A while ago I asked for picture suggestions to advertise a talk I would be giving at the Humanities Center in Madison, and a couple of people asked that I post the text of the talk here. I apologise for the delay, which is not, for once, due to my laziness, but my reluctance to be seen to be breaking the anonymity of peer review. Absurd, really, because it is hard for me to believe that the referees had no inkling of the authors of the relevant manuscript, which manuscript anyway bears a very tangential relationship to the talk, but there you are. That’s all done with (so, I don’t have to feel so guilty about Ingrid’s complaint!), so here it is. I’ve tried to incorporate some aspects of the powerpoint presentation through judicious use of links. Also, bear in mind that it was an informal talk, and it is for the most part written that way. It’s long (4000 words), so it’s all below the fold. It was given in December, hence the two or three seasonal references.