A Quaker once said to me “I haven’t had a single thought in my head for about three months. It’s wonderful!” Give or take two and seven-eighths months, that is pretty much the state of Mr Key’s inner bonce. Since I finished the bibliography and notes earlier in the week I have been lolloping around with an utterly empty head. Hence the eerie silence here.

The only problem with having an empty head is that sooner or later one begins to come over all John Lennon circa 1967, and that will never do. So, following tomorrow’s jaunt to Bristol to recite sweeping paragraphs of majestic prose at An Event, I am going to start cramming stuff into my head again, sloshing it about in the manner of a sort of cranial tumble-drier, and decanting it here, for your edification and instruction.

Hark! Hark! The dogs do bark.
There’s two of them on Noah’s ark.
One is light, the other’s dark.
But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion….
[Portentous music, with strings.]