In about 12 hours, I leave for glorious, rainy Italy, where I’ll be for a week. I’m sure it will be delightful – after all, it’s Italy, so who cares if it’s raining? – but right now I’m mostly concerned with finding clean underpants, locating my passport, and remembering what flight I’m getting on.

John will be observing Eimear the Wonder Dog’s protest hunger strike while I’m away, and providing emergency support to clients in the event anything goes seriously wrong, which isn’t that likely. You can reach him at john [at] handelaar [dot] org, and he also has the super secret MAXroam bat phone number for me while I’m away. Honestly though, I don’t know how useful that’s going to be, since nearly every call is likely to be met with “Dude, I’m swimming at the bottom of a bottle of Chianti, I don’t have a clue.”

To my great surprise, everyone including my mum is whinging for good old fashioned postcards. Since I find this amusing in a Victorian kind of way, I’ve decided to launch Operation Postcard Florence. If you want one, just fill in your name and address, and it’s quite likely a missive from Italy will turn up in your postbox in due course.