The only practical repercussion that any of the present crises have had on me is the interruption of my mail from Britain. I’m still waiting for items that should have arrived here in Sweden before the end of last month. I’m not sure whom or what to blame: the Royal Mail? Postnord? The boat that delivers to our island? Covid? Brexit? And when – if – they do arrive, will I have to pay a post-Brexit duty on them? That’s what I’m gathering from our ‘Brits in Sweden’ Facebook sites. But I have no idea as yet…

I also seem to have lost a couple of emails, one from a student asking for advice on a PhD project. I usually like to help in these cases. S/he wrote that s/he follows this blog; so if s/he’s reading this post, perhaps s/he’ll get in touch again. (When are we going to introduce gender-neutral pronouns? Swedish has one. It’s ‘hen’.)

I’ve not replied to ‘hen’ sooner, or to other correspondents, because I’ve been busy at the tedious task of checking the copy-edit of my next book. Bloomsbury Press have now brought its publication forward to June 3; still not early enough, in my view, for its advice re Brexit to register. (But of course it won’t register anyway. No-one in power reads academic books. And this one – a collection of musty old essays – is unlikely to grab their attention.)