Armadillos in Amarillo

That song is still here...

That 'Is This the Way to Amarillo' song. It has been in every pantomime I have been to so far, this year's rendition involving a ship called the HMS Armadillo. (You can just guess where this took us -- a clapping, singing, swaying mayhem. That is where. I am so ashamed.) I cannot seem to get away from it, and my protestations have caused people to tell me this is a British song. My instincts are all against this being true, but Clem and Eamonn are very proud to call me wrong. They do relent that an American wrote it (Neil Sedaka), but put their lower jaws out in a rather prideful way that a Tony Christie released it first in 1971.

Wikipedia says this song 'remains generally unknown in the United States' -- but I remember listening to it on KWKH in the '70s and there are a few of you out there who remember this, so help me! Was this some random British bloke singing about losing Marie in Amarillo? Fie, I say, FIE!

This is all very distressing.

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On another, perhaps more realistic, distressing note (in a positive way. Is this the chemical imbalance coming out?), Charlie Wilson's War was very enjoyable this evening. It is the second movie involving Afghanistan which I have seen in the past two weeks (the other being The Kite Runner). I shall have to investigate some history now (since I wasn't the most aware child from 1987-oh, two Thursdays ago), but it is a shame that the US went in and 'changed the world' and then 'f---ed up the end game.' It is interesting to me, although my claim to fame is not as a global analyst, that the same thing might happen again and we might eff off out of where we have 'saved' (if indeed we want to use the verb, since we really don't know what the hecks is happening -- good or bad.)... Just not sure. But Philip Seymour Hoffman does continue to impress me, in a begrudging sort of way.

And for those who have not seen The Kite Runner, your pitiful little problems in life will seem as important as they truly are when you see this (and I am about to start the book, as there are lots of things left out apparently). While the main character irritated the bejeezus out of me for most of the movie, it was entirely relvant to his character and later decisions. Very poignant for us comfortable US children of the '70s.