Let me speak to you of newsletters.

Every charitable organization and its distant cousin produces a newsletter. Most of them are turgid, tedious and unreadable – which is why they never get read.

Be honest now — when did you last read all the way through the latest edition of The Gerbil Adoption Society Gossipsheet or whatever?

Right.

Not within living memory.

Well, I have to tell you that people DO read mine – all the way through. Then they go back to the beginning and read them again. More than that, they keep them, carefully preserved in clear plastic pockets, for posterity. I know this, because they’ve told me so. How frightening is that? Preserved for posterity in clear plastic pockets . . . :shock:

This slightly unsettling state of affairs came about because writing the Centre newsletters was boring me to tears:

“On Saturday the 23rd, Gertie Peasbody will be talking to the Ingrowing Toenail Self-Help Group about 50 Interesting Things to do with Cotton Buds.” …

And so it was that, motivated purely by self-interest, I started writing it to amuse myself – and ended up amusing everyone else to such an extent that the bloody thing has developed something very close to a cult following.

This is all fine and dandy, but it means that each Newsletter has to at LEAST attain the standard of the last and I’ve left it a bit late in life to develop performance anxiety …

All of which drivel is leading up to the fact that I’m drafting the Autumn Newsletter. Or, rather, I would be if coming over here and writing this hadn’t suddenly seemed like a much more attractive idea.

Mental blank? WHO has a mental blank?