A happy new year to everyone! Time for those new year resolutions, then. Last year I resolved to learn German and, I’m astonished to say, made considerable progress. So my first resolution has to be to continue and get myself in a position where I can sustain a reasonably interesting conversation or read a short novel. Other than that, my main thoughts are of reading and writing. Thanks to reading Sebald I’ve got into my head the thought of working through Chateaubriand’s memoirs (we’ll see how that goes). And, of course, there’s the thought that every academic has, of writing more and better papers and getting them published in decent places. Before then, though, there’s that tax return to complete….