Music in podcasts is one of those divisive topics on which few people agree. My own view is that most American shows have far too much music for my taste, and that my own episodes have too little. I'm not talking about continuous soundbeds, as done so well by Benjamen Walker. I'd never even try that. No, I'm talking about a bit of music to set the scene, mark transitions and, where possible, maybe heighten the narrative, but that is darned hard work.

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If I were a character in this terrific novel, I would remember exactly who had recommended it to me, under what circumstances, and everything else about them. Alas, I am not, nor do I really wish I were, but as a story it has that kind of appeal, of making me think, what would I have done. The plot covers a dozen or so years, from Bulgaria in the early 1930s to America in 1946, and it concerns a group of NKVD recruits whose allegiance to one another is stronger than their allegiance to the NKVD. Or is it?

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A friend who is completely technologically unable and a great painter asked me to help him create a website. Having cleaned up his various content files, a few days ago I made a start on the presentation, and heavy going it was too. Although he really wants only a very simple site, I began by trying to simplify an extremely powerful, all-singing, all-dancing framework. It was incredibly difficult, with bits of markup being injected from who knows where and doing who knows what. Very frustrating indeed, to the point where I was beginning to regret having agreed to do it.

Then I had a revelation.

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It is done. A year and a month, because holiday, after starting to bring old posts back on a daily basis, the job is finished. I wrote a bit recently about what the endeavour meant to me and about some of the ways in which I might take it forward, but there are other things I maybe need to think about too.

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Quite a few years ago, Jim Hansen, described as “a leading NASA climatologist” was at a panel to discuss global warming's significance for humanity. He is reported as saying “Humans have taken over as the major forcing of long-term climate change.”¹

Who do you suppose countered with:

I don’...

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