To all of you who have emailed inquiring about my absence from the Syntagma battlements in recent weeks, thank you.

I’ve been completing the last of my contract obligations for a media company with strong ties to the retail sector. Now that it’s complete, I can concentrate totally on Syntagma’s weighty world affairs. Exhaustion, however, may slow me down in the first few days. Bear with me if I don’t get round to you immediately.

We do, though, have a fast-track channel for anyone wishing to pay us.

Apart from the routine operations always present in a large network, we have a huge slew of new projects and maturing older ones to tackle after Easter. Here’s a taster :

* Moneyizor network magazine to be designed and launched, including three new webtitles to be set up.

* Final proofread of Syntagma Media’s first print book of the new season : Naked Tales — Stories By Writers Who Blog, which is being published by Humdrumming in May.

* Complete switch over to new Windows Vista systems for all activities. We’re also making the move to Microsoft Office 2007 in one fell swoop. I’m really looking forward to all the glitches.

* Work on Dial Publishing’s new edgewise general trade imprint. The first print title will be Steve Newman’s brilliant fictionalized biography of Ernest Hemingway, currently being serialized here by Syntagma Digital.

* Initial work on our Retailz USA retail portal, due in May/June.

* Something called “real life”. What can that be?

One morning I’ll wake up with absolutely nothing to do all day. Then I’ll know I’m dead.

In the meantime, raise the bugle and signal the advance.