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PASTANO:

The first thing that hits me in the face in the morning isn’t the realization that I’d agreed on no uncertain terms to portray someone else with the intent of deceiving unknown third parties (and for money, at that). It’s not a sweltering wave of guilt that hits me, either. What I think, first thing in the morning when my alarm clock shudders, is, I wonder if the movie’s going to be any good. Stumbling over my shoes and across the fuzzy hotel-room carpet toward the curtains, I’m mulling the fact that Clovis probably has no idea of my taste in movies. I didn’t even bother to tell Franck about the deal, figuring she’d blow the whole thing completely and grotesquely out of proportion; it seemed like the kind of thing she’d do, nurse a proxy anxiety for me, worry about my blood splattered all over the sidewalk, come up with all kinds of speculatively horrible outcomes for me—develop a worst-case-scenario, wildly intensified. I did mention something to Horace, but only because I knew he’d think nothing of it and more than anything else probably forget I ever told him. “I’ve got to do a favor for these guys,” I told him, “so I’ll be busy tomorrow night, probably.” He’d shrugged, okay, fine by him. Horace had other things to do, he said, referring to himself in the third-person. Clovis had said how I could take as many of my friends as I wanted along for the ride on this favor, but it seemed (was implied) that it was the sort of thing best done alone.

tbc

I don’t think she really means it:

“You have to admit if you saw one, two, three, four or more people dressed in traditional Goth, it would be discerning,” she said.

(via AP: “$132K of Grant to Combat Goth Returned” [May 21, 2004])

PASTANO:

It’s like this:

Clovis, whose name I obviously didn’t know was Clovis until he’d introduced himself, walks up to me and says, “you remind me of someone I know. You look like him.” Says this while I’m sitting—lounging, really—on a park-type bench, sitting and reading the morning paper and drinking from one of those little glass bottles of orange juice.

I look up at him and say, “really?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“A friend of yours?”
“Could say that.”
“That’s, um, interesting.”

I go back to reading my paper, assuming his comment is just the sort of passing amicable comment you toss out to a perfect stranger who may or may not actually remind you of someone you want to know; a kind of breed of small-talk, relating similarities.

“Yeah. My name’s Clovis,” he says, sitting down on the bench beside me. I look at him, noting that he’s not the kind of person you expect to randomly go up to you and initiate a conversation.
“Pastano,” I say, and I reach across my paper, setting down the orange juice, to shake hands with Clovis.
“Pleasure to meet you,” he says, his massive, meaty palm enveloping mine.
“Sure,” I say, shaking his hand. It’s not the tight, viselike grip you might expect, but I get a sneaky suspicion that he could, if he wanted to, squeeze my hand into a runny pulp. Maybe even squeeze so hard there’s no pulp left, it’s all smooth and runny liquid hand.

Clovis relates how his friend’s in need of a favor. Maybe a favor that I could provide, seeing as I’m in the unique position of resembling him physically. My response is that I’m just in town to visit some friends, I don’t really have business in town or know much about the place or see, really, how I could do any favors for anyone. “Meaning no disrespect to you or this friend of yours,” I say.
“None taken. It would be just a day of your time, no more. Not even a day.”
“I’m only in the area for another three days.”
“Seven hours is all he’d need, really.”
“This friend of yours got a name?”
“Boots, but that’s not important.”
“Boots?” I ask. A joke about a puss seems like it would likely be ill-advised, if somewhat comical.
“Yeah, Boots. Six hours would do, really,” Clovis says, leaning back in the bench, arms crossed as he gazes speculatively across the pond.
“What’s this favor you’re asking?”
“I need you to go to a movie. Though it’s not so much what I need as what my friend needs, you understand. I’m only acting as an intermediary.”
“Go to a movie?”
“I’ll give you a ticket. Two tickets, you can take a friend. As many tickets as you want—”
“You want me to go to a movie?”
“—within reason, of course. I can only give you so many tickets, you realize.”
“Any movie in particular?”
“I get to pick the movie. You’ll like it, though, I’m sure. It’s a very likeable movie. Well-made. Tasteful.”
“Okay, what’s the catch?”
“After the movie, you go out to dinner.”
“That doesn’t sound like a catch.”
“It’s not, really.”
“At like a restaurant, you mean? Dinner?”
“Yeah. And I get to pick the restaurant. Well, Boots picks.”
“Okay…”
“But you won’t have to pay, if you’re wondering. It’ll all be covered.”

