Glad to echo Churchill's complaint: "Reports of my death seem rather exaggerated" (or that was the gist). Yes, after some 25+ years in Americay (mainly 'Frisco & Silicon Valley), I'm back in UK. Living in the pleasant Welsh-Salopian border town of Oswestry (Wilfrid Owen's birthplace) Aged 84 in the shade (Wavertree, L'pool motto = SUB UMBRA FLORESCO)*, having outlived most of my clean-living pals & rivals. Fighting the usual Entropy Laws with the help of carer-daughter Michele Coxon (q.g. = quod googlet [my Latin update for q.v]) She's written/illustrated some 20 children's books, inc. a Benjamin Franklin Prize winner (Termite on a Stick). Beats my 12 volumes, but, as I'm wont to remind her, some of my footnotes are longer than her entire books. * The Lune Laundry was still going strong in Wavertree, not far from de Mizzy (Mystery Playground), when I last checked. My first wife (nee Margaret/Peggy Rose Jones - which reveals her birth year as 1932!) had sisters who worked there (though none was a Nelly). Peggy herself worked at Littlewoods (in de BIG WINS Department, though our plans to exploit this never materialised), whence the preferred name for the LL cash-source. The LL word-changes are fascinating; the folk-processes associated with LADY MONDEGREEN and IT RAINS AMERICAN CORN. My LL 'UR-WERDS' at www.feniks.com/skb/ Note Judy Collins has NOTTING ASH (for KNOTTY ASH) and, I think, STRAWBERRY JAM TARTS (shoulf be TATS = backformed Scouse noun from adj.TATTY!) I prefer "WHEN HE 'EARS DE T'INGS YA DID ..." to "WE HE FINDS OUT..."
PS: The CU Skiffle Club played at a pub corner of GARLIC ROW and NEWMARKET ROAD. Pub Name escapes me. Our family address was unforgettable: THE OYSTER HOUSE, GARLIC ROW. Dripping with HISTORY. Rent 15 shillings/week. 7/6d each: the REAS downstairs (as in son of Lord Rea; the BOOTLES up.