A little technical fiddling with my new skin's template has finally revealed to the world my "Daily Reads." This "list" has sat unseen (along with other efforts at improvement, some successful others disastrous) in a less fashionable, darker corner of Blogger - a kind of prison, torture chamber and laboratory where replica templates reside. Exact facsimiles, unloved clones bred for experiment. The Paupers to their Princes. The blog whipping-boys destined to be treated as crudely as laboratory rats: stretched, prodded, to have strange things poured into and onto them. An existence of feeding and purging, a test bed, a sounding board sometimes being damaged beyond repair. The purpose of the simulacrum: not to edify, to illuminate or to humour, but to sacrifice its existence for the benefit of a higher form.