Crawling with lizards

I don't necessarily mind John Gray, but "Black Mass" isn't one of his better books. It's essentially an updated (and badly edited) version of "Heresies". Gray's fans might as well go for that book instead.

Still, "Black Mass" clearly left *somebody* deeply disturbed. A reviewer in Sunday Telegraph implied that Gray must be anti-Semitic and compared him to David Icke! While Icke is never mentioned by name, the reference is obvious: "The CIA, meanwhile, has been taken over by shape-shifting lizards telepathically controlled by the ghost of Milton Friedman. OK, so perhaps that last sentence misrepresents Gray's argument; but Black Mass could hardly be more bonkers if it really was crawling with lizards." What triggered this little missive was Gray's criticism of the US-British war in Iraq.

Five years later, Iraq is a stable, prosperous, liberal democracy, and so is Egypt, Libya, Syria...eeeeer....and then, maybe not.

Incidentally, either Professor Gray himself or, as seems more likely, his publishers have a sense of humour. At the back cover of the book, we find the following negative blurb, attributed to the Sunday Telegraph: "A lot of bollocks...could hardly have been more bonkers if it was crawling with lizards".

The lizards are still crawling, agent Mulder. :P