A new trend in Birthday invitations is to give the age in Roman numerals. This little puzzler was concocted by Pete The Bookie – an accountant I know who likes a flutter. I thought Dr Blog and Evil Fred could turn it into binary. A long period of absence is partly due to BlagLady having celebrated her centenary last month. It takes a long time to recover from the hangover when you hit treble/single figures. I got zillions of fahbuluss gifts: and my very own surprise party with 5 gold people to do my bidding! Actually, slaves can be rather tiresome as they require ordering about which can be quite demanding when pressed. However, just as I got into the swing of it (I did warn them it would be a long shift) they were leaping into the shower to scrub up and shrug off their shackles. Absence is also partly due to my having been running through the world, in this case France and Spain. I ran off to write and write I did, with just enough poolside action thrown in. It is also partly due to lack of laptop and lack of computer and not having the password. Ouch. Technical faults are as common and true as earthquakes. [Miss, the earthquake bit my dog.] I have therefore been involved in purchase of new laptop from Ebay and this is taking some time. I had a reading last week at the Museum of Garden History (see also The Cabinet Inside the Cabinet ) with some artists: the talk was too long but the work interested me. One of them had decided to buy something from every category in Ebay. Having spent close on two weeks trying to buy one laptop, I am now beginning to admire this as a retail feat par excellence. The art, of course, is in the context. Liberal spattering of silly French phrases has increased and are even cropping up in poems. Current literary conundrum is HOW TO WRITE LIKE A SERIOUS BLOKE POET AND STILL RETAIN MY NATURAL JOIE D’ESPRIT? Answers on a postcard please. Sorry – couldn’t resist the rhyme. Resist the rhyme. That may be the answer. Or to end on a Latinate equation, like xxx=c.