But his treatment of the topic is always entertaining.
In America, the icebreaker conversation topic with a stranger is usually, "What do you do for a living?" In Europe, this would be about as interesting and relevant as, "Do you floss every day?" No, for Europeans, the fallback topic is always, "Where are you going on vacation this year?" Everyone has an answer, usually involving weeks and weeks at the beach or mountains.
Cricket is woven into the fabric of this island and after one of its great players, Sanath Jayasuriya, was this week charged by the International Cricket Council with two counts of failing to cooperate with an investigation into possible match-fixing, the topic was always going to dominate as the teams prepared on Tuesday.
This topic is always top of mind in Silicon Valley, especially given that the two favorite local topics of conversation are technology companies and housing.
The topic was always laughed about at conferences.
They know they have an aunt who is a recovering alcoholic and they know what that means and the topic is always on the table to talk about.
This topic is always popular: sleeping in separate beds for the sake of getting restful sleep and enjoying your partner even more as a result.
Raising the topic is always done in the context of another consultation, during which for example wedding plans are mentioned or a history of spontaneous abortions is discussed.
And, like his locales, his topics are always changing — desertification in Niger, political turmoil in Somalia and Chad's oil boom.
For 2 years, I memorized five new words a day and read newspapers, especially the boring stories because, as you know, the boring topics are always the ones that appear on tests.
