Curry (February)

Currying favour ranges from the turmeric of playful flattery through to the hot chilli of flagrant ingratiation. It’s Old French, correier, to arrange, equip, groom, so to curry-comb a horse is to improve its coat. If this becomes of a different colour, or even a gift horse into whose mouth we don’t look, fraudulent exchange of horse flesh may ensue. Australians do the opposite when giving curry. It’s Tamil, kari, to get so hot and angry with someone you’d spice up their life with some horse sense, even if all sense has since bolted, like Delhi Belly, or February snow.