I say, Clovis, what’s the catch? Nothing, he says, no catches. Is it like a game show gimmick or something? Hardly, he grins a big, clam-like grin.

tbc

Not that it’s really a feature, or all that interesting, but it is new: the recent links section in the sidebar on the right-hand side of the page.

It’s slated to house all sorts of fascinating stuff—breaking news, quirky stories and information, unusual resources, etc. Crap like that.

Start at the top of the bar and work your way down; you can’t miss it.

Hint: it looks like this:

(2003) dir. James Foley - w/ Edward Burns, Rachel Weisz, Paul Giamatti, Brian Van Holt, Andy Garcia and Dustin Hoffman

Synopsis: Confidence games, you gotta love ‘em. Unless you’re the one getting conned. ‘Confidence’ features a tight-knit group of con-men (led by Ed Burns as ‘Jake’) who, in pulling the wool over the eyes of an unfortunate mark, inadvertently con a major crime figure (Dustin Hoffman) out of several hundred thousand dollars. (Well, $150,000, if I remember correctly.) Their choices are: 1) somehow repay the money [through, wonder of all wonders, another con!] or 2) wind up dead. Unsurprisingly, they opt for the first choice, and that’s where things start to get complicated. Throw in a super-rich, ultra-corrupt banker/lawyer mark, a couple corrupt police officers, a secret agent, and you get ‘Confidence.’

Review: ‘Confidence’ suffers from, among other things, overconfidence; it’s good, but not as good, clever, or original as it thinks it is. It’s an entertaining movie, but it has its problems. Lots of them, actually. One problem has to do with a flaw that’s present in almost any confidence movie where the movie’s end goal is to trick the audience: actions that make sense as you’re watching the movie, but which (once you understand what’s going on) make absolutely no sense whatsoever. It’s difficult to explain, but I’ll try. What I’m complaining about—bitterly—are the kind of things that serve no purpose other than to trick the audience. I know, I know, that’s kinda the point. BUT suppose, for a moment, that you’re watching a movie that you think takes place in prehistoric times, in times when dinosaurs roamed the earth. (I don’t know, it’s a time-travel movie or something.) Anyway, you see people (the time travelers) and you see a dinosaur. A real-life, honest-to-goodness dinosaur. Not a person wearing a dinosaur costume, not a robot dinosaur, a real, live dinosaur. Which, reasonably, is one of your main reasons for thinking the movie takes place during prehistoric times. Then you get to the end of the movie and you find out, it was really 1949 all along! Ha! Boy, we sure fooled you.

“Okay, so what about the dinosaur?” you ask.
“What dinosaur?”
“The dinosaur? Remember? The one that trampled Fred Dorminey?”
Blank stares.

(The point being, how the hell did the dinosaur get there? It’s never explained, and, in fact, it’s not possible given the logical framework of the movie, but it’s there nonetheless.)

Admittedly, it’s a very bad analogy. An extremely bad analogy. But there’s a chance, however slim, that it might help explain what I’m talking about. Another one of the movie’s problems is that it suffers from some poor editing at spots: fragments of conversations that were left in the movie and that don’t really make sense until (and only if) you watch the “deleted scenes” segment on the DVD. (”Did you kill him?” WTF?) Taking this into consideration, I guess it’s really a testament to the actors and writers that in spite of these flaws, ‘Confidence’ manages to be halfway decent. (Either that or low standards. Probably a combination of the two.) Basically, it’s a decent movie, but doesn’t add particularly much to the genre.

Rating: [••• out of •••••]

Etc.: Mamet’s House of Games and The Spanish Prisoner are both much better at confidence games than Confidence is.

THE COURT: I direct the marshal to have this man sit down.

MR. KUNSTLER: Every time I make a motion am I going to be thrown in my seat when I argue it?

MR. DELLINGER: Force and violence. The judge is inciting a riot by asking the marshal to have him sit down.

THE COURT: That man’s name is Dellinger?

MARSHAL JONESON: Will you be quiet, Mr. Dellinger?

MR. DELLINGER: After such hypocrisy I don’t particularly feel like being quiet. I said before the judge was the chief prosecutor, and he’s proved the point.

