My New Favourite Fox

It takes fourteen hours of flapping to fly from Vancouver to Auckland (N.Z.), so having in-flight movies comes as a welcome relief. Generally I have no idea which movies are hits and which are duds when I'm scrolling through the choices. I haven't a clue who's Hollywood's current 'it' girl, or whether she's famous for her on-screen acting or off-screen antics.

So you're telling me that Bette Davis is passé?

I used to rely on Siskel and Ebert during the epoch in which I watched television. I did hear that one of them died. Was it the fat one or the skinny one? I honestly don't know. My point is that...

Cinematically.......I. Am. Stunned.

Back to the Boeing...so, I was reading all the onboard movie titles when I came across one called 'How To Lose Friends and Alienate People'. At first I was horrified because that was the exact title I had planned on using for my upcoming autobiography (I subsequently learned that the title came from Toby Young's 2001 memoir...lucky guy). Once the horror had subsided, and my tray table was reconnected to the seat in front of me, I settled down to watch the movie. Amazingly, I knew the leading man, Simon Pegg, from watching him in a movie called Hot Fuzz. He's very funny in that lovable, bumbling British kind of way. I love ridiculous comedies.

I scanned the credits as the movie began. I recognized the name Kirsten Dunst though I couldn't have saved my life by naming a single movie in which she appeared. My cinematic senses just weren't tingling at that moment. I also recognized Jeff Bridges' name but again I couldn't recall a single movie of his. You might wonder how I could have forgotten Seabiscuit?!? Simple, I didn't watch it. I don't watch horse movies, unless Clint Eastwood is in them, or a horse runs off a cliff (remembering that I love comedies). I'm not a horse fan...I can't even drink Budweiser because all I can taste is Clydesdale urine.

Well, I may not like horses but I sure do like foxes. The movie featured an actress called Megan Fox. Never before has anyone been blessed with such an overwhelmingly apt surname. Megan was a pleasant escape from the man sitting in the seat next to me on the flight. He was a chatty man whose breath smelled like poo (I'm convinced that he was sucking on a poopsicle or a lollipoop before boarding the flight, though it was probably just the after effects of day old garlic and stale coffee).

"Yes, thanks. I'll have the Wolf Blass shiraz, please, and some Listerine for my friend. Make his a double."

To make matters worse, my seatmate had spent his entire life working for a paving company and was eager to talk about the subtleties of asphalt. That said, I stilled preferred him to a cliffless Clydesdale.

To this day I'm still fascinated by foxes. Just two days ago I discovered a fox's den on a neighbouring property and I've been trying to get a photograph of the kits (young fox) ever since. There are at least two little foxes, perhaps more. They're quite elusive (dare I say 'sly'?).

Oh, I'm so witty...such a way with words.

Speaking or words, did you know that the modern word 'fox' comes from the proto-Germanic word 'fukh'? That's funny because I remember muttering that word more than once during the movie. I think it was the pool scene.