I *do* remember* a feeling of having wandered into a room populated by not very bright types, and just slipping out again. But there is an actual dilemma for me in these warzones - a big part of me really does want to wade in, vocabulary flailing, and fly to the defence of you or Jess or any of my friends under attack.

Then I remember my rule not to get involved in wars. And I hope my friends will forgive my neutrality. It's not just a modish pose, it's a belief that intervention escalates these things and makes 'em worse.

It's an odd boy, all right.

BTW, in Sport (The Odd Boy) there's a semi-mondegreen I've never been able to make out. Semi because I don't even have a plausibly wrong version. It's the verse that starts:

"The odd boy went down by the football field
Took out a slim volume of Mallarmé
The <somebody> called him a <something> It's an odd boy who doesn't like sport..."

Now somebody & something there clearly won't slice'n'dice the old Col Mustard, but what's he really singing?

The 'Somebody' -- Centre Prop? Centre For'ard? Senior Fag? Sensor Array? Sensible Chap? Semen Stain? Sentinel?

Calls him a what? -- Imbecile? Odious Heel? Some kind of public school non-rhyming rhyming slang for faggot?

Thing is, 'football field' can have various connotations. I'm not sure whether 'field' is used much in certain codes: I think soccer and gaelic football prefer 'pitch' or 'park'. Field is the Rugby word: and 'centre prop' would be a rugby guy, while centre-forward (in the 60s - later a striker or a sweeper, now a #31 or (in Chelski) a Systemchiki) is futbol.

And Rugby has backs and forwards though not necessarily in that order.

There's also something called American Football, but unlike Gaelic and Aussie it's not a true international sport, just one of those local variants.

Mind you, the Bonzos - I suspect Innes in this case - had a good pun on American football culture once. in 'Beautiful Zelda' the narrator sings:

"Beautiful Zelda, tell me the truth
I'm just an ordinary All-Earth Youth"

Being a pun on All-American. I recall being deeply confused by the title of a 1980s movie starring a Quaid -- Dennis or Randy. It was called "Everybody's All-American" and it took me a long time to work out that this meant something like "The All-American, or young sport star, who tried to please everyone/ belong to everyone".

My alternate reading - "everyone in the world is completely American now" was just wrong. A kind of cinematic mondegreen, writ large.

Everybody's All-American, indeed. No wonder it flopped. There's an annual award for gaelic footballers called the [insert name of sponsor] All-Stars, but nobody in Ireland would watch a film called 'Everybody's All-Star'.

I ask 'cos I just came across his name again. Didn't he figure as a sort of Sov Blok Suttles? Or at least a Maker of Commie Rats?

Heh "Dokdo Dokdo, give me the news, Japan's got a bad case- of invading you"

How in the world do you know about that?

You can say things like "You ugly," "You live in the Subway", or "You face is comedy" to a Korean and they will giggle.

But if you say "Dokdo- Japan!" They will offer to fight you.

Dokdos, of course, cure you with "yak".

HAAHAHAAHAH

The word for medicine is "yak".

I suppose they import them from the Himalayas.

Morphine is called "chu sa".

"Chu sa wisely, Dokdo, that's a very strong Yak."

I'm quite interested in it. There's a strong Club player- a High School kid-- Asian guy and he has won several Scholastic events-- he only ever opens with the Orangutan.

Not so! My dear <Dom Tar>.

Although your truth claim is in fact the major thesis of Adorno and Horkheimiers <The Dialectic of the Enlightenment>.

But the very existence of their work belies their own central fruit claim, at least in an absolute terms.

Also, Frankfort School aside, you are forgetting the value of the "insane answer".

If you look up "facts" in the right places, you can find some gems.

IE--

Check out this "fact," courtesy of Chairman Mao.

He observed this while hiding in the mountains with his starving peasant army.

"There is great chaos under Heaven, and the situation is excellent."

I said this to one of my colleague at school the other day.

