Jo's 2nd blog

The larges carpet of bluebells I've ever seen!

Prior to this point, when Odysseus tries to exercise Xenia (ancient Greek guest rites/hospitality code), he did what he was supposed to do. (Well, we think so anyway — notably, the most famous books of the Odyssey are told by Odysseus, who isn’t exactly a reliable narrator.)

But when Polyphemus kills and eats some of the men, the game changes. The Cyclops makes it clear he has no intention of abiding by Zeus’s laws, and will cannibalize the lot of the men. So, Odysseus responds in kind — he breaks Xenia and lies. He introduces himself under a false name as part of a trick. Polyphemus then breaks Xenia again — he tells Nobody he’ll be eaten last, and that is the Cyclops’ guest gift to him.

Odysseus’ transgression is clearly the lesser one. The Nobody trick works. It gets Odysseus and most of his crew out of the cave alive.

But, crucially, before leaving Odysseus sheds his disguise. He admits his true identity, in detail, so he can boast of his achievements and add vanquishing a Cyclops to the list. And it bites him in the ass spectacularly.

The only reason why Polyphemus can curse Odysseus, can bid his father Poseidon to curse the man who blinded him, is because he now knows who did it. If Odysseus had kept his mouth shut, he might have safely made it home from there. But while a big part of why the Nobody disguise vs. real name reveal is showing Odysseus’s hubris, it’s not just about that. It’s also about the start of a pattern that hurts him more than it helps him.

From this point in the Odyssey on, Odysseus lies about his identity constantly. And sometimes it protects him, but more often it’s a detriment or at least unnecessary. He’s lying about his identity primarily to people who are on his side — a kindly loyal swineherd, his son, his faithful wife, his ailing father.

The last one is especially damning, because happens when Odysseus has already killed the suitors and returned home and reunited with the rest of his family sans disguises. He knows from everyone else that Laertes never betrayed him or his legacy, but was mourning his son and heartbroken for almost a decade. Odysseus has publicly declared his return to everyone else — his father doesn’t know because he’s living in squalor remotely. But Odysseus doesn’t tell his father who he is. He makes up a fake identity and tells a story implying Laertes’ son is dead. And when Laertes bursts out crying, then Odysseus drops the charade and finally admits who he really was.

There was no utility to that lie. No loyalty to test. No hidden threats to worry about. But Odysseus still instinctively lies to his beloved father about who he is, only dropping the charade when he sees the damage it’s doing to his relationships.

Because at this point, lying is pathological for Odysseus. He can’t seem to stop doing it. Because with Polyphemus, a lie protected him and the truth hurt him. That is the point of the “ Nobody” disguise.

Nigel Farage is a long-running far-right candidate who’s come to wield a surprising amount of influence thanks to the long-running incompetence of both major British right-wing parties, Labour and the Conservatives (Tories). People will tell you that Labour is centre-left but that hasn’t been true since at least 1994 and *definitely* isn’t true since 2024. Farage is also a scumbag of the first order, the sort of man who you might want to send donations under the table if you were for example Russia, or a convicted fraudster. He recently got caught holding £5 million in dirty money, triggering an investigation into him.

To dodge this investigation, Farage decided to resign from parliament, because apparently you can’t investigate someone for political corruption if they’re not a politician right this moment, and run for MP in the exact same electorate he just resigned from, in a transparent attempt to avoid scrutiny. This is equivalent to hiding from the cops, getting a haircut, going back onto the streets and still calling yourself the same name.

The other political parties said “lol have fun with that”, declining to run candidates against him so that Farage would win by default, which would result in his reentry into politics and the resumption of the investigation, after which he would be booted back out of politics and Clacton would have a real election with actual candidates.