I know, I know. Wilson's right hand man and sometime press officer as an actual deity? Perhaps one of the few actual gods that either of us has met?

Douglas Adams - in the Dirk Gently series (and an unfinished story published as The Salmon of Doubt) speculated as to the fate of gods that nobody believes in anymore. His Odin had retired to an old folks' home, fretting about son Thor and his bad habits like flying low over Heathrow.

Borges has a more cerebral version. A story about an old man entering an inn in early-christian Norway, lighting a candle, and saying that his life would end when it burned out. He left shortly before it reached the end; in the morning they found the body of the god Odin lying in the snow.

This, to me, stinks of typical xtian trickery and self-justification. Boy, they were good at that in the old days -- appropriate a chunk of the Old Religion, twist slightly, and use it to hammer home the message: "the old gods are D-E-A-D and *WE* are in charge now."

- Yes, father. A cup of tea? Some whiskey? My daughter? My son? A tenth of my income, perhaps? Just say the word.

But I digress, as usual. If you google Joehaynus or check Wikipedia for Celtic gods, there he is. Multiple sources, apparently.

It *looks* like a joke - the phonetics are all wrong for Old Celtic: a name like Toutatis is more typical of the Gaulish branch. They didn't even have the letter 'J' -- and Ioehaynus is nearly as strange.

It seems to me that the same principle applies to those Pelican crossing things. Press the button on a frequently used crossing, and you might get to cross 10 minutes later, when it finally deigns to stop the traffic. Find a crossing that no-one uses, and it responds immediately.

Pedestrian crossings are demonic.

As to the old gods - yes, absolutely. And not just demons -- Christianity is full of local saints that used to be local gods, and still have fully functioning shrines. The message being: sure, keep your local satrap, just as long as he/she knows who the real boss is.

And don't get me started on acts of cultural vandalism committed in the name of the one true etc. Friars burning Aztec books because they were full of 'demons'. And the Christians and Muslims took turns despoiling the 'pagan' library of Alexandria.

A thug named 'saint' Cyril even ordered the death of Hypatia, the greatest woman scientist of antiquity. His thugs scraped her pagan skin off with oyster shells.

Try speaking gently to traffic lights, especially ones at temporary roadworks, and adopting an attitude of infinite calm. It seems to help.

Do psychologists ever get out much? Or do they just gradually morph into psycho-logicians...

"I think, therefore I'm going to kill someone"

Not that I'm trying to draw attention to myself, or anything. There are much more fun ways of doing that.

You're onto something here: a definite correlation between 70s Brit prog rock and the agricultural arts.

Jethro Tull did not invent the seed-drill - The Sumerians beat him to it by about 3000 years - but he wrote a book about <Horse-Hoeing>, still essential reading for a wannabe horse-ho ... "Down on all fours ... whinny ... say 'nay' ... now lash me with your tail as though flicking away a horsefly... ahhh..."

Perhaps he was influenced by Dean Swift's Houyhnhnms. Or "Ho - whinny 'em".

I believe the other Jethro Tull did stuff with a flute. While writing lyrics with an agricultural slant, eg:

"And you ride yourself over your fields
And you make all your animal deals
And your wise men don't know how it feels
To be thick
As a brick."

Then there's *Barclay James Harvest*. Can't say I've heard much of their output, but founder member Woolly Wolstenholme left "to become a farmer". This was a popular career move in the 70s, before "musical differences" were invented.

They also released a record called <Arable Parables>, I think.

"Pest control to Farmer Tom
Get your pitchfork out
And put your wellies on."

Ah, yes, the glory days of agro-prog rock... whatever became of Mutter Slater?

It was a club match, back in the days when I rarely lost to lower-rated opponents - and if I did I remembered 'em for future reference. This was one such case. A year earlier, around move 17 of a King's Indian, I'd idiotically let this guy - rated about 500 points lower - win my queen. So I was wired for revenge.

After 20-odd moves, I have a totally winning position. All my firepower is aimed at his king: whatever he does, he loses. In one line, if he plays ...h6, I simply exchange queens (his is guarding h6 and mine is somewhere nearby) and play Rxh6#.

But he's taking a *very* long time working all this out. I'm pacing up and down the room, waiting for the idiot to bow to the inevitable. Eventually he moves. I dart back. Aha, ...h6, gotcha. Without even sitting down, I play Rxh6+ and suddenly realize I forgot to exchange queens. He replies ...Qxh6.

My head went walkabout for a while. Then I resigned. Then a helpful teammate pointed out that I was probably still winning in the final position, despite being a rook down. Later analysis confirmed this.

So with a single move I (a) threw away a simple forced win (b) lost a rook (c) depressed myself into resigning, thus losing the game for a second time ...

I never played that guy again, but I did learn an important lesson. In my first tournament after a 15-year layoff, I start badly, with a draw and a loss. In round three I found myself a rook down. Did I resign? Hell, no -- I set traps like a maniac until one worked and I mated him. And then I won a proper victory in the next round. But for a moment there I was close to giving it up again in disgust - 0.5/3 was not what I'd planned - until experience came to the rescue.

To make other diseases happy, I suppose. Or to give the immune system something to do?

But this is *diseasism* -- viewing a group of bacteria or other micro-organisms solely in terms of their negative effects on the human body. (Yes, OK, there are tree diseases and hippo diseases too ... it's not *all* humanity.)

Diseasism is de trop. Using the words 'why' and 'exist' in the same sentence is allegro non troppo.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008...

"There are defendants whom the judges are afraid of"

That one wasn't by Solzhenitsyn, though -- he took the longer view.

I wonder if he changed his mind before the end>

I'm no expert on the subject, but think of Solzhenitsyn as an old-fashioned slavophile, a rather traditional Russian nationalist, and more critical of the Soviet Union. Since I don't remember anything tangible I take the comfortable way of quoting Wikipedia:

<The violence of the Communist regime was in no way comparable to the lesser violence of the Tsars>

<His conclusion is Communism will always be totalitarian and violent, wherever it is practiced.>

<He also criticized the view that the Soviet Union was Russian in any way. He argued Communism was international and only cared for nationalism as a tool to use when getting into power, or for fooling the people. Once in power, Communism tried to wipe clean every nation, destroying its culture and oppressing its people.>

<All national cultures were oppressed in favour of an atheistic Soviet culture>

Oh, and Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep"

Oh, wait, I'm not allowed to 'gotcha', am I?

Ok then, don't read the first part of this post.

Curious. Half a post is still a post. Whichever definition of the noun 'post' you happen to be using.

Hmm, posts are fractal...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/b...

...Once he stares for a while, amazed, at the word glove. “I find myself wondering why I’ve never seen this odd term that describes such a common article of clothing.”...>

Hang on a minute, I think I know it already.

Very odd, not least because these past few days I've been trying to get hold of him to ask a few questions (that's right, it's that time of year again - expect another 15,000 words of crap your way in September!). I got off the phone with Joe two minutes ago, and it's reminded me more so than ever just bloody scared I am of him. Not in any sort of awed or deferential way, just out and out fear. He is so very unpleasant. Even now it is clear that every other sentence he speaks is a none-too-veiled attack on some journo he met in the seventies, or an old Labour MP who still remembers what socialism is, or me. And probably you. I may well have to visit his place down in Kent soon, and I thoroughly dread the experience.