Congratulation to this newsgroup!

I have been boring everyone here for but a few weeks, but notice several
things about my introductory experience which deserve some applause. This
group is far from typical of all groups, and maintains many things which
make newsgroups enjoyable.

I'll be brief in my praise, since it is, as we know, often a curdling
experience.

But I enjoy the round mix of male and female participants, the overall
liberal and humanistic perspective, the attentions to detail, some
language/culture appreciations and also the notice of the occasional worthy
flight. This is all good and healthy stuff.

Some groups are all [ostensibly] male. Some are divided on personality
lines, and some on "isshoos", on a basis so fixed and intransigent it would
make a cold-warrior blush.

This is for you, you writers who care for words and their matter, what was
before and hereafter.

And the poets are led along the banks rejoicing
They are unknown but they lie now in the rough basement

For who else built the stubborn structure of language
And rose against a silent melancholy and a dumb despair?



//after P. Ackroyd and Wm. Blake

Cordially, Phil Innes






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