Annie,

We mods have a "Cloak of Invisibility!" Didn't you know?
Not only can we edit our own posts imperceptibly, we can pop in to others' posts and tweak/edit/delete as we see fit.

You won't see us when you look at "Who's on line" either, even if we are online!

Oh, the power...!!! ;)

Jayne

Yes, I knew that, Jayne, but it does make one feel a little sick when one responds to a post that's later changed with no evidence of its having been done. It happened twice on the Bookish thread, with one post disappearing altogether, and once on this one.

This is why I introduced the word "zugzwang". It's a situation in chess where one is forced to make a move in a situation where to do so weakens one's position and it seems to me the perfect counter to the customary, polite "nevermind". Which in this case we have not got.

I know I am sounding like a trendy-lefty pseudo-intellectual, envious of privilege, and I'm not for a moment suggesting any malevolent sub-agenda, just saying that retrospective tweaking without acknowledgement is a tad unfair in a forum which is founded on repartee.

That doesn’t mean that I am not now heartily wishing I’d not raised the matter.

And John, dear heart – that bookshop comp is current. At any moment you will be announcing its winners. I was suggesting that its losers could enter this one with the same poems. Thus, I hoped, claiming all those shoes and handbags, which I intended to sell on eBay. Apart, that is, from the pink Crocs…

But, but... they're not Crocs like the usual clog-gy ones, which are truly awful. Mine are sandals.
My kids will be able to retire on the proceeds from my shoes and handbags when I turn up my toes! :D

So it is. I hd quite forgotten. And I entered the bloody thing. Or at least I hope I did. And you have a winner IMHO.

I doubt it. I didn't enter!

Holy moly, Ann, you mean you never submitted 'Between Dryden & Duffy'? That's surely being a fool to yourself. It looked like a strong contender to me.

That would certainly make it difficult.

But, Bazza - it's the title poem of a published collection. I don't think it would have been cricket to submit it; I'd've been unmasked and vilified. They would have ridiculed my truly awful shoes.

Cricket? Only John cares about that. For the rest of us, it's just another insect to be squashed under shoes, whether truly awful or pink crocs.

Quite right, Brian, & I have a 32-year-old pair of Red Wing Pecos boots that do a thoroughly Nietzschean job on moral qualms.