I believe the traditional way of announcing a hiatus is to do so before it is due to happen rather than when it is about to end and I also believe that there are many self evident good reasons for sticking to that traditional order.

Nevertheless, throwing caution to the wind, I am now announcing the end of my non-announced hiatus!

So that schedule of a new post every 3-5 days I mentioned about a month ago will now be kicking in.

As to what I have been doing well… I had an unexpected flurry of activity with some of it being bad (unexpected family tragedy coupled with the horrors of moving homes) and some of it good (overdue trip back to Ireland and a joyful jaunt in Japan).

Since I’ve been so awful with the updates I thought I would do something totally out of character and actually provide some advance notice of the posts that I’m going to be posting up over the next while:

• A series of posts (the first of which will be up the next post up) about the death of Captain Cook, what it meant and why two anthropologists nearly tore each other to pieces over it in the 90’s.
• A post about the interplay and non-exclusivity of different religions in Japan and how it results in a manga about Jesus and the Buddha going to high school together.
• A post or two about the role of self-immolation (suicide by fire) in various Buddhist traditions.

And of course there will be the usual coverage and complaints of general skeptical and religious goings-on.

I’ve a good few other topics in my mind that have come up as a result of my trip to Japan but given my less than impressive scheduling of late I think I’ll hold back on announcing any of them just yet.

Anyhow, I’m back.

Posts will be coming again soon and sorry for the unannounced hiatus!