But Don't Say "The King is a Fruitcake"

Zamorin of Calicut

So I'm still with Vasco da Gama and I'm out here in Kerala where he encounters the Zamorin of Calicut. 

The who?   The ruler, the superchief, the top dog, the big cajuna.  But I needed to be told:  although I've actually set foot in Calicut I'm still a little shaky on the political history of early Kerala and I could easily have surmised that the Zamorin was not a person but a physical thingy--a cistern, maybe, or an retaining wall.

Ziggurat of Ur

 

But I know why my thoughts went that way: the Ziggurat of Ur.  Now it happens the ziggurat of Ur is a physical thing, but for a long time I thought "ziggurat" was some sort of monarchic title--as in "the ziggurat is enthroned on his ziggurat."  Hey, anybody could make that mistake.

Gran Panettone of Maina

Mulling all this over, I idled my way into the kitchen and there laid on a sort of a trapezoidal box with the picture of a fruity cake on the cover.  In script it said "Il Gran Panettone," and in caps "MAINA." Right, I thought, the Gran Panettone--fit companion for the Zamorin and the Zigguraut.   I can picture the three of them in royal commerce together over tea and fruitcake, or bashing each other's brains out as the circumstances might require.  Right, I thought, the three k---

Yep, I've got it.  The Zamorin, the Ziggurat and the Gran Panettone.  Take it away boys: