That's it grapho, just use your language skills to court nice newcomers like me and ignore the oldtimers that you think are in control. Right?

You do have a way with words, Amemeba.*

But I'm all dressed up for a parry with nowhere to go.

As to my "obsession with a nude Paris Hilton", it's the only part of the package that makes any sense to me. The rest is haute airs.

* I must be honest with you, Amemeba. I don't think it is possible to rise to Carpal Tunnelhood without becoming Carpal Tunnelized.

Carpal Tunnels alone dispense censure, and "their own" are not subject to censure.

Obviously, they have any newcomer at a disadvantage by sheer weight of numbers.

I just saw Vanity Fair.

Reese Witherspoon's character is invited by King George, who is beguiled by her charms, to sit beside him at dinner. One of the ladies of noble lineage protests that such an arrangement offends "precedent". King George remarks: "Madam, I confer precedent."

The Carpal Tunnels believe that they "confer" precedent, that censure is theirs to dispense exclusively, without any pretence of a fair hearing, indeed, without any pretence of a hearing at all. I do not.