My interim blog wasn't abandoned, exactly. Rather it died for lack of things to talk about. That's pretty much because I've spent the past six months plastered to a computer screen eighteen hours a day developing the business now I'm at it full time. Basically, I've been empire building.

And I'm doing quite nicely. To take the 'empire' metaphor a little further - and, indeed, torture it into analogy - I'd say that I'm no longer a small central-Italian tribe emerging from the Bronze Age and beginning to learn the secrets of sophisticated crop rotation and building in stone. In fact, following my success in the Punic Wars, I'm established as the major power in the Mediterranean. Despite a few nasty scares (Hannibal, alps, elephants) I've growing military confidence and a firm economic base, largely rooted in sea trade with North Africa and the Near East.

I'm now very much looking forward to being a sprawling, corrupt and decadent empire entirely given over to luxury, sexual excess and the persecution of Christians.