What You Get When You Give a Dog a Bad Name

I suppose I ought to kick off with a couple of acknowledgements, and an explanation. I'm afraid I can't claim the title as one of my own - I'm not entirely sure of the provenance, but I seem to remember Business, As Usual, During Altercations being used by the late James Blish as a story title in an old Star Trek anthology. I've always thought it was rather clever, and so I've dusted it off for use here.

"Disobedient Boy" came from J.G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun - or, so I thought. When I checked my tatty old paperback copy (Grafton, 1985), it turns out I had remembered incorrectly - on page 200 (Chapter 24, The Hospital), Sergeant Nagata calls Jim, "Difficult boy". "Disobedient Boy" fits me better, though. I think I'll stick with it, for now.

DB