If you have been trying to interact with this site today, I suspect that you will have been frustrated. I can only offer my apologies.

At 7:04 this morning, I was advised that the database for this site had been locked by our host because it had exceeded its permitted size.

We were aware that this event was on the horizon and had been planning for it quite actively, but it would appear that creating the PDF shop increased the database size faster than we had anticipated, and before we had put plans to upgrade the database in place.

By 8 o'clock, the upgrade was in full swing, but the database in use here spans 19 years of information, so this process did take a little while. As a result, nothing else happened in the meantime. The site could be seen, but no interaction was possible, and there was nothing I could do about that, or even let you know.

I am, however, pleased to advise that we now have a database with 250% more capacity. Given that the previous capacity included 19.5 years of data, I hope this new one will last us a while longer yet.

I have to thank Andy Moyle for jumping into action to help with this. I could not manage these things without him.

I have one further issue that is going to happen today: I am speaking at the Cambridge Union this evening and, as a consequence, will be out of action for several hours, I suspect. There will be nothing wrong with the website. I will just be otherwise engaged.

And a final apology: I have no time now to write the posts I might otherwise have published. C'est la vie.