The Zodiac Columnist

Piecing together epistolary squabbles in The Times requires a rich blend of skill sets, ranging from investigative prowess, methodical cataloguing, and a healthy dose of psychological nous.
For the novice, there are the unending George Cross and internment debates, which will crop up with predicable regularity in the letter pages. The arguments and the people making them are invariably the same, and tracing back the well-rehearsed and badly executed duels is a simple exercise.
As a matter of course, the correspondent will open their missive with the tried and tested: “I refer to the letter by So-and-So (insert date)”. On any given day, up to half or more of the letters in The Times will begin with a variation on that theme – fitting with the paper’s evident calling to become a PO Box sorting house.
Beyond the routine task of fitting together the backward chronological order of the letters, it is also important to make out of the manifold grievances fuelling the anger felt by the respective jousting participants of any letter-writing contest. This can often date back several decades – to before a time when even the parents of most Times readers were born.
On occasion, however, the detective has nothing to work but the standalone text as a means by which to comprehend the inner workings of the epistle-composer’s mind. Like the letters of the Zodiac Killer, every epistle presents its own puzzle and no single link appears to make sense of the larger picture.
Such is the Internet scribbling of Anthony Licari, who teaches psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics (but no longer geolinguistics, it would seem). He is also married to a Russian woman 30 years his junior, one learns with interest, for it puts this choice Licari quote once featured on this blog into some perspective:

"Men of the West seem to be increasingly finding wives and partners in Eastern Europe. No formal scientific study that I know of has attempted to analyse this phenomenon. However, Western newspapers, often for reasons of sensationalism, like to print stories about East European women who have 'tricked' West European men."

So, already we have divined of our subject that he has aspirations to clinical insight, as well as being the erratic moth-bumping-into-light-bulb-minded goon that any regular reader of his column will recognise.
Quite literally, every single word Licari has ever committed to the page can be dismissed as inane gibberish on its own terms, but a recent exchange tantalisingly brings more fascinating strands to his “personality” – startling narcissism and almost childlike sensitivity to even the slightest criticism.
On Nov. 21, one Mario Dingli of Sliema ventured boldly to submit to the following pithy one-lined opinion:

“I am more than certain that columnist Tony Licari (who teaches psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics - very long words indeed) knows that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.”

Harmless stuff, one would imagine. But as members of the Maltese blog-writing community know all too well, Licari is not one to take even the most passing of barb lying down. In immediate response to the letter, he posted this reply in the comments section (as sure a sign of having too much time on one’s hands as any):

“I have had the pleasure of discussing Mr Dingli's letter with the gentleman himself. I am pleased to say that the conversation was very mature and cordial. We did mention the fact that great writers like Shakespeare, Molière and Voltaire did use sarcasm as part of their writing style without indulging in a low kind of wit. So a negative opinion about sarcasm may not be a general opinion. Mr Dingli and I also mentioned the fact that other columnists in The Times sometimes use sarcasm and that their writing may be pleasant indeed. We tried to understand why I was singled out. This is the only thing that remains unclear in my discussion with Mr Dingli. However this will also be ironed out soon as Mr Dingli has invited me for a drink. Finally I wish to apologise to the world for teaching psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Maybe these subjects harm students of linguistics?”

Leaving aside the factual merits of the retort and the fanciful comparison that Licari appears to be drawing between him and the great figures of Western literature, there is the matter of his worrying insistence on confronting his adversaries face to face over drinks and snacks. This author of this blog is not the only one to have been subjected to such advances amid sinister threats of legal action for having had the temerity to question Licari’s lucidity.
As an aside, it should be obvious to anyone that it is by no means the subject matters that Licari inexplicably feels compelled to advertise beneath his articles that are of concern, as much as the teacher himself.
The world hears no more of Dingli for some time – and some perhaps wonder if they ever will again. But lo, on Friday, he writes in again, this time without his now trademark impishness, but with the dispirited air of an apprehended dog-botherer. He opens mournfully:

“I refer to my letter of November 21.”

What follows is recited in the simpering, contrite tones familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of 1930s Stalinist show trials.

"May I say that I have had a very friendly discussion with Tony Licari regarding the letter. May I also state that when I wrote that "sarcasm is the lowest form of with" I never intended that Dr Licari was "low". If I was understood in this sense, I apologise.
May I also say that I am looking forward to meeting this gentleman when, I am sure, we can have a very good talk together. I am sure there are other columnists and writers who sometimes are sarcastic in their writings and, here again, I am sure that they are not "low".
Regarding the quote itself, I think (I am not sure) that it was Oscar Wilde who coined this phrase. However, I hold myself open to correction.”

Unwilling to let it go there, however, Licari responds with a victory lap of sorts in the comments section, while presumably addressing some apt sniping from Andrew Borg-Cardona further down. If this seems to not make any sense and unfairly taken out of context, only Licari is to blame as the text is presented in full and quite unadulterated:

“Indeed the analysis of writing attempts to find a rapport between the writer and his/her writing. This rapport is often, but not always, discovered in spite of the possibility that a writer does not always wish readers to establish any connection between the person and his/her expression. I wonder, for example, if one may say - and be believed: "My writing is politically obsessed but I am not." Psychoanalysis of writing is one subject that perhaps overemphasises this almost inevitable rapport - which may be subconscious. It is also interesting to observe in some critics a strong obsession to comment patronisingly [thus not sarcastically] on all matters under the sky - if not above it. There is obviously a reason for this phenomenon - perhaps even more than one. I was once amused by an expression used by a letter writer, "zatatism", which is an unkind word - if I suspect correctly the meaning behind it. Finally I tend to disagree with the opinion of some that there is also a rapport between a person's shape and his/her expression.”

And what exactly was the point of this excursion in the nether regions of this peculiar man’s feverish mind?
Well, none at all really. But, and this is said in the weary resignation of a man that knows his words will fall on fallow ground, would The Times please consider barring this fucking nutter from their pages?