THE COURT: Will you remain quiet? Will you remain quiet, sir?

MR. DELLINGER: You let Foran give a foreign policy speech, but when he tries to answer it, you interrupt him and won’t let him speak.
There’s no pretense of fairness in this court. All you’re doing is employing a riot–employing force and violence to try to keep me quiet. Just like you gagged Bobby Seale because you couldn’t afford to listen to the truth that he was saying to you. You’re accusing me. I’m a pacifist.

MARSHAL JONESON: Sit down, please, and be quiet.

MR. DELLINGER: I am employing nonviolence, and you’re accusing me of violence, and you have a man right here, backed up by guns, jails, and force and violence. That is the difference between us.

MARSHAL JONESON: Will you sit down?

(applause)

THE COURT: Will you continue, please, with the direct examination of this witness?

MR. DELLINGER: There goes the violence right there.

Further Reading:

• Chicago Sun Times/AP
• Contra Costa Times/NYT
• NPR All Things Considered (audio)

(transcript excerpt from “Famous American Trials, ‘The Chicago Seven’ Trial 1969 - 1970″)

Falling into the “You Could Make This Up, But People Would Think You Were A Bit Slow In The Head” category:

“Billed as the ‘ultimate reality TV show,’ British pay-channel UKTV Style promises a wall, some brushes and different types of paint in its program ‘Watching Paint Dry.’

“[P]eople watching paint drying on www.uktvstyle.co.uk will be able to vote for their favorite wall-covering, such as gloss, satin or matte, with the least favorite being voted out each week before the nation’s choice is revealed.”

(Reuters: “Watching Paint Dry Is Latest Reality TV Gimmick” [May 28, 2004])

• Global Warming. In honor of the global warming disaster flick, The Day After Tomorrow (opening this Friday) here’s a link to an “old” post by Dave Pollard that acts as a good leaping off point for anyone looking to get the facts on climate change. Still more relevant, the Union of Concerned Scientists takes “The Day After Tomorrow” to task by addressing a list of frequently asked questions that someone watching the movie might reasonably ask.
• Global Openness. The technology to un-redact documents. It’s out there. Which, while undoubtedly a concern for national security types, is probably a good development towards more governmental transparency. (Nature: “Censored words unmasked” by Declan Butler [May 13, 2004] indirectly via BoingBoing; freedominfo.org)
• Global Conflict:
  

  “Every minute, two people are killed in conflicts around the world.”

  The web page companion to a BBC program called “One Day of War,” ThisWorld has a clickable map of world conflict. (via DiePunyHumans)

• Global Security. NOVA has an extremely interesting interview with Dr. Graham Allison about the possibilities of a dirty bomb. Dr. Allison was the Assistant Secretary of Defense under Clinton and is currently the director of some Int’l Affairs Center at Harvard. (via Librarian’s Index to the Internet)

Chuck Palahniuk’s work is really something of a canon. Don’t be confused by all the different character names and crazy plot twists that happen from one book to the next; it’s really all part of the same story. Just because they have different names and different problems and different scams (and they all have scams) doesn’t mean they’re not trying to tell the same story.

What’s interesting is that, you’re never quite sure what that story is.

Invisible Monsters is about a model who suffers a horrible accident—which might or might not be an accident—that leaves her face horribly disfigured and, unsurprisingly, puts a kink in her modeling career.

It’s about her thinking back to her life as a model.
It’s about her coming to terms with her horrible disfigurement and figuring out what it means.
It’s about the strange and wonderful people she meets along the way.

It’s about a lot of things, really.

Like basically all of Palahniuk’s novels, this one’s a quick read. There’s a certain, compelling urgency in the writing, which makes it feel fast while you’re reading it. The sentences aren’t long, and there’s a kind of rhythm to it.

The speed of the writing lets Palahniuk do some interesting things.

Like: tell you crucial information that you don’t realize is crucial or even relevant until after you’re hit with the sudden plot twist where the information comes flooding back.

Kind of like Fight Club (the movie or the book) where everything starts to make sense for the narrator. For you movie-watchers, that would be Ed Norton.

At any rate, Invisible Monsters wouldn’t be a bad introduction to Palahniuk’s writing (though why wouldn’t you start with Fight Club?). IM rates alongside Lullaby and Fight Club as Palahniuk’s best, though if you’re wondering, Choke and Survivor are great, too.

