“See here, old bean,” the consul heard himself saying, “to have against you Franco, or Hitler, is one thing, but to have actinium, argon, beryllium, dysprosium, niobium, palladium, praseodymium, ruthenium, samarium, silicon, tantalum, tellurium, terbium, thorium, thulium, titanium, uranium, vanadium, virginium, xenon, ytterbium, yttrium, zirconium, to say nothing of Europium and Germanium – ahip! – and Columbium! – against you, and all the others, is another.” 

— Malcom Lowry, “Under the Volcano.”

And with the delivery of that tongue-twisting line from Lowry’s novel about a sozzled diplomat, the celebrated actor Albert Finney laid claim to elevating the Periodic Table of Elements to stardom in his Oscar-nominated portrayal of British consul Geoffrey Firmin in the 1984 film “Under the Volcano.”

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