I’ve never pulled a gun on anyone.

I haven’t. I don’t own a gun. I think it unlikely that I will. I’m not really friends with anyone who owns a gun. Very few people in NZ own a gun and those that do are best avoided. There’s not really much else to say on the point.

I really wanted to say something about C.E.M. Joad. I was disappointed to see that he isn’t included in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations for his “It all depends what you mean by…” Sometimes I wonder if I expect a bit too much. However, there is always the serendipitous element when you look in the ODQ  which in some way compensated for the omission of Mr (or Professor) Joad. I came across a quote by Horace, a little line in Latin that I recognised (from yet another serendipitous event), and  which was borrowed by Cole Porter and used in Kiss Me Kate. After having scanned and photocopied all the music of Kiss Me Kate for the school production in a volume that left me hovering on the brink of madness I had seen the song title “Always True to You in My Fashion” many times. What I didn’t know then was that Porter had borrowed it from Horace.  But I do now.