found this in dmesg today:

lcd_mipid spi1.1: performing LCD ESD recovery

The trigger was me putting the N800 on charge after it powered down from lack of battery. When then it powered back on in charging mode, and idled enough for the backlight to turn off, i found it flickering. Pressed the power button to get it into full Maemo, and it was still flickering. Took a look at dmesg and found the line above repeated ever so often.