Popliteal Fossa

Yes, we’re starting the post in bold italics today. There is a reason, thanks for asking. I am handing over (with some trepidation, I might add) to a guest blogger who will regale you with a description of something – but I won’t spoil it by telling you what. What I feel obliged to tell you is that he’s one half of the writing team on Picturenose – probably the best film-related blog in the world. What’s that? Why yes, the other half is me – how did you guess? Righto – without further ado, I give you James:

Now, in the humble opinion of this guest wordsmith (Tom hates that word, heh, heh) three gets you one that you have not heard the above term before.

There’s a good reason for that – it refers to a certain part of the human form that’s frequently at the centre of those ‘Is there a name for that?’ conversations, and the assumption for this part of the anatomy is that it never received a moniker.

Not so. I refer to the back of the knee and, to be quite frank, this part of the (female) anatomy tops this writer’s fetish list. You didn’t want to know that, did you? Just a little more detail, promise, then I’ll move on. I’ve always been a ‘leg’ man, and I simply find a well-hewn Popliteal Fossa to be a delight for the eyes. Let’s face it, the name has a pretty ring to it too, don’t you agree?

For those of you unfortunate enough to have seen The English Patient, you’ll remember that Ralph Fiennes also comes over all obsessive about another rarely named part of the body, in this case the hollow of Kristin Scott Thomas’s neck. Fiennes’s character gives it a suitably pretentious art-house title, the Almásy Bosphorus, but its actual name is the upper sternal notch.

So, at least I’m in good company. Don’t ask me why I’m so fascinated by the Popliteal Fossa (the answer would be more appropriate for another kind of forum, anyway), but to bring myself back down before I take a cold shower, a scientific definition.

“The Popliteal Fossa is a diamond-shaped muscle formation, bounded above by the semimembranosus, biceps femoris and semitendinosus and below by the heads of the Gastrocnemius. The floor is the popliteal surface of the femur and the popliteus muscle and plantaris muscle.”

There, that’s taken the edge off, hasn’t it? Look on the bright side – at least now you can wow your drinking buddies, should the conversation ever turn in this direction. Of course, where I drink, at the Popliteal Fossa Club, it’s all we ever talk about…

Well, there it is. I think we can all take something away from that. Of course, I bet you’re thinking “this blogging about words lark is easy”. And so it is – so if you fancy a go at guest blogging, feel free to leave a message in the comments, or drop me a line at worddujour <at> gmail <dot> com.