Having admired some of mankind's finer achievements ... I confess to being a Francophile, even if I have no scientific evidence to support such a predilection ... I've now returned to the delights of www.AgnosticWeb.com. I'm truly amazed at how much has been going on in my absence (you can imagine some deity making the same comment, but the comparison ends there). Perhaps I should go off on another holiday ... a suggestion of which my wife would certainly approve. - It's going to take me quite a while to catch up on all these new topics, including John Clinch's record-breaking post on Le Fanu and Matt's "Art is Language", which is of especial interest to me. I'm looking forward to much enlightenment, and would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this positive explosion (tangle?) of threads. For the moment, though, I'll have to confine myself to the discussions in which I was already directly involved before I left. My apologies to Matt and to George for asking them to look back, but I'm sure neither of them will fear being turned into a pillar of salt.