A couple of days ago I made my 250th editorial decision since Jan 1st. And by the end of this week, I'll have made by 500th editorial decision since taking over as Editor-in-Chief of Cognition on June 1st last year.

Scary....

But a bunch of other decisions are being made, as I write this, by the four Associate Editors who now share the load with me (I take around half the submissions, and they share the other half between them). They are the editorial equivalent of these guys....

Have been thinking more about the action hero thing (see my last post). I wouldn't mind having an alter ego that, on receiving a new submission to the journal, ducks into an alleyway while ripping open my shirt to reveal the eponymous action hero's suit hidden underneath. But whereas I like the sound of 'Spiderman', 'Superman', 'Batman', or even 'Actionman' (I had one of those when I was little), I'm not so sure about 'Cognitionman' or 'Editorman' - neither of them conjures up the image I have of myself in my alter ego's mind. So until I can think of a better name, I shall hold off from ripping my clothes off each time I have to action a paper...

And still on the subject of action heroes, where are they when you need one? Take today: A typical day at the University of York. The power goes down to half the campus. And an entire wing of the Psychology building goes into lockdown - the magnetic locks lock, and no one can get in (apparently, one could get out, but that's just hearsay...so far as we know, no one was in the building yesterday when this happened). Short of literally breaking and entering, or flying through the skylight (hence our scanning of the horizon for someone in a cape and blue underpants) the building is unassailable. Not really sure what the point of this is - our offices/labs have mechanical locks, but it's access to the corridors that is prevented by this so-called 'security' measure. What I find amazing is that someone actually decided that this would be a 'good thing'. Humankind knows no limits when it comes to expressing its capacity for insanity.

It's my home, and I should have a right to determine who lives in that home with me. And starlings, despite their many abilities, are not on my list of preferred housemates. Not when they nest in the roof and start whatever orgiastic excess of nest building it is that they get up to each morning at 6.30. No doubt I'll go straight to Hell now that I've plugged every orifice on that roof with chicken wire....

Speaking of which (Hell), I discovered from reading some report or other that a member of the US Congress came out of the closet last week, and admitted he was ...... an atheist. Apparently, he is the first to have done so. Amazing. And when the American populus was asked (or at least, a small unrepresentative sample was asked) whether they could vote for a Presidential candidate who was an atheist, only 14% said they felt they could. Unbelievable. So 86% prefer someone who believes in God... I just wonder what those 86% would say if that someone turned around and said that they had regular two-way conversations wtih God each Tuesday morning at 10am.... Would those 86% be more inclined towards this candidate or less?

The US of A is in my thoughts because I was in California last week for a conference. La Jolla. I could imagine working in a place like that. The conference is an annual one that I go to each year if I can. I'd like my luggage to go with me also, but evidently that's just a little too much to ask. The last two times, my (or Silvia's) poster tube never turned up. I know they look a little like a rocket launcher, but you'd have thought the airlines would have learned by now how not to lose them. At least our luggage was returned to us (both with the zips and various other bits and pieces broken - thank you British Airways for taking such good care of our luggage - from now on I fly United).

Got back, jetlagged and tired (and minus the luggage), and went round to see the kids straightaway. Jamie wasn't too well, though. Greeted me by vomiting all over the stairs. Carpetted stairs. I had an instantaneous out-of-body experience as I heard myself say to his mum the most dreadful words I could possibly utter: "Don't worry - you sort Jamie out, and I'll deal with the mess". Lasagna. Tomato sauce. Parmesan. You get the picture...(and if not the picture, the smell...) The alternative was to utter something completely inappropriate that I had been taught to say in California by a Canadian of Portuguese extraction living in Edinburgh: "Hey - Suck it up... Deal with it". Believe me.... sucking it up was not going to happen. But what did happen was an act of supreme bravery in the face of a distinctly unwelcome lack of rubber gloves - and you'd never guess, now, that those three staircase steps had been a quagmire of vomit only a few days ago...

So... quite a couple of weeks; what with the conference, cleaning up the vomit, clambering onto the roof, and, when not doing that, clearing the queues, yet again, at Cognition. I feel quite the action hero...