the april 2005 issue, et82, was hardly out when i began to think i'd been premature in what i wrote in its comment. i noted there that the issue ‘had the smallest number of contributions ever listed: seven titles in all, whereas traditionally there have been ten or more’. the reason of course was the length of several of the articles: closer to ‘papers’ in standard academic journals (yet none the worse for it, readability being as safe as ever).