...and no you didn't miss me!

Back. Eight hundred or so e-mails herded into the further corners of the interwebs, several thousand examples of other folk's fine words (and some stuff from newspapers) beaten down and a pile of old-fashion, paper-based communications opened and placed into a differently configured pile. Ah, the end of a holiday - it used to be so exciting before you all got so wordy and so keen on communicating. Now it's a morass to wade through, a well of treacle, And I know I will miss the one that matters!

Anyway this little missive is by way of announcing my return. Not, of course, that you'd noted my absence. However, allow me the indulgence of believing you did, that the odd tear dripped down the bereft cheek as you waited vainly for wise words to drop into your in-box. Words that, while not life-changingly profound, are crafted to inspire and to challenge.

So what have you to look forward to? There's a blog about foreign languages in election campaigns and another about Moorish ruins and the scandal of EU waste. I might treat you to a sausage and asparagus recipe and I plan a little bit of a 'New Puritan' series in which I try to understand the mindset that inspires the readership of both the Guardian and the Daily Mail - a mindset of judgementalism, control and an unswerving belief that "we know better". And this might morph itself into a celebration of lower middle class pleasures - a sort of "joy of suburbia".

Or I might just rant at you all every now and then. Whatever!

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