News today is that Goliath did...

exist! Or at least that's according to some nutty archeologist currently suffering from Trench Foot in the ancient Philistine city of Gath, in Israel. A shard of pottery has been found with Goliath's name on it, actually it was the letter G but lets not quibble about minor details. Already excitement is growing amongst Goliath's descendents that an historical wrong is about to be put right. The real truth which until now has remained hidden from history (a la the Da Vinci Code), they hope may soon become evident. It seems Goliath was really a quiet unassuming kind of guy who loved his dog and one day David, or Idiot as an earlier shard describes him killed the dog and ate it. Now David, also known as David the blind (from an even earlier shard) thought the dog a sheep and so he smote it down. Goliath went to remonstrate and David thinking a large baboon was loose in his front parlour thus also smote Goliath. There was the usual cover up and the rest, as they say, is history. My own feeling is that one has to be careful with Philistine artifacts given that these were a remarkably ignorant people, the original Philistines in fact. However I have seen a photograph of said shard and you can see the G scratched just above the image of a dog being turned on a spit by a baboon. The baboon is portrayed receiving instructions from some no eyed chap holding what looks like a Martini (with silverskin onion) so it must be true. The current day Goliaths (Christian fundamentalists to a man and woman) have released a press statement denying baboons have been ever been part of their family line. Meanwhile David's descendents shake their heads and readily agree their forebear was an idiot adding that not only could David not tell his arse from his elbow but he struggled with the difference between an onion and an olive, to their eternal shame. From the dark times of David's original faux pas to the present day his embarrassed family have been forced to avoid the great cocktail bars of history. Goliath's family on the other hand moved to what was to become the US where they too have sought to avoid something great, in this case the theory of evolution. Indeed it is on such things that history sometimes turns.