Oh, I do miss Ireland.

Greenness. Rain. Drinking. The craic and the blarney. Such a lively place, and abounding with life.
But then again (and no, there will be no mention of the e****** word):

Further details on the upcoming conference ‘Mapping death: people, boundaries and territories in Ireland 1st to 8th centuries AD’, which is part of the Heritage Council INSTAR project in association with the Mícheál Ó Cléirigh Institute and the Discovery Programme.

This may be the start of a vigorous new trend in academia. Next year, mark my words, we may well be seeing

• mapping dead conferences
• mapping the death of conferring and conversing
• a Halloween special, conferences for dead map-makers.

(That having been said, the Special Foreign Correspondent-At-Large Plenipotentiary and I are agreed that it looks really rather fun and splendid, and we both wish we could go. Alas, prior commitments stand in our way. We’ll have to satisfy seasonal desires to commune with the dead in other ways. There is, as they say, always the pub and the making of toasts.
No further jokes about Toasts to the Toast. The thought did not even cross my mind.)