Bull!

[Doug Alan <nessus@athena.mit.edu>]

> [Julian West:] You also lost a lot of credibility with your absurd
> claim that Kate's alleged reference to "Nice to Swallow" was
> obviously a joke and not a typist's error.

It would be hard for me to have lost credibility with this claim,
because I never made it.

IED seemed to be accusing me of being a liar (as he has done several
times, and it is getting progressively more annoying).  This is what I
said in response:

     Andy, you never challenged me the first time I made this claim.  I'll
     tell you what, though.  I'll again bet you a round trip plane ticket
     to London for the next time Kate tours that I can produce the magazine
     and page number within a month.  Just keep in mind that it was a good
     idea that you didn't take me up on this offer with repect to Gaffer's
     tape.  I don't make up things like this, Andy, and you do nothing to
     increase your credibility by constantly challenging me on issues like
     this and losing.

     Now, I can't guarantee that the pun wasn't introduced by the
     interviewer or by the editorial staff of the magazine, but I can
     guarantee that I have an interview where, as it appears in print,
     Kate refers to "Night of the Swallow" as "Nice to Swallow".  And
     it's in a major British periodical, not some fly-by-night rag.
     If you don't wish to place the bet, however, I have better things
     to do that wade through an entire filing cabinet full of articles
     on Kate, searching for one line, just because you don't believe
     me.

I also said this:

     I am only going to go to all the work of digging up the quote,
     only if you will agree to say it on the condition that it appears
     as I have said in print attributed to Kate in a reasonably-sized
     interview with Kate in a major periodical.  There is no way that
     I'm going to do all this work if you're just going to say, "It
     must have been a typo."

> If it was a joke, it would fly right by the average reader of that
> magazine, and I suspect this level of subtlety to be beyond its
> editors.

So what?  Do you think when Kate makes a pun, she'd think to herself,
"Is the editor of the magazine going to get this?"  I think not.  Kate
often makes little inside jokes in intereviews.

> When you did track down the reference, you should have read it twice
> and apologized to IED _yourself_ with some dignity.

Bull!  The quote appeared precisely as I remembered it and precisely
as I said it would.  I have no proof that it is not a typo, but I said
from the beginning that I could not provide such proof.  How could one
ever provide such proof?  Do you think that when Kate makes a little
pun, she's going to say, "Har, har, har!  What a great pun I made!
Did you get it?  'Nice to Swallow!' Har, har, har!"?

I believe that Kate actually made the pun.  It's quite within Kate's
rather strange sense of humor.  Kate is no prude, and is certainly not
offended by sexual allusions.  The article on Kate was professional.
There were no obvious mistakes in the article.  The little section on
each album contained a photo of each album and a complete track
listing for each album.  There were no mistakes in the track listings.
All in all, it was a fairly nice job.  Futhermore, it seems unlikely
that a mere typo would turn out to be such a provocative pun, nor that
such a provocative mistake would not be caught in the proofing, unless
Kate actually said this.  My argument that the quote is accurate holds
a lot more water than the incredibly flimsy argument, "Kate couldn't
have said this because she's too good and pure, so it must be a typo."

|>oug