First they came for the dumb, and I said nothing, because I was not dumb.
Then they came for the stoic, and I did not complain, because I was not stoic.
Then they came for the ignorant, and I did not even know about it.
Then for the blind, but I did not see that, because I was not blind.
Then they came for the shy, but I did not demonstrate about it---I am not shy.
Then they came for the sane, but I wasn't mad about that, because I was not sane.
And when they came for me, I wasn't quite myself. So that was all right.

Replies to the poets: Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
  And though I could not travel both
And be one traveller, I could
  Improve on this: so swore an oath

Of rending violence, and split
  Myself in two from crotch to crown.
Then, having staggered round a bit
  And even (nearly!) fallen down

I bade myself goodbye, and hopped
  Decisively down both the ways,
And neither turned around, nor stopped.
  Yet still, despite so many days

I'm haunted by a nagging dread.
  What if, in the next woods I meet
Two other forks should lie ahead?
  I'm running out of different feet.

Oh in the deep blue night
     The fountain sang alone;
It sang to the drowsy heart
     Of a satyr carved in stone.

The satyr's voice you might
     Have heard in an undertone:
"Oh, why must that fountain start
     Its incessant tearful moan?

"From my horns to my cloven hooves
     I long to return to sleep.
No other emotion moves
     Or can move me. You may keep

"That moon in its fields Elysian
     And the dance of my carven nymph:
For at this hour my hot Dionysian
     Humours turn coldly to lymph.

"Those dim and milksop peafowl
     Sleep---all a-glisten, too---
Despite this perfectly foul
     Singing I listen to!

"'Of the things one cannot tell
     Thereof is no account!' In
Wittgensteinian Hell
     I wish this bloody fountain!"

When God upon his potter's wheel
Was making Adam out of clay
The Devil asked, how did it feel
To fashion something so outré
And end, with such a rotten day,
An unproductive week?

The only part of Man to meet
The criticism of his eye
Would serve, he felt, both as a seat
And to chastise and smite him by.
God answered only with a sigh
And turned the other cheek.

Initiation is the severest form of frattery.

Keats at one point journeyed to America to ranch turkeys. Having received a large sum with little supervision attached, from an aunt who was a sleeping partner in the venture, he was able to indulge in his usual fantastic whims, calling his prize birds after successive presidents. One day his senior labourer suggested renaming not a bird, but himself, in honour of the new man; but he would want a prize turkey of his own as a bonus for enacting the deed poll.

When Keats asked his advice about whether to accept this offer, and if so which prize turkey to let go of, Chapman was ready with his answer. Obama the hand is worth W. Bush.

And Sittingbourne is a compost heap.

Among all the terrible things which will happen this century, perhaps the least is that in 2040 Shrove Tuesday and St Valentine's Day will occur at the same time. It is possible that human ingenuity will, before that date, have come up with a way to make pancakes into indulgent and romantic food. But it is surely safer to act now to avert the problem with a comprehensive calendar reform. Our children will thank us, and it will provide work for unemployed mathematicians.

Behemwoth (n.) A behemoth made by BMW.

The abstract of the talk offered by Olga N. Bushmakina of the philosophy department of Udmurt State University to the European Logic Colloquium 1998.

Hermeneutics and postmodernism are offered the problem of basis of being in two different approaches. Absolute positiveness of being is determined through the ontological difference or ambiguousness of being. Being is divided into the being as reality and being as notion. Transcendental basis is united being into whole, but it is eliminated ot the limits of knowledge's system. The basis of system is stated metalogical. At postmodernism being as absence (vacant) exists as absolute negativeness until any possibility of mentality. We do not think it. It exists as metalogical one. Absolute negativeness is determined over the absolute positiveness, and on contrary. The basis of knowledge's system is eliminated out of its limits. The logical basis of system is not over. If system itself have basis, then it is over. Basic principle must be undoubted, or tautological. It exists into limits of this system. Paradoxical affirm unites positive and negative statements together, and therefore it is eliminated out of the limits of knowledge's system. Tautology affirms basis and except moreover. The being as basic principle of system exists as tautological principle. It is identity with existence and mentality. The being as mentality may be moved "from" itself "to" itself "into" itself. Indefinite existence of being may be demonstrated as Dasein or being into "place" The being of jointness is coincidence of being itself. The location of being exists as "place-of-determination". For description of being as whole "place-of-determination" must exists as final infinite and as definite indefiniteness, that is point. Self-coincidence of being in point is realised, when it is vacant and full simultaneously. The being passes as full through the "pierceness" of being as vacant one identity of being as full one and being as vacant one as are affirmed into self-coincidence of being as self-definition. The being is self-defined without transcendental entity. It is determined, when it passed through the its "pierceness" ("chink"). Therefore, basis of being exists into limits itself. Knowledge's system becomes logical discourse.

"I'm fed to the back teeth!" yelled Tom full-throatedly.

Oriental food must be healthy because it's full of antioccidents.

Walla Walla, WA: so good they named it two-and-a-half times.

Another in the infrequent series of Thoughts from the Archive, posted here because I was reminded of it and Usenet doesn't turn up easily when you Google.

An event at Henley had needed a qualifying race when only sixteen crews were entered; someone posited an imaginary seventeenth crew, and eminent boatbuilder Carl Douglas asked in what sense "imaginary" was used.

( Take it away, Carl )

If you were an estate agent needing a brand name in the age of predictive text messaging, would you really call yourself King Sturge?

Black pudding is the highest belt of haggis.

There is a cafe on the A25 in Brasted calling itself 96º.

I am pleased to report that the barrista was indeed slightly obtuse.

Strong Winds Shake Darling's Budget Of Dismay.

While we're talking Shakespeare, you've got about two weeks left to see the National Theatre's Much Ado, which after last night I can strongly recommend although you'll need to be time-rich enough to queue for day tickets. Or cash-rich to bribe me to do it for you, I suppose. Sit in the front row and get splashed by both Simon Russell Beale and Zoe Wanamaker, who are both of course superb. The production felt a little unbalanced in their favour, with Julian Wadham's Don Pedro not quite adding up.

At julietk's jolly good party bluedevi reminded me that I have yet to publish the following ( Impromptu )