Welcome to the Autumn Issue

by Gaie Houston

Photo by Dziana Hasanbekava from Pexels

Suddenly it’s autumn and warm days carried us right through September. The editorial team have not aestivated [opposite of hibernated], but as you know have over the summer hatched the idea of doing without a named theme for the next issue. The themes have never been exclusive. Some have been inspired by them, others have written whatever.  Free rein or constrained choice? We worritted about it.

Now here we are again. Never mind the width, feel the quality. This issue is not as plump as recent ones, and we shall perhaps never know whether the lack of a theme, or the world economy, or the strikes, or American politics, or Ukraine or Armenia or Congo, or the devastating fires and flood over the last months, or catch-up television, are to do with there being fewer contributors than usual. Do let us know. Hundreds of websites prove that writing comments and reviews is something people do.  Add us. Review us, your very own News and Notes, if you have ideas and imaginings to help us. 

If, like me, you avoided air travel to avoid carbon emissions, you may have some chilly or damp memories of July and August, of wet shoes and inside-out umbrellas and the sky permanently as painted by Lowrie: unremitting white. If you flew off to southern Europe, you may have spent much of everyday lurking in air-conditioned shops or playing cards with the kids in a hotel bedroom, as some of my family did.

There have always been devastating perils in the world. In early days, the thought of man-eating tigers when you only had stones and sticks to defend yourself must have kept folk awake at night. Invading hordes, bubonic plague, leprosy, malaria, power-crazed despots, all in their time must have made people go about in dread. But I think we can put in a bid for being the most threatened people ever. Ever. Power-crazed despots are doing their bit to create mental instability. Covid is reminding us that teeny-weeny viruses are capable of killing the lot of us. And inexorably the global temperature mounts as the glaciers melt. Denial, that trusty and well-used mechanism of defence, is being displayed so widely that teachers of psychotherapy must be gratified to have such blatant examples to show to budding therapists. Climate-change deniers still shout. Politicians wave the magic number 2050 before us as they defer funding green issues or taxing aviation fuel. Not just now. By 2050. By 2050 they will be dead of other causes anyway, even if a fire or a flood or a storm of evil human-made particulates has not hastened them to their craven tombs.

Enough of the merry talk.  The warm thanks of the editorial team go to all our contributors, and our warm wishes to you as the reader, that you will enjoy our nameless autumn issue.