I thought at first I was getting fewer submissions this time round. I was managing to open the envelopes, read and write back. I was managing quite well.

There is a pile of envelopes on the stairs, ready to post back to their owners, and another pile on the sofa unread.

Robert Nye died last week. He was a poet. 

Remember the joke about windows?

So do you need to know about the poet’s life?

It’s a sort of spectrum. At one end – the safe end – there’s persona (Robert Browning – ‘My Last Duchess’).