Thank you, Lucy.

Maelstrom is exactly the right word.

Gadelica, not Gaelic - I hate autocorrect.

It was dancing up and down in exultation at the joyous resurrection of the beloved Saviour of victory.

Personal recollection of Barbara MacPhie, told to Alexander Carmichael, and included in the notes to his Carmina Gaelic. A perfect prose-poem.

My translation after Heinrich Heine

Thank you, Paul.

Will write to you, Simon.

Beautiful image. Merry Christmas to you.

My father-in-law's friend and mentor, the Viennese philosopher Otto Neurath, designed a children's bookshop for a Vienna department store in the 1930s. It could only be accessed through a crawl space fine for children, but too small for adults. There must have been a back way in for the staff.

Thank you. The day I am unable to make a joke will be my last.

I am now officially the National Collection of Bruises. They will be gone in a few weeks. Feeling rather battered and in a good deal of pain tonight, but didn't break my back or neck, or cause a bleed on the brain - all feasible scenarios - so feeling pretty lucky, all in all.

Thank you/