"One is free on a boat. For a time. Relatively."
- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

I would like -if I may- to take you on a strange journey.

AHOY THERE, MATIES! STEADY AS SHE GOES! TOPS'L UP, ME HEARTIES! Snatches of sea-shanties and the tap-tap-tapping of peg-legs on portside swim in our ears like the fumes of tar and tobacco and noxious biscuit washed down with rum as we travel back to the Golden Age of Buccaneering, to wit, 1992. We are on the choppy and indeterminate waters of Strathclyde Lake as two unlikely sea-dogs set out in search of high adventure on the high seas, scudding along at a rate of 0.2 knots with an oar in one hand, a letter of marque from the King of Spain in the other, and a cutlass each clenched firmly between their teeth. Yes! It is our co-founders, setting off with a gusty gale and a verse of "Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies", drawing alongside the nearest Canadian Canoe to hail for news, then exploding off at 0.3 knots, leaving the dead ducks and crippled swans simply nowhere. Striking out for the centre of the water in search of lonely French frigates, the messengers of the dastardly King of England, or that kid from 2B who everybody used to try to tip into the water, our privateers turn with a gallant bow to the tear-soaked handkerchiefs that wave on the shore, and crawl past the end of the pier with a series of inquisitive and interrogatory prods at the water's surface. The displacement of several hundred pints of water finally sent us, bobbing and skewed at an atrocious angle, out from under the end of the pier and towards the dismal grey horizon that stretched out beyond us on all sides.

That we survived the voyage I present here simply as a fact. The delicate poise of your suspension of disbelief may be irrevocably shattered by this extravagant claim, and I would not blame you if it was, but there it is; facts are facts, no matter how implausible they may seem. I myself am still unable to provide a rational account of our survival. I can only posit the natural obstinacy of things, and suggest that our behaviour was so paradigmatic of wilful self-destruction that the gathered spirits of Nature thought it'd be a jolly good prank to prevent us from implementing our ostensible scheme of self-precipitation towards Davy Jones's Locker. Such it may have been; it stays that this physic but prolonged our sickly days.

Fire and gunpowder are no more deadly a combination than Novice Bow and Novice Stroke on a maiden voyage. Each rows on his side to the best of his ability and, doing so, is therefore pressed into construing the drunken wayward career of his vessel as the fault of his companion, who is quite clearly just larking about. Tempers rise, mutiny rears her ugly head, and mutual accusation bursts through the dam of polite conversation with a roar of "YOU'RE NOT KEEPING TIME! YOU'RE NOT EVEN TRYING!". Floating further and further away from the sanctuary of the pier whilst you bicker and gesticulate demonstratively with your co-Cap'n, the liberating effect of being on a boat is suddenly lost, and the squalling fishwife of a reality which confronts you and your painted ship upon a painted ocean makes palatable even the prospect of handing yourself, vicious pirate that you are, over to the first members of the local constabulary that happen to schoon by. Boats can take you prisoner; jail can set you free.

For this story to be meaningful, John and I must sit down, quietly resolve our differences, then row back to shore with the co-ordination and good comradeship that has been sorely lacking from our conduct hitherto. We must strike a blow for rationalist values of co-operation and adherence to form, accept that there is only one right way of doing things -a right way conspicuous only by its absence from our current courses of action- and pool our forces in a Titanic effort to return to our loved ones. That is what the story must mean.

Needless to say, we argued all the way back to running ourselves aground on the opposite side of the lake twice before limping painfully across to the wrong end of the pier, disembarked with faces like gathering thunder, looked back on it ten years later and
L-A-U-G-H-E-D.

There is no point to this story- if you have gleaned anything of apparent worth from it, then you are no doubt a particularly amiable sort of an idiot, but an idiot nevertheless. This story has fewer points than the U.S. Ryder Cup team, fewer points than half a toothpick, fewer points than a dead bee, fewer points than..... Submitting a diary for review, then locking it and not telling anyone the password? Say it ain't so! Thankfully, it ain't.

For those of you who cannot or will not read rules, we are no longer accepting locked diaries for review. We are simply not going to waste our time evaluating the worth of your diary for public consumption when you have already seen fit to debar that same public from viewing it. By extension, those already on the Reviews Pending List who suddenly decide that thay want to talk some serious shit about other people behind their backs WITHOUT those other people being able to access the abuse in question will simply be removed from the list. Those whose diaries were already locked when they were accepted for reviews will keep as they are, with the stern caveat that there is an ever-growing backlog of reviewees whose diaries are infinitely more convenient and, therefore, more likely to be reviewed than yours.

The above applies in all cases- with the grim exception of Robertahay, whose unfortunate skull is now barbed on the spikes of our ramparts as an example to the rest of you.