During the last few days I've been strangely obsessed by the local elections. It is many years since I hoped that our political process might improve matters substantially, but I still find elections exciting, especially when the governing party does badly. There is some justification for that, because even if an election replaces some bossy people by others, at least it is a chastening experience for the defeated, but that alone does not justify the hours I've spent following the results. Partly it is a sort of numbers game, a bit like erratic Go on a large scale, and the election of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London is definitely like a move in a game. I was delighted to see him replace the vindictively self-righteous Livingstone, though there may be too many Livingstone disciples in the London administration to allow Johnson to be amusing as I should like.

Combined with a clamouring of tomato plants needing to be repotted into my home-made soil and compost cocktail, the elections not only led to my neglecting this blog, but even distracted me from the topology book I'm plodding through slowly, as recorded in the appropriate section of my home-page.