apologies for absence - I've been shooting marlin in the English channel - there are too many this year apparently, and the council is paying quite good rates for able bodied layabouts like myself to go out in rubber dingies with an air rifle. I hit quite a few (never on porpoise! haha) before the current caught me and whisked me up to Oslo, where I had to chop up coleslaw in a cold salad sweat shop for a week until I'd earned enough for my passage back. what a nightmare! never again. anyway, I've asked around and nobodyknows the origins of ragtime - I've got an idea it might be something to do with wanking, because I quite like wanking to ragtime, and I use a rag after, but I'm not really sure. perhaps Jim is right.