Editorial

It’s usually about 3 a.m. that I wake up and worry. Things always seem at their worst then, don’t they? And, at the best of times, I’m a bit of a worrier. Usually, I worry about my three grandchildren and the kind of world that they and their children will have to live in. I have in my library a
New Scientist magazine from the early 1970s. It states that were everyone, then, to live at the standard of Western Europe, the world population would need to halve. Thirty-seven years on, we inhabit a world that is being destroyed by an increasingly unsustainable human population. A population, moreover, that does not have the emotional maturity to cope with the products of its intellect. If we are making such a mess of it, now, what’s going to happen to my poor kids, then?

But, for the past couple of months, the greatgrandchildren have had to take
second place. I’ve been lying awake worrying about the AGM. My lasting impression of that event, despite the worry, will always be that it was such a good time. It was a pleasure to belong to the Local Organising Committee and, on the day, thanks to everyone’s cooperation and hard work, it all went well.

Wearing a tabard with ‘Ask Me’ emblazoned across it meant that people kept coming up and asking me questions. Not just things like, “Where do I go for a cup of coffee?” but questions like, “How can we achieve world peace?” This I was asked on a number of occasions. The polite answer was that, in my opinion, the most noble thing we can do as human beings is simply to be kind
to each other. If we could just do that, world peace would follow. There was another answer, not quite so polite, that if you are interested, I would be
willing to share with you at the SIG Day: Saturday, September 11th 2010
Kantonsschule Zürcher Oberland, Bühlstrasse 36, 8620 Wetzikon. Be there: don’t forget.

Then, straight after the AGM, when everyone else was putting their feet up, or, at least, getting back to normal, it was time to worry about the Journal. And, to that end, I must say a special ‘thank you’ to our two AGM
photographers, young Bastian Baer and the more mature Raymond Rogers, Fay’s
husband. And, of course, a big ‘thank you’, as well, to all our contributors, supporters and sponsors, without whom none of this would be possible.

John Raggett