(diaryland) August 14, 2005 - 9:23 p.m.

It is true that sometimes, when people pose as doctors or lawyers or chartered accountants, they get found out and then they go to jail and get a big fine.

I wonder, though, what would the consequences be for somebody who posed as a doctor of philosophy? Probably the most insidious thing they could do is lead someone down the wrong path about the fate of post-modernism at a dinner party.

If I was going to pretend to have another profession at a dinner party, I would say that I was a death mask maker, but I would insist on calling it a death mask 'artist'. I would claim that I hold death mask making classes and we would practice on real examples. This would only be if the dinner party was getting dreary.

I have been drinking a lot of milk lately.