My Dear Robin,

When I have totally exhausted my energies on stepper drivers, please feel entirely free to brief me all about those old problems which need novel solutions, and with a glass of Christmas cheer in my hand (or probably more like Easter cheer by the time I get there) I shall enjoy nothing more than cranking-up the little grey cells.

FWIW I was taught workshop practice fifty years ago by one George Stevenson, grandson of the man who invented the railway. Everything he made - in any medium at all - was both beautiful to look at and perfectly efficient. Genius ran in the family. I'd encourage anybody who hasn't done so to take a look at the Stevenson linkage for reversing a steam engine: it's a perfect example of a brilliantly simple but elegant solution to a very real and practical problem. That's the kind of approach to engineering that has inspired me all my life, and I'm never content with anything I have made until it reaches that same high standard. I don't always reach it but I try, I try.

A very Happy Christmas to all here. May your swarf never tangle and your bearings never jangle.

Ian