Tempus fugit vertiginously fast; gloria mundi transits like it’s going out of fashion; Carthage is being destroyed relentlessly over and over; my elderly bones sing a droning dirge from dawn till dusk. And I have become a tedious statistic to people that once pledged their knowledge and their endeavours to the promotion of the wellbeing of their fellow bipedal carbon-based sentient life-forms. One day you are a heedless bright young thing with flowers on her hair and next you are a wreck, most of what’s left of your mind occupied by Shoggoths and the ineffable Cagnolitos of Tindalos. But why bovvah? Let us go, once more, with Mehitabel: Toujours gai, toujours gai. Argh, me hearties. The phantom whale is a-coming! Look, off she blows!