Editor's note / In which a quick fix is found

I've become self-conscious at the time lag on this blog, since my latest post is about Tallinn, a city that I left more than ten days ago. The sluggish pace has been caused by equal parts procrastination and distraction, and has had the unfortunate consequence that I'm not publishing thoughts spontaneously but instead spending 'blog time' trying to remember what I did the week before last. I've been loath to simply 'skip' cities, for fear that I'd never come back to write about them and also for fear of jumbling the order on the blog, so instead I'm going to post a series of short 'placeholder' entries written in something closer to a stream of consciousness, and return to them later to add detail and edit. Vanity might prevent me from advertising these placeholders so if you don't see them on facebook you'll know why.