PLAGUE, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague today . . . is merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.

A popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.

Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.

CARTESIAN, adj. Relating to Descartes, author of 'Cogito ergo sum' to demonstrate the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved 'Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum' 'I think that I think, therefore I think that I am' as close an approach.

LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers - particularly to those who love not wisely but other men's wives.

Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.

Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.