STILL HERE

My thousands of regular readers may have wondered whether this blog, like many other enterprises over the last few weeks, has gone into receivership. The answer is no. I have been preoccupied elsewhere. I was away in London for several days and had intended to report on the shows and movies that I saw. Since then, however, we have been throwing into the air most everything in our home. It is a home stuffed with ... well, stuff, and said stuff has needed to be thoroughly rearranged ahead of an invasion. It is our turn to play host over at least part of the holiday – not before time, some family members will reasonably grumble – and we have to plan for up to seven, including two widowed aunts either side of 90, staying overnight. There has been such a to-and-fro of stuff – piles of things moved from room to room and back again – that for some days I was unable actually to reach my keyboard. Emailers have gone unanswered and junk mail undeleted. Only by dint of perching on a precarious pile and tapping with one finger was I able to get off a two-line letter to The Guardian (which the paper entirely rewrote before publication).

Anyway, normal service will be resumed as soon as possible, at which time I will have some momentous decisions (for me, anyway) to impart and expound. In the mean time, assuming as I do that the hiatus will continue at least until that curiously deflated gap between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve, I bid you all a cool Yule.