To return to a tired subject I will quote people I normally dislike, the Economist: "Americans are in fact queasier about guns than the national debate might suggest. Only a third of households now have guns, down from 54% in 1977. In poll after poll a clear majority has supported tightening controls." I will stop at this point writing about guns in the US. I am not exactly sure what prompts me to even bother. Maybe the feeling that this constitutes one of the more egregious violations of reason on the part of our neighbors in the south. For now then lets leave it at that and focus on writing a biography of a medieval Byzantine bureaucrat and meeting my students for punch and chatter. The new big question is the following: how to put the life experience of your friends in a biography of a medieval man and make it relavant. To offer a hint, it is the big man in the City whose life I find useful for historical analysis.