"I am surprised and disappointed that Mike seems to share them, or at least, is ready to defend them on your behalf.
"Well - in the immortal words of Miss Mandy Rice-Davies..."
I always thought you would move away from being 'clever-clever' to maybe being just 'clever' - ah well; perhaps that's some sort of an implant too"..
,,.,.,.,

Once, Jim, long long years ago, when The Times were running a correspondence on animal rights, they published a letter of mine to the effect that some of their campaigners reminded me of Macauley's dictum that the Puritans' objection to bear-baiting was not that it gave pain to the bear, but that it gave pleasure to the spectators. I came home that evening to four hate messages on my ansafone, one of which, from a spokesman for a group called Animal Rights Extreme, was a literal death-threat ~~ "You deserve to be eliminated for writing such things and you will be eliminated!".

I am afraid, Jim, that your remark above rather reminds me of that mindset. If one can't, even on a thread like this, on however earnest a topic, express oneself with a certain amount of irony, or even a degree of levity, without being denounced in tones of the outmost pejorativity, as 'clever-clever' & so on, I call it a poor look-out for the forum ~ and for the world. I know this is a subject dear to your ♥, Jim. But for god's sake do lighten up just a bit before we are all drowned in floods of our own tears!

~M~