Duh revisited

Well, my piece on lettori has led to a predictable hoohah, most of it occasioned less by me than by the mysterious “Luke Rocchi” – mysterious not for any intrinsic value the person might possess, but because of the fact that he/she doesn’t seem to exist. Google the name and you get an Australian who makes sculptures from wood, and very nice they are too. Turn Luke into Luca and you get lots of candidates, including Mr Gay, but nobody seems to be working in an English university. Plus the fact that whoever Luke/Luca is, he/she seems to know rather more about me than is comofrtable. Anyone who reads my blog will know that I’m a fairly open – and well-thumbed – book, but I’ve never spoken about my lack of a PhD, because the occasion for doing so has never arisen. So how does he/she know? There’s a level of personal malice in the person’s comment that suggests we may have known each other. It’s clear from the language that the writer is a native speaker, and knows a lot about lettori up to but not beyond the European court decision. I also wonder how he/she found the article. As a ‘university teacher in England’ he/she may simply read THES every week, in which case the research into me, my novel, my ‘prestigious publications’ and my blog came later, to garnish the bitter dish; but it seems more plausible to suppose that ‘Luke’ read my blog first and then the article. Who knows?

Of course none of this supposition would be necessary if ‘Luke Rocchi’ had the courage and, indeed, decency to use his/her own name instead of skulking behind a pseudonym.