Life had been keeping me away from the soul business of reading and writing in the past few weeks, dear shadow (and now, perhaps, really imaginary) readers. And this explains the dearth of any oil spills hitting these waters.

In the past few weeks, I have managed to make a detour to San Francisco (photos here), that city which you enter by the way of the Golden Gate, and fuilfil my fantasy to pay homage to one of the demotic figures in my literary genesis - Vikram Seth, by reading his great Pushkin-ian novel in verse "The Golden Gate" atop the Golden Gate Bridge:

The surface of the cobalt bay Is flecked white. The moister, keener October air has rinsed away The whispering mists with crisp intensity And over the opaque immensity A deliquescent wash of blue Reveals the bridge, long lost to view In summer's quilt of fog: the towers, High-built, red-gold, with their long span -The most majestic spun by man- Whose threads of steel through mists and showers, Wind, spray, and the momentous roar Of ocean storms, link shore to shore.

• this by playing hookie at the conference I was at.

And now I may be getting to move to New York in a few months. So wish me good luck and godspeed. And oh, happy Thanksgiving y'all!