■"Where Would We Be Without Unconventional Thinking," advertisement by Barclays, New York Times, 21 June 2005, p. A7.

I can't resist one more dig at Friedman's "World is Flat" metaphor. I come across this Barclays full-page color ad in the NYT, which consists of a flat globe sitting on stand. It's the perfect image for Friedman's book, much better than that weird art of ships going off the edge of the world that was used in some hardcover versions.

And yet, the ad points out the against-the-grain metaphor that Friedman ended up with when he sought to recast a "level playing field" as a "flat world": the text of the ad starts with "Without unconventional thinking, the world would still be flat and we'd still be living in caves. Heck, we'd probably never have climbed down from the trees in the first place."

It could have continued: "At Barclays we believe in providing our clients with metaphors that don't create cognitive dissonance . . . "

Still, the whole "flat" metaphor did do a better job of disguising the fact that Friedman was basically issuing a compilation of his op-ed columns than the previous title "Longitudes and Attitudes" did.

Here's hoping I always stay slightly afraid of both my publisher and my editor . . . so that I heed their advice.