Welcome to newsletter number nine. It's going to be a short one today (at least in terms of this pre-and-post-section rambling. This week has vanished and with it, to some extent, my ability to function like a normal person. Sleep has evaded me often, I've been angry at inanimate objects, I made friends with the most beautiful dog who had spectacularly fluffy triangle ears, and I bought a lot of paper of a size large enough to make walking down the street difficult. We should begin before this gets out of hand (this was actually a far longer introduction than most previous newsletters).