Wading through volun­teer jobs I prom­ised to do that now have to be done on week­ends instead of during my lazy (ha!) week­days of yestermonth.

A silly real­isa­tion yes­ter­day that I was very chuffed about: con­nect­ing the phrase “à  tes souhaits” (to your wishes, which is what the French say when someone sneezes) to the word ‘atishoo’ (which is what the phrase sounds like when mangled by an anglo-saxon kid making up a nurs­ery rhyme about the Black Death in the six­teenth century…)

And read­ing that Lyle Stuart died. The ‘me’ that I was in my early 20s would be quite affected by that, the death of this pas­sion­ate res­ister, rogue pub­lisher whose books we secretly (and illeg­ally, if I remem­ber cor­rectly) stocked at a cer­tain anarch­ist book­shop in Sydney. Now, having mel­lowed some­what in my middle age, I don’t think he was a heroic defender of free speech and I some­times ques­tion whether hate speech should be a form of pro­tec­ted speech at all. I don’t think bombs are ever a solu­tion – let’s be clear, I never did – although I’m still okay with the occa­sional sabot thrown into machinery. Ah, it was all so much easier when I was young and knew everything.