Salmon

Saw GayFranglaise on Saturday. He was telling me of an elderly cousin who died last week. Wasn’t heavy talk, rather ‘this is how it was’ kind of talk. During this he recalled ‘Oh! And I’ve inherited nine tins of salmon’. Then he chuckled. As did I. Made me wonder: If that’s what a regular old guy in the north of England left, just imagine how many tins of salmon might the Pope have left? I don’t know. Maybe the Pope didn’t like salmon. Maybe the salmon all gets passed on to the next Pope. Maybe the cardinals will discuss the salmon in the conclave (fascinating process). But what if the next Pope doesn’t like salmon? Maybe they’ll make it a condition that the next Pope has got to like salmon such that the salmon doesn’t go to waste. The future of the Roman Catholic church could depend on 10 tins of salmon. Or maybe as many as 50. But surely no more than that.

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Saw a film called Sideways at the weekend. In a nutshell: it’s a road movie in which a failing author is forced into exorcising the ghost of a failed relationship. This is juxtaposed against his soon-to-be-married male sidekick doing all that he can to depart single life with one or two last shagging exploits. This is storied against their wine tour of what I’m guessing was northern California. Liked the film a lot. Paul Giamatti – top actor, liked him in Man on the Moon. Best part of the film: the Giamatti character’s growing relationship with ‘Maya’ – taut and tender. Minor shortcomings of the film related to the character of ‘Stephanie’ - whose dialogue range was too broad. 8.5/10.

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Had an entertaining tete-a-tete-a-tete with co-dweller Marie and old chum Chantal on Friday. We spoke of words and phrases in voice and print that gave us cause for wincing. Examples included:–

‘Suddenly’... The motif for anti-climax primary school story-writing.
‘I can’t even begin to tell you…’... Wrong! You can, because you are. Not existentialism, just common sense.
‘There’s nothing worse than…’... Wrong! There is! Let us try this poke in the eye for starters...

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Had more geologists landing on the blog. Seems that the stalactites continue to be more popular than the stalagmites. Very recent search engine terms leading to Shane have included:-

‘natural plump tites’ – a search rooted in science-art geo-sculpture. Definitely.
‘sweet tites’ – do people really think of calcium deposits in terms of 'sweet'?
‘big tites’ – a popular search term - geo-tourists, I guess.
‘tites now’ – sister-journal to 'The History of Tites'?

I love raised eyebrows. But not the ones that have been plucked, then drawn back on higher. I don't understand them.