...seems to be the word for the zeitgeist. A brief hoy before I step on the plane to Sydney to see The War of the Roses, so I can point you to David Jay's marvellous blog Performance Monkey, which will keep you busy while I'm away. Today a fascinating piece suggesting (acutely, I think) that classic German language plays might be the literature to see us through the recession. "We're going to have to take a long hard look at optimism in the coming months," he says. "There's cheerful and then there's deluded. Buchner, Wedekind and their heirs may not comfort us, but they might help." (And thanks too for the compliment, David.) I'll see y'all in a couple of days.