BY WAY OF EXPLANATION ...

For those few readers who still occasionally check their old blogrolls to see if I'm ever going to account for the past year-plus I've spent AWOL ....

Well, surely you'll recall the Douglas Adams character Hotblack Desiato -- lead singer of the rock group Disaster Area -- who infamously spent a year dead "for tax reasons."

Pretty much the same deal for me, I'm afraid.

More anon ...