This almost 10-year-old <I>Billboard</I> article is still timely. The next time a record label whinges about how the major labels are important cultural institutions preserving our musical patrimony, I'm going to email him this. Grrrr.

Lovely essay on Greene's friendship with a genuine Foreign Office undercover agent. Peter Edmund James Leslie was an ex-Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism, owned shares in a diamond mine, worked as an arms salesman, and served as a Vice-Consul&mdash;in others words, he was the very template of a Graham Greene protagonist.

Happy Friday, lovely. I'm sorry for missing you yesterday. I started on several different entries, actually, but none went where I wanted. Which isn't necessarily bad &#151; entries often take unexpected turns &#151; but these entries, in particular, simply seemed not right enough for this space.

German scholars think they have deciphered the 3600 year-old sky disc of Nebra. I'll believe almost anything, so long as James Spader doesn't smack himself in the forehead and say, "I just remembered&mdash;I <I>do</I> speak ancient Egyptian!"

"Worship me, unworthy wretch!"

"These things used to be roomier," Huckleberry grouses.

Need I say more? I think not.