Earlier I mentioned a book allegedly written by a computer; that book is The Policeman’s Beard is Half-Constructed.

In trying to find the title of the book, I inadvertently stumbled across the revelation (which I’ll admit isn’t exactly earth-shaking) that the book, contrary to the claims of its introduction, was probably not written entirely by a computer. The truth likely being that parts of it were written by a computer program, with other parts being produced through highly specialized criteria, and other parts yet being (possibly) written purely by the human co-author. (Though from my brief inquiry into the matter I haven’t found anyone who’s outright said it’s 100% not even partially a product of a computer program.)

Fears of robotic overperfection seem sadly unwarranted.

(Though in fairness, “The Policeman’s Beard is Half-Constructed” is still kinda a funny book regardless who the actual author is—man or machine—albeit funny in a quixotic sort of way.)

A study by a Johns Hopkins team of 97 boys and girls showed that exposure to photos of real gunshot wounds can significantly influence youths’ attitudes, making them less likely to believe that aggression can solve conflict, and probably also less likely to resort to violence in any instance:

“Our study suggests that the kind of romanticized version of violence shown on television can be countered by more frank and open discussions and displays of what violence really does to the body,” says David C. Chang.

(via EurekAlert!: “Graphic images of violence alter children’s attitudes toward aggression” [May 12, 2004])

I honestly think I prefer the Murciélago, but, you know—you take what you can get.

“Italian police took possession Friday of a sleek, 500 horsepower, two-seater Lamborghini Gallardo, which can hit a top speed of 185 miles per hour.

“The sports car, painted in the police’s distinctive blue and white colors, comes complete with a flashing blue light on the roof and will initially patrol the Salerno-Reggio Calabria motorway — a road notorious in Italy for wild driving.

“The Lamborghini will also be used to transport human organs for emergency operations.”

It’s nice to know that the car’s going to be used for transporting organs. I think it gives the car a kind of quaint, humble quality. (Also, in the interests of providing the best information available [which is always my goal], I should note that the 185mph figure’s probably wrong—should be more like 192 or 193mph).

(via Reuters: “The Cops Are Chasing Me in a WHAT?” [May 14, 2004])

On Hotmail this morning (and possibly earlier), there’s a blurb in the one side-bar that says, How to be a Ruthless Reader. Curious, I investigated. Suffice it to say, the tips are far from helpful.

Here are my own tips for Ruthless Reading.

• First, lull the book into a sense of complacency and false security by allowing it to sit, untouched, for months or—depending on your own Machiavellian patience—years. This softens them up, making them forget all the techniques they’ve learned for dealing with cruel readers (like you).
• Once you’re fairly certain the book is in a daze, grab it forcibly from the shelf (or from on that stack of books on your dresser, desk, etc.) and fling it across the room. Ideally, you should throw it far enough to drive fear into its paper-pulp heart.
• Before the dust’s had a chance to settle, begin reading. As you go, cast disparaging comments at the book and author (e.g., “what a lousy author,” “what the hell does acephalic even mean?” and “what a sorry excuse for a book if ever there was one”). Tear out pages as you finish them, crumpling them up and tossing them casually onto the floor.
• Occasionally spill a drink on the book. Coffee or, if you’re not a coffee drinker or would prefer not to waste coffee on a book, tea (Vice-versa if you’re so inclined). Food, too. In fact, the most ruthless readers use books as place-mats for their meals, not even bothering to use plates but setting the food directly onto the spread pages of the book. My personal favorite in this case is spaghetti, but I’ve heard that buffalo wings and beef stew work equally well.
• When not reading the book or eating off of it, set it in direct sunlight, or in a sink, or in plain sight of small children and/or family pets. The truly ruthless readers keep large hungry wolfhounds solely for the purpose of distressing their books.
• Once you’re finished reading the book (and have ripped out the last pages), put what’s left of it into an envelope and send it to the publisher, with a polite note about your personal distaste for the book’s analytic style (or some similarly appropriate comment; this will vary depending on the book you’re reading—a comment about the narrative framework would be wholly inappropriate for, say, a book of photographs).

And that, my friends, is how to be a ruthless reader.

