should fall the batsman is given out.

John, do you contemplate baldness and balledness?

Cheers, Rowan