Roads to Hell

A Polish bus company has changed the number of its Route 666 to the Baltic resort of Hel, apparently owing to pressure from Christians. One website fulminated that the joke tended to trivialise the threat of eternal torment which is held over believers' heads by their God of perfect love. Happily, a backlash is under way, and the company is reportedly considering a reversion to the path of sin.

In similar spirit, an American novelist has withdrawn her next book from publication because it happens to be set in Russia, which is acting all American in Ukraine these days. Apparently the decision was made at the behest of Ukrainian readers who were under the impression that the entirety of Russian culture is collectively responsible for the misdeeds of Vladimir Putin. With sublime writerly egomania, the author proclaimed her wish to avoid piling further harm upon the grievous and extreme exposure to bestsellerdom which already afflicts the Ukrainian people. Whether she will now aid the victims of US aggression by self-censoring work set in her homeland remains as yet unclear.