Last Friday, while I was guiding thirty undergraduate students around Cyprus, this blog turned thirteen. A number of the students had been kind enough during our trip to ask about my research, and the revelation that I had been working on this particular project since their early years at primary school was a shock to them (and to me!). While previous efforts to mark the birthday of this blog have often provoked a sense of anxiety on my part about how much time has elapsed since it began, and about how much work there is still to do, I am in the very fortunate position this year of having secured a 12-month research fellowship, beginning in September, that will allow me to bring this project to a close and to finish the book. The details of the fellowship are still under a publicity embargo, so I cannot name the funder, but I am both beyond grateful and indescribably relieved to have been awarded it. Knowing that I will have the time to finish the book feels like an especially privileged opportunity given the crisis that is currently gripping higher education in the UK and internationally, including at my own institution which last week opened a voluntary severance scheme. I am equally fortunate also to have gained a new editor, the book historian Marie-Claude Felton, who was kind enough to take me on as an orphaned author after my previous editor, the terrifically supportive Richard Baggaley, moved on to a freelance and consultancy role at the end of 2023.

When I mark this blog’s fourteenth birthday, a year from now, I hope to have all the book’s empirical chapters complete and to be well on my way to a full draft of the manuscript. Famous last words, of course!