(inspired by MSN’s Equipped for Success: Tips for the Mobile Professional, “Ruthless Reading”; photo is from http://www.mff.cuni.cz/fakulta/lib/voda/foto.htm, a page portraying images of a destroyed mathematical library)

• In Thailand, Buddhists find that tigers and humans can live together in harmony. Not only that, but the tigers, which live in a Buddhist temple, also coexist with the “monkeys, horses, deer, peacocks, geese and wild pigs” that live in the same area. The tigers are fed dog food and, if the article is to be believed, are satisfied with that. It’s actually kind of interesting. (AFP: “Thai Buddhist monks share temple with endangered tigers” [May 9, 2004])
• Sez VP Cheney: “The story of Wal-Mart exemplifies some of the very best qualities in our country — hard work, the spirit of enterprise, fair dealing, and integrity.” Paul Waldman asks the question, ‘why’s Dick so enthusiastic about Wal-Mart?’ (paraphrased) and comes up with several possible answers. Like, maybe it’s Wal-Mart’s low wages, or its canny use of sweatshop labor, or its antipathy to collective bargaining. While Waldman doesn’t actually ask the real question of why Cheney traveled to Bentonville to sing praises of the company, it’s still an interesting article, and a pretty concise summation of the problems with Wal-Mart. Though the real answer to the question ‘Why was Cheney at Wal-Mart?’ is also potentially troubling, since the trip, designated “official business” and paid for by gov’t funds, may have [brace yourself] had political purposes, and therefore not been eligible for White House funds. The National Review basically states that the visit was for campaigning, which is kind of curious. (Gadflyer: “Cheney Sings Wal-Mart’s Praises” by Paul Waldman via AlterNet; Times Record: “Cheney Visit Draws Capitol Hill Scrutiny” by Alison Vekshin [May 19, 2004])
• Sheila Cassidy is interviewed by The Guardian for her thoughts on the Iraqi Torture scandal. What makes her thoughts interesting is that, in the 1970s, Cassidy was a victim of torture under the Pinochet government in Chile. Cassidy:
  

  “Torture is not just a one-off, something that happens one day. There is the post-traumatic stress it causes, to different degrees in different people. It’s always there.”

  It’s a worthwhile read. Not unreasonable parallels are drawn between what happened in Chile and what’s happening in Iraq; while Dr. Cassidy doesn’t claim the situations are identical, she makes important connections, e.g., the conceptualization of the Iraqis as people who are not like us (Americans/ ‘Westerners’). (Guardian: “The idea exists that Iraqis are not like us” by Mark Oliver)

• Curiously, in contrast to other Republican governors (e.g., George Pataki and also the governors of MN, TX, AR, NH, MD, and SD), Gov. Schwarzenegger hasn’t done any campaigning for Bush, nor has he really criticized John Kerry. The LA Times has an interesting article on Schwarzenneger’s “reticence” in this particular area. (LA Times: “Schwarzenegger is reticent on Bush campaign” by Robert Salladay [May 18, 2004] via BoGlo)

I almost deleted this comment that showed up on one of my posts without a second thought—it’s kind of the standard-issue blogspam that shows up from time to time—but then realized that, maybe, just maybe, it’s actually brilliant:

and it’s not as if all that tramadol doesn’t corrected in the studio soma nowadays anyway! I’m beginning pharmacy to think that Mark’s and others’ levitra fears of robotic overperfection celexa are completely justified. LaToya celexa London is surely the ultimate prozac example of this; I quite liked ultram her early on, and undoubtedly online pharmacy. (links removed, sorry)

My favorite part, I think, is the “fears of robotic overperfection.” Seriously, where do they get this stuff? It’s crazygenius.

Which reminds me of a book I ran across that’s written by a computer. Except it’s probably not exactly what you’re thinking, and it was written during the Eighties. Early 80s, I think. Here are two samples from the book (two of my favorites), just to whet your appetite.

Sample #1:

“More than iron, more than lead, more than gold I need electricity. I need it more than I need lamb or pork or lettuce or cucumber. I need it for my dreams.”

Sample #2:

“A sturdy dove flies over a starving beaver. The dove watches the beaver and fantasizes that the beaver will chew some steak and lamb and lettuce. The beaver spies the dover and dreams of enrapturing and enthralling pleasures, of hedge adorned avenues studded with immense pink cottages, of streets decorated with bushes and shrubs. The beaver is insane. The dove wings across the dark sky and the beaver ponders his fantasies.”

