"The trouble with you is you are interested in stuff that no one else is . . . " C. Whitehead, 2005

To prove him wrong, I put in a hit-counter. It seemed not to work at all.

"More than I could follow . . . further than I would like to go . . . "

Please send your picture and I'll decide whether I'd like you to follow me

"I have shown your site to my students and warned them about it . . . ."

Come back - I'll fill it with front-bottoms then you can all enjoy it together!

"Are you a Jew? If so, you should be ashamed of yourself!"

This looks stern but, thinking about it, this is the only review with a get-out clause. Yet it's one I'd feel cowardly to take advantage of.

"Rigoletto, Schmigoletto! So a hunchback loves his daughter? There's too little love in this world!"

I made this one up.

"I notice that you are named after the Mayor of London at the time of Jack the Ripper . . . "

Not only that, I think another namesake was a copper who discovered one of the bodies!

"Weishaupt would be Whitehead in English."

Weisskopf, I think, my German teacher called me but she wasn't very successful.

"Name: Cunt. Address: Cunt Cunt Cunt. Message: Daft Cunt, yer Cuntface!"

I don't know if that was the same person who filled in the fields with Twat a few weeks later. It was a response form for a trial copy of some impossible to learn software I once offered. Had they actually used it, I might have seen their point. I actually do use both words in the piece on The Holy City but I doubt if it would feature high on the list of any Search Engine for that reason.

"The Devil makes work foridle hands"

Foridle should be a real adjective and the inversion would sound poetic.

"Can you help me trace my sister who used to live near the Isle of Wight?"

In cheapskate mediumistic trance mode: Near the Isle of Wight, I see waves, I see waves, but I see little hope . . .

"My Uncle had a dog called Rigoletto . . . "

Oddly unmusical and it lacks the popular appeal of, "My Auntie Mary had a canary . . . "

"Can you tell me how much my 78s are worth? A dealer offered me three pounds for the lot."

I think you should take it as it's ready money and if he is a dealer the things will circulate till we find out what they are worth. If he's a collector, he'll just sit on them like you did and dream that they'll fund his retirement.

"You're taking the piss aren't you?"

Oi, leave it aht!

"I have just read your Angelic & Satanic Mills from beginning to end . . . "

I like the hopefulness of this beginning, it's like someone tugging the sleeve of someone they think might just be Colley Cibber and in a position to dole out five pound notes.

"This site, is it a real thing?"

He was asking the mirage if it was real and I felt I had intruded on his sleep.

"Can I get an original André Quash? It's the one with the open arse-hole I'm interested in . . . It's to hang in the office . . . "

I think I opened negotiations for this at too high a price because suddenly she seemed to see the joke and admitted she hated her boss, alas! I can't help feeling that life would have been a lot easier if she had loved him to bits and paid up. More people should love their bosses and pay for André's pictures of arse-holes. As it is, demand remains what it was. Nil.

"I've got an original single of The Windmill in Old Amsterdam. There's a big hole in it though. My Nan has got The Windmills of Your Mind, all in black vinyl. I'll have to ask her about it."

This one left me in suspense. Never a word since about whether Nan's had a big hole or a little one!

" . . . a downside is there are no positive images of women and black people."

Must remember to post a picture of Ella Fitzgerald and score double next time.

The Hidden Files

Promised but perennially withheld

Elgar's Enigma Unveiled

A solution which works musically as well as conceptually, altering the comfortable sepia-tinted view of this familiar work. This study is currently being withheld for development in another medium. An unrelated feature, looking at some literary sources of the name on the most celebrated variation will be posted shortly, as it forms no part of the proposed solution.

Verdi's Rocester

Imagine my astonishment at discovering Verdi's long-lost first opera in my own music-stool! It proves to be a romantic comedy with Britain's filthiest poet, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, for hero. Unpublishable, though a De Luxe limited edition CD-R might be issued at a prohibitive price to discourage more or less everybody.

The Harp that Never

Shaw's comment on Verdi's extreme theatre. It will make a good title for something or other.

When did you last see your Master?
Reflections on trade marks and labels

The power of these marks has something of the occult about it. The fact that a sign is visible does not make it less mysterious.

Orient. Das Lied von der Erde

Or how the symphony sighs for home.

Sibelius: The Masons ate my Eighth!

The strange case of Op.113 and the most esoteric Masons of America.

Hansel und Gretel

What did Ms. Wette actually contribute to the Grimm tale? Are German tales naturally Freudian or was Freud just a spinner of fairy tales?