Fiona wrote:

If you can find me one piece of evidence for his embarrassment-- a line of dialogue, a blush, a quick "Oh, great" eye-roll at the others, anything-- I will (honest!) consider revising my opinion.

I'm not asking you to revise your opinion, merely to accept that some people have different opinions and that none of them is definitive. cf the end of Star One, where Paul (I will accept his evidence on this, as he's not trying to push his own interpretation) says he deliberately played his reaction to Gareth's "I have always trusted you" as blank, and allowed viewers to interpret that as indicating his deep love/hatred/whatever of the man. Which we did (my interpretation on that one happens to be fury).

As Sally has often said, we were all issued with different tapes. I have no intention of sitting through what I consider a tedious episode, but off the top of my head, I would say that my tape depicts Avon speaking in a slow, formal, deadpan manner which I interpret as "I must retain my dignity at all costs in this horribly embarrassing situation." He does sound smug when Vila asks why Meegat picked him, but that's part of his relationship with Vila. (I also think "Probably" partly reflects his own confusion, and is partly an attempt to put Vila off the scent - if he said "No, I'm horribly embarrassed," Vila would never let him forget it for the next three years.)

Harriet