Even if it had been a gloomy, cloudy morning - and it wasn't, it was as bright as July should always be - the postman would have brought a bright light into the house. How so? CA NEWS arrived.

The admirable Dr. Jenny March has brought her magic editorial touch to yet another issue - this is Number 30, I notice. I freely admit to being a leading member of the JM fan club, ever since I first heard her lecture (I can't recall the subject) and for two minutes, maybe even two and a half, put her down as an enthusiastic,  perhaps  flighty (was it the  hair that misled me?)  but probably not  very scholarly lady.  Wow! How wrong can you be!

But along with her formidable learning, Jenny has this wonderful youthful enthusiasm, and the ability to make instant rapport with audiences and individuals - and these qualities all go into her editing of CA News. Hence the sunshine flooding up from my hall floor near the letterbox this morning.

This latest number has some serious stuff, like a piece on Dr Johnson's use of Latin by David Purdie and John Davie, an introduction to Yeats' friend and fellow poet Oliver St John Gogarty by John Davie, and Peter Walsh on the Latin of Thomas Aquinas, but it also has a real variety show of entertaining bits and pieces: cartoons, quiz, caption competition, limericks, witty translations to and from Latin verse. I nodded frequently at David Hewitt's survey of Roman remains and influences in Germany, felt indignation and nostalgia with Lance Haward who lamented the barricading, for commercial gain, of classical sites that used to be free and open - how well I remember when a friend and I slept out in the ruins of Phaestos and caught the first bus next morning back to Herakleon! It was my first and last overnight stay in a palace. My friend became a bishop, so no doubt is used to palaces.

Then the CA News has a run-down by Philip Hooker of the current and forthcoming batch of classical film and plays, and a review of Troy by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones. Apparently it really is as dire as we feared it would be.

For sheer wit I give the palm to 'Argos' for a page and a half of report on the CA Conference held in Leeds in April. Is it a comment on the lack of brilliance and wit in the Classical world today, that the author can only be one man? Well, thank the gods for him, anyway.

If you don't see CA News, then write the cheque now and join CA. The subscription has gone up, but surely it's worth it for this sparkling publication alone.