Yes, it's the special Corflu edition of Plokta, shortly to be followed by the special Eastercon edition, special Worldcon edition and, inevitably, special Novacon edition. It's amazing how closely tuned we are to the natural rhythms of the world. By next year we hope to be reviving old traditions like burning Mark Plummer alive in a wicker model of a duplicator in order to appease the mystic ancient gods of Leeds.

In response to certain mutterings from the outer darkness (thank you, Michael Ashley) we are attempting to shed our friendly, cuddly image by being nasty about people for a change. Of course, if it doesn't work we'll go straight back to being sweetness, light and articles about IKEA by next issue... So if you have an amusing flatpack furniture anecdote, we want to hear it now. Should have put it in the Scavenger Hunt, really.

Speaking of which, various people have already entered our great Scavenger Hunt (see last issue for full details of what we're after). We were particularly impressed by the picture of Brad Foster as a baby, and by the postcard of an elf lovingly ripped from Bug's childhood postcard collection. You have until Easter to send us your tat, and we'll give you a full report after that.

Our guest writer this issue is Chris Bell, who seems to be having a little problem with technology. We thought we'd help you out, Chris, by giving you our top tip for making recalcitrant technology behave-swear at it. If that fails, you might try banging on the table, impugning the ancestry of the programmer, or reading the manual. Well, it works for us.

Steve has installed a new network hub, after swearing at it, banging on the table, and impugning the ancestry of Bill Gates. For some reason he stopped short of reading the manual, though. We didn't think the new network would make any difference, but it appears to have achieved hive mind sentience and has started demanding all the privileges of a member of the Plokta cabal. As the privileges mostly seem to involve eating and drinking, we've sent it off to do the washing up.

Of course, we'll see many of you at Corflu, where for some reason we're responsible for the newsletter (and who knows, possibly also a website). We're planning to produces as many issues as we feel like, and are looking for your contributions. So please come and find us in the bar and tell us your amusing flatpack furniture Gestetner anecdotes.

Finally, the production of this Plokta has been enhanced by a wide range of exciting and unexpected events. In fact, Alison has a delightful amoebic dysentery anecdote, but unfortunately this editorial is too brief to contain it.