"I’m genuinely excited about a brand new location. Less so the forecast, which is, once again, sub-optimal. Though that depends on who you believe."

How’s your knowledge of mid 00s UK faux-indie music?

I’ve had Athlete’s song “El Salvador” firmly lodged in my head since last week.

Fly to El Salvador

I don’t know why and I don’t know what for

Clearly Kelly couldn’t get past the chorus either.

It’s a mark of how irrelevant Athlete are/were that I couldn’t figure out who the song was by for ages. All I knew was the chorus, over and over, and I didn’t remember El Salvador was actually the song title. I was sure it was part of a song by Gomez, from 1998’s “Bring It On”, which would’ve been vastly preferable. But at least it reminded me of that album.

Leaving high school, world at my feet…

I do wonder, sometimes, if it’s just nostalgia, or if things really were good then. They were different, certainly.

But objectively I’m not sure it was any better. And in many ways it was almost certainly worse.

But so it goes with aging. We yearn for a past that may or may not have existed.

There’s probably no point in trying to have a discussion about music with you lot, though, is there?

I never understood why the US and Australia always seemed about ten years behind the scene, but there we are.

Not so in New Zealand, apparently.

(They were 20 years behind).

Except for one man.

Did you know that everyone’s favourite omniscient and benevolent moderator once had dinner with the greatest drummer of several generations? Owing to an ex girlfriend who worked in the music industry, as I understand, our own Negatron once shared drinks and football banter with Reni from the Stone Roses.

Well past peak Roses, of course. But nevertheless, for me that shits over most celebrity interactions I can imagine.

Aside from journeyman Moroccan pro, Ramzi Boukhiam, sharing spliffs, a hot tub and potentially bodily fluids with Rihanna. That tops anything – or anyone – Slater ever did.

Anyway, El Salvador.

I’m genuinely excited about a brand new location. Less so the forecast, which is, once again, sub-optimal.

Though that depends on who you believe.

Magicseaweed say 2-3ft, maxing out at 4-6ft on Wednesday/Thursday.

Swellnet says “a great run of swell is due through the first week of the waiting period.” (But they tell lies, as we know.)

Surfline are calling 8-10ft for Wednesday and Thursday.

All agree the wind’s potentially quite shit.

Who to trust?

If the waves do show, this event could be very, very good. As a right point that offers hollow sections, we should be able to see most people surf to their strengths. Theoretically.

You’d be hard-pushed to look past Filipe, but if you did, look to Italo to get some redemption for a lacklustre season so far, especially if the wind offers a little push for airs.

Otherwise I like the chances of Ethan having his first CT win, or Jordy having his first in a long time.

Who lights up the Central American point for you?

Let’s talk…

There’s money on the line.

Hip-swinging Colombian seeks vaguely injured surfing superstar for hot times.

Who would dare argue against Kelly Slater’s bona fides as the sport’s most gorgeous practitioner?

Yeah, brave little Kalani Robb came close for a time in the nineties, both men and women swooning over his freaky rectus abdominis and mixed-race handsomeness, sexpot groupies fighting to hump his wet stump.

But its Kelly Slater, even in his fifty-first year, who still puts the world’s most beautiful women into a creaming frenzy.

Enter Shakira Ripoll, the Colombian-born singer famous for dance hit Hips Don’t Lie and the theme song for the 2010 soccer World Cup, Waka Waka (This Time for Africa.)

Shakira, who is forty-five, took up with soccer star Gerard Piqué at the tournament, the couple bred a couple of kids, before Piqué split in recent weeks for a gal half her age.

Anyway, hell hath no fury etc and Shakira has wasted no time in following a bevy of the world’s hottest middle-aged superstars on Instagram, including Henry Cavill, Scott Eastwood, Chris Evans but, for our purposes, and most importantly, Kelly Slater.

It’s a dead end for the cuckquean songstress for Slater is steadfastly devoted to his “Chinese girlfriend” Kalani Miller. 

The pop sensation and 12-time Latin Grammy winner ain’t a stranger to surfing, however.

She is a visitor to Wavegarden’s test pool in the Basque Country, and is fiercely anti-VAL, warning her kids, “Don’t ‘Wait Up’ to surf at 40 when you can start at 6.”