Birthday weekend

Forgive me blog for I have neglected you but I’ve been busy celebrating my Mum’s birthday-with-a-zero-in-it. She arrived last week with my brother et al when the temperatures were just hitting 30°C. They left on Sunday in torrential rain and chilly winds. Weekend highlights included: a couple of nights in La Grange aux Amis; a memorable meal in Domme at a restaurant called Cabanoix et Chataîgnes (if you go you must try the foie gras and cocoa); multiple glasses of champagne; lavender kir; and a visit to Sarlat market on Saturday morning where we loaded up with cherries and chanterelle mushrooms, roast chicken and dried magret stuffed with foie gras. Now it's my own foie that is gras.

One of the things my brother and I reminisced about was a series we used to watch on TV after school. It was called Yao and told the black-and-white story of a little boy in Africa. It had strange haunting music, but google as I might, I can't find the music or a video excerpt although I have discovered that it was actually a French series and took place in the Côte d'Ivoire. Has anyone else ever seen Yao ?

Tweed Vocal Cords

I had a little post brewing on the ubiquity of characters with British accents in the American series I've been watching. I was going to cite Callum Blue who plays the cheeky cockney alcoholic in Dead Like Me and Roger Rees the new surgeon with a British accent in Grey's Anatomy (the one they're calling McAgra).
I was also going to tell you about how I thought for a long time that Susan's new bloke, Ian, in Desperate Housewives must be played by an American actor who was useless at British accents, until I looked him up on and discovered that his name is Dougray Scott and that he actually comes from Glenrothes and it all became clear — he's an English-accent-challenged Fifer. If you've ever been to Glenrothes, you will already have deduced that Dougray is not his given name, a boy just couldn't thrive there with a name like that.
I would also have mentioned Ashley Jensen the Scottish seamstress in Ugly Betty and how I worry now that when I speak to Americans they may be experiencing the same comprehension problems as her bitchy boss Wilhelmina.
But there's no point now since the BBC beat me to it with an article entitled Best of British. I could have gone to press just as quickly as them if I had teams of researchers doing all that tredious tv watching for me.