the average lifespan of a pistachio in this family is approximately an hour, which includes the time it takes me to discover that someone has bought them and unwarily left them in the kitchen cupboard for me to find. pliny the elder, talking about the exotic trees of syria, says that pistachios, whether taken in drink or in food (et potu et cibo: now how does one make a pistachio drink?) are notably efficacious against the bite of serpents (prodesse adversus serpentium morsus traduntur.) i will be practically serpent-immune at this rate!

while on the subject of pliny, this summer i must try and get back to some latin authors. perhaps i should get myself some loebs so that i can read idly the facing pages on trains planes and automobiles but when at home and armed with lewis and short and industrial quantities of sharp pencils might work at scraping off some of that thickening rust on my (*creak-and-groan!*) disused languages. another thought: if ever i came into a massive legacy from a mysterious intestate south american cousin many times removed i would immediately buy myself the entire set of loeb classicals. in 2007 an exchange with HUP apprised me of the cost: nearly US$9000. no doubt the total price has increased by now, as i would have to account the volumes published since 2007, at approximately US$26 a volume, always assuming this hypothetical legacy came to me in 2014. it is that or finding in the garden a cache of buried treasure from some piratic ancestor. of the two, i favour the mysterious cousin as the more probable.

and! and! the other day i heard a wonderfully terrible pun: how does a sherlock and beowulf mash-up begin? answer: HWAETSON! (she beams, insouciant and unrepentant.)