Thornhill, blown away

  Our hero, summarily recalled from
  surfing season in Montevideo to es-
  cort Betty Commilfaux to her annual
  Rose Bowl lunch, had confined him-
  self indoors to suppress highlights
  tending to upstage her coiffure, on-
  ly to marvel that a gridiron contest
  pitting squads of fattened frogs a-
  gainst flailing trolls in gold hats
  (a sort of New World Bayreuth fes-
  tival with billions in academic cor-
  ruption and residuals on the line),
  could divert anyone from her intri-
  guingly matured St Émilions. Were
  any of this interlude to waft its 
  way back to Punta del Este, he knew,
  he'd have some explaining to do.