"Shortly after, I wandered off to Port Meadow in Oxford and watched flocks of birds. All very metaphorical. Language and flocking seemed to be the same thing in my addled head at the time."

Greek myth has it that the alphabet itself originated in Mercury's observation of the flight of cranes. (Much more on this in Robert Graves' wonderful, half-mad 'The White Goddess' - at the core of which lie a couple of pages of deep sanity, which I should re-read.)

I still owe you that email on Berger! I'm off to Mexico in about thirty hours time - but may well take his collected essays with me, in which case I'll finish it while out there...