pumpkinstrokemarrow

Continuing to get through Simenon's memoires at a reasonable pace - his French being reasonably accessible. One phrase he uses quite often which caught my eye was 'montrer patte blanche' - meaning to show one's credentials on entry to something. Curious about the origin of the phrase, I was thinking maybe it meant showing the palms of your hands to the gorilla on the gate, perhaps to prove by the appearance of your palms that you did not work with your hands. Or, by analogy with a cat, to prove that you had your claws retracted. This didn't seem terribly convincing so ask Mr Google, who rather impressively furnishes the answer very quickly (http://www.pourquois.com/2006/12/pourquoi-doit-on-montrer-patte-blanche.html) and which on a younger day I might have remembered for myself. From a La Fontaine story where mummy goat tells baby goat to inspect the paws of any caller before opening the door. White paws for mummy is good and black paws for wolf in bad. But I think the wolf was a bit too clever for mummy, dipping his paws in flour (proper, inorganic flour bleached bright white with chlorine, like all the best supermarkets sell) and getting the kid. This last word presumably being the origin of the slang word kid for child.

The memoires themselves are interesting - but make me feel uneasy. It is proper to publish such intimate details about one's life? Is it fair on the people with whom one shares and shared one's life with? All very well to turn chunks of one's life into fiction which those that know might well be able to translate back into real life, but to publish it naked, as it were, seems a bit strong. Maybe not such a surprise that the favourite daughter committed suicide.

On holiday from Simenon, took in Trollope's Eustace Diamonds. Which led me to wonder why the television people don't turn it into episodic costume drama. Episodic by construction, plenty of goings on and love-interest. Why do we get treated to an unending diet of Jane Austen - which I imagine might be more widely owned but also be less read than Trollope? One theme in this book which struck me and with which a costume drama might have some trouble, is the unsuitability of the truth in all sorts of social situations. For example, we might only be able to afford a small and mean car but we want the car salesmen to explain how neat and nippy it is, not how small and mean it is. An interesting line of enquiry. On the other hand, there was a streak of anti-semitism which would not, I imagine, get past the publisher of a modern book. I do not suppose that Trollope was any worse than his contemporaries in this - but I was rather surprised that someone who seems decent and humane, should be so at all. John Buchan, a bit later, was another respectable gent (sometime governor general of Canada) with the same problem.

Having had the Friday lunchtime baked cod (plus crinkly cabbage and mashed potato), a minor senior moment. Not for the first time, tried to install our nearly new Brita water purification jug on the prong which takes the electric kettle. Maybe all those (originally keyed as 'although') omega fifteens in the fish are not so hot for the brain after all.