Many of you, I am sure, will recognize in my rather rhetorical title the name of one of the best-known poems of Constantine Cavafy, the Greek poet born in Alexandria who haunts Lawrence Durrell's `Alexandria Quartet' series of related novels. In his poem, Cavafy describes the residents of Rome patiently awaiting the arrival of the barbarians, whose coming is expected and seemingly inevitable. These barbarians are dazzled by beautiful silver and gold work, and are `bored by rhetoric ...