Colleaque: "What does that mean"?

Me: "I don't know"

Colleague: "Why did you say it then?"

Me: "I don't know"

Colleague: "Maybe you should stick to saying things you know about"

xerox

xanax

x-rays

Oddly, I was trying to recall this verse yesterday for somebody but could only remember xtracts. Must look it up sometime. It started (note homage to 19th century alphabet poem which began "An Austrian army awfully arrayed/ Boldly by battery besieged Belgrade..."

My version:

An American Airforce, Ah'm awfully afraid
Backed by Blair's Britain, bombed Belgrade.
Clinton commanded. Chiefly, children cried.
Dissent disappeared. Democracy died.
Every evil empire exports ethnic engineers,
For foolish foreigners forget faint fears."

Jump forward to a bit about Serbia & Milosevic:

Milo married Mira. Milo's Mum
Needed no narcotics, naturally numb.
"One of our offspring opted out of our
Politically potent parenting power".

Queerly, quaintly, quintessentially quiet,
Ruling Ruritania's rancorous riot,
Slobo screwed Serbia. Some suicides survive.
Thanks to terror, the torturers thrive.

Under useless umbrellas, using uniforms unclear
Vagrants vanish, vermin volunteer:
"We want world war, we will waste Will's Western way, Xeroxed xenophobes. xox, X-ray."

You yearn, Yugoslavia, You yelp, yet you'll yap,
Zigzag, zestful zealots. Zeroes, zombies, zap!"

... or something like that. There was also a bit in the middle, 'twixt K&L, which went "... kindly Krauts/ Let loose like lions. Learning late lessons, louts."

I misremember it slightly each time so there are now many different versions ...

How'd we get onto this alphabet stuff anyhoo?

You asked about Dokdo? Every encyclopedic datafreak knows about Dokdo aka Lioncourt Rocks. I think.

1.b4 e6
2.Bb2 b6
3.e3 Bb7
4.f4 Qh4+
5.g3 Qe7
6.Nf3 Qxb4

C O L L E
O D E E V
L E Y V A
L E V I N
E V A N S

Padre Lopez is a much-maligned and misunderstood figure. Many times he was seen taking Spanish Virgins into the privacy of his confession box, where - it is said - he told them that 3.Bb5 was an "occasion of sin", and that double moves of the e-pawn were best avoided on both sides. The opening that now bears his name was, he said, invented by Satan. He himself preferred 1.c4.

The e-pawn, or <el pion del Rey>, is the sexual and generative organ of the chessboard. God created it to allow us to attack one another: a privilege indeed. But it should be used cautiously, never inflamed by lust. This is why I recommend the good Catholic move 1...e6, rather than the heretic abomination 1...e5.

However, should you find yourself in a situation where both e-pawns have been advanced two steps, you should know what to do. Send out your Knight first to attack the enemy clitori, er, sorry, pawn.

If this fails, send out the Bishop tp spray it with holy water. Here endeth the lesson. Now just step into the box here m'dear for the advanced stuff -- look! my 'pawn' is being 'promoted' ..."

You'll be pleased to know that in rural Korean areas (including my school) it is common to use urine as a "cleaning disinfectant".

<Dom>

On a rare "serious" note, how true this is. It's one of the conceits of an important part of the plot of <Lear>, as you well know.

The fool is immune due to his insanity- but- he makes more sense than the "sane" people.

Now, I don't know if Chairman Mao made more sense than "sane" people or if he was exempt from criticism--

But he had a big bloody army and was very "extroverted".

He loved to write paradoxical Buddhist-inspired nature poetry.

I think he should have made that his career, as opposed to what he actually did.

Who needs readers anyhoo? Hmm... I feel a <nature poem> coming on...

I don't care for outdoors
I'm told the seasons change
That's all very well
But is it natural?

The temperate zone of a (slightly soiled) oxygen planet Has little going for it
But it beats the tropics
And the colder bits.