From Twilight To Belgium : Fork

OK, my brain works in strange ways!  If most people are challenged to write a blog post prompted by the word “fork“, they’ll either do something to do with food or about making a decision at a fork in a road.  I’m going to go from vampires to a pub in Belgium while maintaining search engine optimisation!

The Twilight books were based in a place called Forks.  I’m not sure whether this was because it had many a fork in its roads or paths or just hefty cutlery ownership.

At the height of the Saga, the town had a population of 3,500 but received over 200,000 tourists peaking in 2010 when 70,000 “Twi-hards” poured in to Forks, according to Marcia Bingham, director of the town’s chamber of commerce.  Obviously that made business boom.

We had a similar thing when we were working in Belgium.  Our whole project would end up in one particular bar for 3 or 4 nights a week for about 6 months.  Each night, our project manager would have to fork out anything up to 600 euros when the team really had a blow out, although it would usually be far less than that.

The bar took advantage of this increased revenue and bought extra pool tables and TVs.  Then we left!

At Forks, business is still booming (apparently) and they don’t see why it won’t continue.  It appears that the bar we left spent money that they expected to be getting from us for a bit longer, and is now struggling.  So we should definitely make hay while the sun shines, maybe this serves a lesson that you need to judge how long that will last for.

Apparently in Forks, the sun doesn’t shine for long, which is why Stephanie Meyer chose it.

I can’t possibly leave a post about forks without sharing this legendary “Fork Handles” sketch by The Two Ronnies:

Take me where the daisies
Cover the country lanes
We’ll make hay while the sun shines
We’ll make love when it rains

Take me where the song birds
Thrill you with sweet refrains
We’ll make hay while the sun shines
We’ll make love when it rains

From the hustle and the bustle of the city
We’ll become a pair of country folks
In a little cottage sitting pretty
We’ll be Mr. and Mrs. Doakes

Take me where the daisies
Cover the country lanes
We’ll make hay while the sun shines
We’ll make love when it rains

We’ll Make Hay While the Sun Shines by Bing Crosby