(Speaking of Dumb and Liz, remind her that The Hand was a fiasco. Thanks.)

Robert has given me an idea. I think the next plaque needs to commemorate the former site of Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum somewhere on Bleecker Street. I figure it must be somewhere near Perry or Charles. C'mon, who's with me?

That devastating Ford pun is a reference to the Borges story "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius". There's a summary at http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jatill/175/SUMTlon.htm

I don't know whether there's an actual Ukbridge, or it's simply UK-bridge.

At this point, I'm also no longer absolutely sure that BSD really wants an explanation, or is posting a reference that I didhn't get.

What does this mean:

LL&thePofH

They could be making it up, though, come to think of it.

I can't find an Ukbridge in the UK - I think your clients are doing business in a typo (for "Uxbridge").

LL&thePofH

With no context I'm afraid I get stuck on Superman's girlfriends.

It's Friday. I get to be dyslekic on Fridays. It's in my contract.

I say, old horse, I'm not quite sure how we got from Ukridge to Uxbridge, but I trust the Wodehousians here all recognize the name of Stanley Featherstonehaugh (pronounced Fanshaw) Ukridge, first encountered in Love Among the Chickens.

But I made this comment years ago: Featherstonehaugh? BoSh!

I posted the first comment in this thread with a link to the story in it, but Patrick protested that I should give people a day or so to kick it around first, so I deleted the comment. Here's the thing itself, complete: Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.

That speaks volumes about Dorothy Heydt, now, doesn't it.

Mike's pun went completely over my head. But I would never ask for an explanation.

[sigh] Some of us just aren't cut out to swim with the big (lit) fish, I guess.

[goes and sits facing the corner wearing a tall, conical hat]

I've had no success with LL&thePofH, I've
only managed LR&theJofH plus the aforementioned
Superman girlfriends. The PofH that comes to
mind is an RPofH. I can't think of any way the
LL could be Lazarus Long...

Why not?

Which concludes my contribution to the discussion.

Call me stupid (many people do! it's evidently therapeutic!), but I don't see the harm in asking questions, nor do I see what's so terrible about people having in-jokes. Jeez, everybody, grow up.

David, it would be improper of me to say that Alan doesn't ask because his experience suggests that it's a bad idea, i.e. he's been trained; but he does, on reflection, Know Better; and if there's a more reliable consolation for getting older, I'd like to know what it is.

Because then he may end up having to ask, as Byron did of Coleridge "explaining metaphysics to the nation," that "I wish he would explain his explanation."

I shall remain silent on the subject of Borges on the grounds that I might incriminate myself.

Now I am pondering the extent to which Love Among The Chickens is derived from that famous remark of Baltasar Gracian that the stars were "chickens of the celestial acres" -- which Borges very correctly calls blasphemous -- and as such whether Wodehouse and Borges were related in even approximately the same way as Omar Khayyam and Edward Fitzgerald.

This is all helping immeasurably in keeping me from writing a very dull book review. ;)

Naomi: You mean Buenos Ayres, with a borrowed pipe?

I'm not sure it's universally reliable, but my own experience is that the sex gets better, too.

And the bit where Jeeves shoves Spinoza through Borges' looking-glass, and then finds himself rerading his own obituary in the Anglo-American Cyclopedia, 1917 edition.

So he checks other dusty volumes of forgotten lore, including:

First Encyclopedia of Tlon; A General History of Labyrinths, by Silas Haslam; History of the Land Called Uqbar, also by Silas Haslam; and Lesbare und lesenswethe Bemerkungen uber das Land Ukkbar in Klein-Asien, by Johann Valentin Andrea; the title of the latter being read by Basil Fawlty after being hit on the head by the Moosehead and goosestepping in front of German tourist couple.

Of course, in "Very Good, Jeeves!" there is the sinister reference to Autumn Leaves by Gwendolen Moon, and also 'Twas on an English June by the same author, when it turns out at the end that Gwendolen Moon is really a pseudonym of Johann Valentin Andrea, to hint at the moons made of ice in the Hitler arcana.

Or is it fair to give spoilers for those who don't know that P. G. Wodehouse was in MI5, fighting the Machiavellin machinations of that blind "diplomat", the very Jorge Luis Borges who ran the Argentinian Operation for Professor Moriarty? Using "The Birds of the West Indies" by the actual James Bond as a cypher key?

Because, as we all know, James Bond was born in 1900, along Pine Street in Philadelphia. 89 years later, he died in Philadelphia, in Chestnut Hill. In between he had two careers, the first being a short one at the First Pennsylvania Bank. Imagine, James Bond as a bank teller. He couldn't imagine his whole life as that either.

So, he became an ornithologist at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia for 50 years. A renowned ornithologist, he knew more about birds in the Caribbean than anyone else, visiting 50 islands studying them. He wrote the definitive book, "The Birds of the West Indies."

Another author, who wants you to think that his name was Ian Fleming, who created the character 007, also spent considerable time in the West Indies. He learned of James Bond, the "birdman." He crossed paths with Bond, although Bond, a rather quiet, but very handsome man, did not know it.

A year later Bond was in Philadelphia, where he saw a review of his book about birds in a London newspaper that also mentioned the fictitious Bond 007. That's how he learned Fleming had "stolen" his name.

DC and Marvel are suing over this, I think.

And, to be sure, W. Somerset Maugham was the spymaster parodied by the writer who wants to be known as John Le Carre, who is actually John Ford.

And John Anson Ford had that other pseudonym: Robert Anson Heinlein....

I'm promoting a policy of giving straight answers to people who ask for explanations.

Avram may have done a better thing by giving the explanation as an email rather than publically.