It's just a cheap trick to flatter the reader's intelligence, of course.

It's a pity that those 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' guys, Baigent and Leigh lost their case against Dan Brown. It may not be *technically* plagiarism, but it must be pretty galling to have your work rehashed as the plot of a cheap thriller. Especially when the ripped-off thesis is actually nonsense, and the crap thriller sells more copies than every other book ever written. And the author even has the gall to acknowledge your contribution by using an anagram of your name for his villain.

Sorry, Ma'am, but rules is rules. Anyone carrying a loaded pun here in the Rising Frog is apt to make the clients nervous ... and they's a sorry, skeered-lookin' bunch anyhows.

I can see the humour in that. Can't you? And something else: The <Code> give pleasure to millions of people - some of which don't read many books. I know, so do McDonald's and CocaCola - and heroin.

And Barbara Cartland? Which novels do you prefer? (j/k)

...

I would like to ask you a question: Have you noticed the Transatlantic culture gap widening?

A couple of examples: The Oscars were in the German morning news at 8. It was like "Just in case you think that Oscars are only given to films where people are killed and maimed in a multitude of fashions ("No country for old men"), it was also given to a film about Edith Piaf."

And from the other side of the Pond: The virulent critical response to Peter Haneke's new film "Funny games" (he's Austrian). I haven't seen it but I have seen some of his earlier films - and yes, he's pretty grim. But the wording ... man, did the reviewer and above all the commentators hate it and find the right words for expressing their loathing of European films.

http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/03/1...

(You probably have to log in).

The dollars is sinking. The American economy is going down the drain. Gradually Europe is looking stronger. And the two continents are drifting apart - also in the cultural sense. I wonder how it will play out.

Britain is, as always, somewhere in-between, loathing the Yankees and the Continentals equally.

Uninterestingly, I was just looking at my penultimate post here and realized that the second word in it is an anagram for <fasces> if it had another "a" in it.

You know, the dread ceremonial stick, modeled on a tied bundle of peasant wood (for the "common" touch") that was in fact wielded by the <Roman Consuls> (twin heads of the exectuive branch) when they led legions into battle.

Hence the oft-seen phrase, <the dread fasces>. And, of course, the etymological root for the modern word <fascism>, from Italy, oddly enough. Bloody Romans.

Or, in Africa, <the dread tstetse>. Etymological origin of the modern <sockpuppet> "See See."

Good news, <Dominus>!!

<Is assface gone yet?>

No I ain't. But I will be if this feudin' and such keeps up.

Come on, *babe* ... you know how childish and tompetty it is, never mind getting into who insulted which first.

I feel like Tony Blair here: "Dr Paisley, would you mind French-kissing the entire IRA army council? There, there. That's better, isn't it?"

I put the 40-odd games I've played in the past two years to the Fritz test, and found just three missed tactical blows. In two I was winning anyway, and got there via the slow route; in the 3rd, against master opposition, I saw the idea, refused to believe it, and lost. My opponents, on the other hand, often miss forced wins, due to the vibes I beam at them.

I was sure that Suttles' games had to have a sound core of some kind -- and I like that idea that there are more playable moves in most positions than players usually recognize.

When Fritzing a Suttles game I sometimes found that his move was also the comp's choice. At other times, it might not figure initially in the comp's top ten -- points deducted for putting a knight on the edge, say. But a few ply later, after analysing the 'antipositional' move, Fritz's evaluation often put it almost level with the first-choice moves.

I don't know where these writers get their optimistic faith in chess variants (Fischerransom, Seirawanque, Triceratopsy etc) as a way to overcome computer hegemony. Writing a program for any of them would be child's play -- what actually gets obviated is chess literature. Which is not such a good idea.

No, wait, that one's either Rilke or Pynchon. You think *your* infernal ('internal' - ed.) filing system is bad? Paisley's line about the pope was something like "Old red socks, nyah nyah".

This all fits together somehow. Cecil Day-Lewis (poet and pater) was born in Belfast. Many years later, his son - in order to film My Left Foot - decided he needed to actually *become* Irish. So he did.

For 30 years, I've been hearing "Joe's darling". Oh dear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_E...

'Chillin' out, maxin', relaxin', all cool
Shooting some people outside the school...'

Only this time I thought I'd better actually look up the words. I had the 'fools' bit right, but it seems Elvis also wrote:

"Some of my friends sit around every evening
And they worry about the times ahead
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference
And the promise of an early bed"

[Aaargh - I thought it was '<early death>', *mondegreen alert*]

"You either shut up or get cut up, they don't wanna hear about it It's only inches on the reel-to-reel
And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools
Tryin' to anaesthetise the way that you feel"

Death, bed, death-bed, bed-death... I prefer my version. I might even cover it with my new band, <The Four Coughs>.

Ribbit, Hack, Yeugh & Hackett.

Not only is it an extremely weird game, but the kibitzing covers drinking and surrealism (I know, I know, why does everyone summon *you* when those two turn up? Because you're a Harvey's Bristol Expert Witness, maybe?).

PS. Eh?

Bob Dylan himself was a mondegreen victim when he thought the line "I can't hide" from I Want to Hold Your Hand went "I get high"

In 1969 I wrote a radio squib for the grand opening of a British pub in San Diego. An excerpt:

<Lovely British serving girls with their Londonderry airs>.

My piece was not used. Do you think, Domdannyboy, the radio station found out Londonderry was not in London?