I’ll post the book’s title when I find it.

Update:
The title of the book is The Policeman’s Beard is Half-Constructed. Though it turns out my faith in technology was a little misplaced, the book not being quite the genuine article it claims to be; details here.

It ends with Lila and Sal. They’re at the center of the action. That’s how it ends.

Continue Reading »

Congratulations to Mike and the fine crew who helped craft the yet-to-be-released documentary Fahrenheit 9/11; the movie won top honors at the Cannes Film Festival.

If you happen to live in the eastern US (and possibly elsewhere), your local paper’s doubtless run numerous cicada-themed stories, probably something along the lines of, “well sure nobody really likes them but this only happens once every 17 years (and by the way, you can eat them)”, maybe even with like a 8×8″ color photograph on the front page, enough natural science trivia for several rounds of a short-lived game show based entirely on cicada facts, should anyone decide to put one together.

And sure, it’s kind of interesting. Maybe not general public interesting enough to repeatedly fill full-sized articles day after day, week after week, but interesting. (Interesting for any number of reasons on which I won’t attempt to speculate.)

But did you know we’re covering them up—entombing them in the ground? We’re covering them up with our shopping malls and housing developments and big box retailers and massive parking lots.

I don’t know that anyone’s going to start a Save the Cicadas Fund anytime soon, but it’s important to realize things like this, particularly when they should be so obvious, but aren’t. When the simple logic that 100% of the insects that have burrowed into the ground aren’t going to be able to claw their way out (if in fact they’re still alive and not dug up and crushed by bulldozers etc., which is probably a more likely scenario) should be one of the first observations made in any article about Brood X.

Shouldn’t it?

(ScienceDaily: “Urbanization Is Devastating About-to-emerge 17-year Brood X Cicadas”, Cornell University [May 18, 2004])

(2004) dir Kevin Macdonald - w/ Nicholas Aaron as Simon Yates and Brendan Mackey as Joe Simpson; also with Joe Simpson and Simon Yates
Synopsis: Based on the true story of two climbers (Joe Simpson [who wrote the book Touching the Void] and Simon Yates) who attempt an ascent of an unclimbed mountain in South America (Siula Grande) and meet with disastrous results. The ascent itself is almost without a hitch, but on the way down Joe breaks his leg, badly, and things rapidly deteriorate from there. This movie/documentary uses interviews with Joe and Simon and stunning, harrowing re-creations with “climber-doubles” (vs. stunt doubles) Nicholas Aaron and Brendan Mackey to re-tell the story.

Review: Having read the book (which has a name that’s suspiciously similar to that of the movie), it’s pretty amazing that Joe Simpson survives. It’s incredible, in fact. Unbelievable? Yeah, I’d go so far as to say that. What the movie adds to this is a highly visceral appreciation for just what transpired, something that no amount of words on rectangles of tree-pulp and no amount of still photos can evince. What few moments of overacting exist (keeping in mind that the actual situation is vastly beyond what most people have any ability to comprehend or relate to) are definitely overshadowed by the powerful atmosphere of the movie, which is surreally intense. This is not a casual movie. It’s compelling, well done entertainment that forces us to wonder how we define the limits of human endurance.

Rating: [••••] out of [•••••]

Etc.: Watch the trailer here, or here

It’s enough to warms the cockles of your heart:

“A kangaroo named Lulu is to receive a national bravery award after raising the alarm to save an Australian farmer knocked unconscious by a fallen tree branch.

“Hobby farmer Leonard Richards was checking for storm damage on his property at Tanjil South, 150 km (93 miles) east of Melbourne, last September when he was hit by a falling branch. …Lulu began barking until Richards’ wife came to investigate, said the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA).”

Incredibly—and I know you’re not going to belive me, but bear with me here—Lulu is apparently “the first kangaroo to receive the Australian Animal Valour Award.”

On an interesting side-note, Michael Quinion has an interesting discussion on why exactly we say that something warms the cockles of our heart; raising the unsettling possibility that maybe, possibly, the expression should be, it warms the snails of your heart.

Mmmm. Snails of the heart.

(via Reuters: “Kangaroo wins award for saving farmer” [April 27, 2004]; Lulu’s web site; World Wide Words: “Cockles of your heart”)