“When love is not madness, it is not love” wrote the C17th Spanish dramatist Pedro Calderón de la Barca – although he might easily been referring to tonight’s Litopia After Dark, in which we learn of the amour fou of one Professor Arthur David Horn, late of Yale and Colorado State and an esteemed expert in the somewhat arid subject of biological anthropology.

Chancing one day to fall in love with a metaphysical healer, Professor Horn’s eyes were suddenly opened to the reality that surrounded him: a world in which shape-shifting reptilians control our civilization through the secretive leaders known as the Illuminati.  Truly, love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

And yet more folly on tonight’s show.  The latest health and safety threat to British local councils employees is unsafe biscuit consumption: fortunately some councils now offer supervised tea breaks “for safety reasons”.  The BBC’s children’s’ channel, CBeebies, has decided to change the endings of some popular nursery rhymes, making the more politically correct and less disturbing for the little darlings.  And Madonna, well, she’s always good for an eccentricity or three.

Our wise and circumspect panel tonight displays no such flummery, comprised as it is of Donna Ballman, Graham Marks, Dave Bartram and David Bridger.

Topics covered and links include:

• The ‘Miss Plastic’ beauty pageant in Hungary
• A book price war has started between the discount giants: authors will suffer
• Litopians prepare for this year’s NaNoWriMo, but one person won’t be doing it again
• Why everything including Heidi Montag/Pratt is going supersize

This week’s titles for the Commissioning Meeting are:

DONNA
“Not Like Other Girls”
Rosa Nouchette Carey, 1840-1909

DAVID
“The Bacillus of Beauty – A Romance of To-day”
Harriet Stark

GRAHAM
“A Beautiful Alien”
Julia Magruder, 1854-1907

DAVE
“Blister Jones”
John Taintor Foote, 1881-1950

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