Fancy Nancy.

All these interesting England-English terms.

Over a working lunch, we learn that to over-describe something with hyperbole, adjectives, verbs and other such grammaticulars is a Nancy. Something one of my...elders then said I was good at.

Too much credit, though I do have a penchant for verbosity. Not an advantage on this island. It's all about how short and how fast. Kind of like Chinese men.

Yes, good writing is concise writing. But who can resist the occasional flights of fancy? So yes, we try. The distressing habit of falling arse over tit for the nearest female makes this one fairly easy:

She captivates, with her little eccentricities. The way she moves with a grace; a dancing lightness beyond description. A flower fades, a song grows stale - she is timeless as the wind and sea, as irrefutable a force. In a painful, epiphanic understanding of what the word was created to describe; she is beautiful, beautiful.

Not Nancy enough. I suspect that would involve phrases like "hair the glossed ebony of the raven's wing" and "breasts like jewelled melons". But then where got class, hor? Still, they beat, "WAH THAT ONE SIBEI CHIO LEH."

I swear to various assorted gods, I read those phrases in a children's book of Arabian Tales or something. When I was aged eight or so. Once in a while, I still try to imagine what sort of breast that would look like.

And no, no one in particular. ...I think.


Food's a bit more difficult. It's all been said before and there's only so far you can go before the description starts sounding as phony as a...telephone or something. I'm quite persuadable, with my food. If it's meat and FOR CHRISSAKES DON'T OVERCOOK IT, I'm generally happy.

But I do like my salmon!

There can be no argument: salmon was designed as food of the highest order. By itself, it is rich, smooth and almost creamy - a taste one begs to linger. Though far risen above the petty needs of other meats to be cooked, salmon lends itself with ease to any preparation. From vivid orange streaked with white, it then becomes a pleasant pink, still a delight to both behold and savour.

Poor things. Every bit of them tastes so good, you just can't help but think Nature really had it in for them. Then again, looking at what they have to do to have a sex life, she prolly does.



...you know, I've never liked the name, Nancy.