MORE SAUCE PLEASE - THE POLITICS OF SSK - NEUTRALITY, COMMITMENT AND BEYOND

in this Introduction, we attempt to convey something of the angst we h ave experienced at various times during the long drawn out process of being commissioned as Editors of this Special Issue, of commissioning the authors and thereafter variously exhorting, encouraging and congra tulating them rat a crucial stage, when the whole thing had got too bi g and the consulting referees had reported, being obliged to reject th e efforts of some potential contributors); engaging the services of sa id referees, and later, with some difficulty, negotiating with them th e continuation of the project; and finally, after an incredibly intens e period of solid wall-to-wall subediting on the final drafts (Ashmore ) and the writing of this Introduction (Richards), finding it all, alm ost, over at last, at last! This is attempted through the deployment o f an extended narrative metaphor which likens our field to a restauran t, and a lyrical coda celebrating anticlimax. We also manage to introd uce the papers.