Never interrupt me when I’m eating a banana…

Due to unforeseen (aren’t they always?) medical circumstances, I will be ‘out of action’ for quite some time. What this means for this blog is an even greater paucity of posts… – sorry… – although there are still many things I wish to write about (just very, very slowly) in my (undesired but necessary) dotage(?!) – including some thrilling new ballet music (Hi, Thomas!); some incredibly skilful and moving cello playing (Hi, Matthew!); why Mole has been so mute; and what it means to suddenly discover that, instead of a physical heart (my emotional one remains perfectly intact, thank you very much!), I have been carrying around one of those ticking time‑bombs that James Bond always manages to defuse with just one second to go. Fortunately – aided and abetted by The Great (née Good) Lady Bard… – some of the most outstanding (expert, friendly, deeply caring and knowledgeable) medics I have ever encountered beat 007 to the chase, this time: and I am therefore a tiny bit bloody, but otherwise unbowed (as the incomparable William Ernest Henley so memorably wrote):

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
    Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
    Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
    How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
    I am the captain of my soul.

Feel free, firstly, of course, to email me, should the spirit (preferably a wee dram or two of Laphroaig) move you… – although please excuse, in advance, my undoubtedly exceptionally tardy response times… – and please feel free, secondly, of course (should this (less-than-subliminal) suggestion move you to such generosity!), to buy me the occasional (online) coffee (especially as, for me, the Laphroaig is now heartbreakingly (oops) out-of-bounds)!

Finally… thank you for your ongoing support; and in advance for your patience and understanding.

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic brainiac. The Bard of Tysoe will be that clever-clogs. Better than he was before. Better… stronger… but – unfortunately – no more fathomable.