Issue Seventeen, this eleventh day of September, 2003

'The fish are jumping, and the cotton is high'

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, a thought struck me the other day.

Although the money for my salary comes from the Drive-by-shooting State University, I am effectively paid by and work for the Mercernary Results Council. This body is funded by the government. My contract is with a Whitehall-controlled employer. I work for the good of the public. I am, therefore a public servant. So, not only do I spend my waking hours trying to appease a Dark Lord of the Sith, prostituting my soul at the altar of Publications and Be Damned, I am a . . .

civil servant.

I suppose being a Ring-wraith (to mix my literary metaphors) conceivably might have a few advantages - I quite fancy riding atop one of those Nazgul thingammybobs - but our budget doesn't seem to stretch that far. And I don't often have the opportunity theshe daysh to shay 'I work for the Britissh government' in a shoft, Shcottish burr. What a pick-up line. Bah.

Talking of Nazgul, or flying at any rate, I am dedicating this edition to the Red-Headed One, who is about to leave the shores of these sceptic isles for ever, in favour of lands colonial. Hopefully she'll manage to bash some culture into the damn' yankees. Heaven knows we've tried hard to cultivate her in the brief period we've had the joy of knowing her. As the long, hot summer draws to a drizzly end, so dims a shining light in our darkness. Blow, blow, cruel wind; thou art not so unkind as the passenger airliner that steals away our Rosanna.

Small mercies: Sauron is still in lands Antipodean, and the threatened trip to Drive-by-shooting State University appears to have been postponed indefinitely. Apparently, our collaborator really does not want to see Sauron (!!).

There's a lot more to say, but so heavy is my heart with sorrow I can not bear it, and will only write again when the Red-Headed One lets me know her new email address. So you can blame her if I don't write again.

Parting is such sweet sorrow,

Richard (- But the wine and the song/like the seasons have all gone )