Monday morning, and Jill's safely on the plane. Working through the week-end, morning-to-night writing and editing, with endless discussions over dinner reminded me why I do this at all. It's not just because I like cooking, the fresh koriander seduced both of us into spending time over the meals instead of getting back to the writing. It's not just because we're both "gamers", game-scholars with a practical and a theoretical approach to games who thoroughly enjoyed having our armies beaten to pulp by my 13-year-old Risk-playing son. It's not just because we didn't want to be outsmarted by the 15-year-old girl who kept reading through the bits and pieces of the article, ask complicated questions and generally had a critical, but constructive view on the ideas being thrown around over the various meals and snacks.

It's because thinking, writing and figuring things out is plain fun.

But don't tell my boss, the pay is bad enough as it is, if she isn't going to start taking advantage of the fact that scholars might like what we do.