May I take this opportunity to state: a blog article should not (in my opinion) be written as if it were to be published in tomorrow's newspaper. Occasionally, such a piece may be suitable. Personally, my blog pieces are experiments, calculated provokations, ways of 'testing' random thoughts - the bits and pieces of what might, elsewhere, appear in a suitably polished form. There is frequently something ironic and provisional taking place here. And this is not to disclaim responsibility for anything I have written, but rather to allow it properly to be read. May I also say that, to my mind some of the best blogs have this quality, loosed as they are from the demands of accountability and finality, loosed also from the rules and self-censorship of professional writing, they open a space in which new thoughts might breath.