Reading through last night's entry, I couldn't help but notice the rather second-rate punc tuation of the opening salvo. It seemed to contain a misplaced comma - and it is the humble comma that I wish to consider this evening.

I say that on;ly because I've now read two books in which the comma appears, to me, anyway, to be somewhat under-used. Apposing nouns, for example, would, in my opinion, always be surrounded by a couple of the aforementioned marks, and adjectives which form a list, in order to describe an otherwise naked noun, would also be separated by one such, with the exception of the ultimate one in the said (or rather, the written), list. And then there's the business of the prescribed absence of a comma before the word 'and' at all times, howsoever it might be used.

Hence my fascination for the works of Professor John Baily, for one, and, at the other end of the spectrum, an author with whose works I was unfamiliar, due to the fact that I do not spend very much time at airports, by the name of James Steele. Both, in writing in their respective genres, seem to think that they may presume to ignore all such regulations as I have described above. Oh well, or, rather, oh, well, I suppose one can't break rules until one knowswhat they really are, and, in the case of the learned professor, I can give him the benefit of wisdom. As for Mr Steele, well, exciting though his tale of the overthrow of a Russian dictator may be, I'm not so sure. Although perhaps my example of 'oh, well' suggests that he wrote as he intended.

Amazing what simple pleasures can be derived from a punctuation mark, don't you think?

To Newton. Mr BT popped in to see us all tonight and of course, we were all delighted to see him. We entertained him with a quick game of Uno and then showed him Black Magic, to which he offered what can only be a bribe to those who know how it works. I'm not sure that that's permitted, under the regulations of the Magic Circle. (Who have nothing to do with it; nor do the Druids.)

Happy days.