Abso-bloody-lutely. *Micrographia*, I think it was called. Hooke was one of the few people to combine being a great artist with being a great scientist. I've seen some of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, and I don't think he *saw* quite so clearly nor captured what he saw so precisely. And Hooke was an Architect, too - he was Wren's assistant rebuilding London after the Great Fire in 1666.

He was also short -- well under five feet -- and made himself unpopular by surliness and ill temper. Possibly not helped by drinking mercury potions for syphilis. According to one story, Newton's line about seeing further by standing on the shoulder of giants - which has featured on UK coins -- was really a sly dig at Hooke, who was no giant. At least not height-wise.

A fictionalized version of Hooke is found in the novel Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson, and its successors in the Baroque Cycle -- featuring Hooke, Isaac Newton, Leibniz, William of Orange, Samuel Pepys, 'Hanging Judge' Jeffreys, Kings James II and George I of Britain, Peter the Great of Russia, Louis XIV of France, Handel, a young Ben Franklin, and sundry vagabonds, pirates, slaves, linguists, princelings, alchemists, counterfeiters, galley oarsmen, goldsmiths, duchesses, devil worshippers, samurai warriors, jesuits, filipino sailors, the Spanish inquisition, a siege in Ireland, a rebellion in England, a war or three in the Netherlands, a white horse, a depraved duke, a puritan brought up to welcome Jesus Christ to England, and a voyage round the world in search of King Solomon's Gold ...

Eh. I recommend it.

There's a bit where Newton says "I hated Hooke, but no man ever saw more clearly".

And a scene where Hooke performs an operation without anaesthetic on one of the main characters, 'cutting him for the stone' -- removing a kidney stone before death sets in. He says:

Not so much low tolerance as total bafflement why anyone should tell such a story. Their language uses different kinds of verb depending on whether the event being described was personally observed by the speaker, inferred from evidence, or told to them by somebody who witnessed. They don't use numbers and have no interest in talking about the distant past.

So a story about "a man named Hiso" who walked on water and rose from the dead would be met with incredulity ... "Did you see this happen?" ... "Did you hear about this from somebody who saw it, and can they be trusted?"

Ehhh, well, not exactly, chaps.

There's a little county in Scotland (I refuse to use the word 'wee' for Celtic smallness ... though still heard in certain vernaculars, it has mostly been hijacked by Americans and turned *twee* - which is different).

Anyhoo, the little county is Clackmannanshire, a dot on the map which is home to about 50,000 people. Towns and villages include Alloa, Dollar, Dollar Mine, Muckhart and Pitgober.

Now you think I'm making this up. Yes, Virginia, there *is* a Dollar Mine. They don't grow on trees, y'know.

Clackmannanshire has its own historic coat of arms, with the fine slogan "Look aboot ye" (or, in Latin, 'Circumspice').

A couple of years back some *genius* in local government or Scottish tourism decided to 'rebrand' Clackie. Out goes "Look Aboot Ye" ... and in comes the incredibly brave and original example of modern marketing-speak at its zenith, "More than you Imagine".

This isn't just bad. It's a desecration.

A related case is the Irish town of Dingle, whose residents were informed by the fanatic Gaelic-speaker in charge of the relevant ministry that they would have to change the name of the town to the Irish version 'Daingean'. Which nobody uses, not even the town's many Irish speakers. But all the roads, maps, signs etc would have to be changed ... tourists looking for Dingle would be told that no such place existed.

Last I heard, they were just ignoring the ministerial diktat. Good for them.

There's an old limerick which goes:

The things that occur on the shingle
Of the beaches around about Dingle
Should only be said
In the bed of the wed
For they'd tingle the single to mingle.

I've *tried* to write a version which rhymes <Daingean> with <bangin'> but it just isn't the same.

Look aboot ye.

A place with a slogan like that could make a perfect virtual HQ for Geurgle or a similar web giant.

I'm sure it's safe in your, eh, hands.

Those old churches had some remarkable relics. I've seen the head of a saint embalmed in yellow liquid -- a work of art, not unlike Serrano's notorious 'Piss Christ'.

But another church claimed to have the skull of Saint Peter, while a rival basilica topped that with the skull of St Peter *as a boy*.

Oh, where's ma heid?

Factor in enough splinters of wood from the 'true cross' to build a small navy ... and a feather from the wing of the Angel Gabriel ...

I'm not sure if this applies to 'The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas' -- I think I have a partly-read copy somewhere. But I did make it all the way through his 'Theory of Semiotics'.

And he bought me a whisky in a Dublin hotel once. A courteous, humane, erudite, vastly read and hugely intelligent man, is Umberto.

I read about the publication of 'The Name of the Rose' in a French literary magazine. I was already a fan of his non-fiction, but I assumed something so deeply obscure as a novel about medieval monks by an Italian academic would *never* be translated into English. So I wondered if I'd be able to manage a French translation, or should I go the whole hog and get Italian lessons?

For several years after the English version came out, I used to re-read it every Christmas day. My little bit of ritual, I suppose.

When I was knocking around the Glastonbury area I picked up a bit of history about the Abbey. In 12blahdeblah they needed to earn a few quid to fix the roof after a fire, the usual scams: assorted bits of saints, anything to do with the crucifixion, healing waters, & even a tree planted by Joe of Arimathea weren't bringing in the big bucks. So an enterprising abbot hit on the idea of an "excavation" of the abbey grounds, they quickly found 2 bodies in an oak casket, & can you believe their luck, it was inscribed (in latin) 'Here lies the body of King Arthur & Guinevere in Avalon', what are the odds?. The tourists trade went through the 'roof', the coffers filled & it went on to be one of the richest in the country. You have to admire their ingenuity, old Henry certainly did. That little fib still brings the tourists a flockin.

Newspapers seem to have clung onto a culture of abuse that just wouldn't be tolerated in any other so-called industry. Regular 'bollockings' - a whole inverted pyramid of bollockings, from proprietor to lesser minions and hacks, ie, me -- were only part of it. Another *evil* newspaper is the Express, Daily and Sunday versions.

As John Cooper Clarke put it:

I meant, simply, that it feels good to have no connections with that organization. Not that being stoned in a particular out-of-it way was a good way to be (though it might).

And not in the sense used by Mephistopheles in Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus', when Faust asks him why he isn't in Hell, and gets the reply: