Sport is not always associated with the top end of the endocrine business. Be it lurid tabloid guessing games of ‘Is she a he?’, state-sponsored oral Turinabol administration in 1970s East Germany or the polypharmacy of sociopathic cyclists, hormones seem inevitably to feature for all the wrong reasons. It still baffles me when professionals who have been told ‘Don’t take that drug’ feign shock and disbelief after detection of said drug in their bodily substance. To me, such simple instructions sit alongside other clear statements of imperative mood like ‘Stop kicking when the ref blows his whistle’ and ‘Stand behind the white line at the start.’ Read the instructions written inside the lid of the box before you play the game, or don’t bother playing at all.

Still, to the average armchair idler, there is much fun to be had in watching people go faster, jump higher and be stronger than their rivals. To enhance your viewing, in this issue, we’ve gone for a wonderfully diverse look at bone, muscle and movement. Duncan Bassett and Colin Farquharson lay out their vision for the Society’s Bone and Calcium Endocrine Network on page 20. Meanwhile, Anna Krook explores some of molecular mechanisms that underpin the benefits of exercise (page 11), while James Brousil and Andrew Robinson’s article serves as an excellent reminder that bone is far more interesting than a collection of inert scaffolding tubes (page 9).

While few will ever come close to Olympic fitness, many of us will be living longer, with a need to maintain our bone health for as long as possible. On page 6, Rosemary Bland highlights some of the (still!) ongoing controversy around vitamin D while, on page 8, Richard Eastell sets out the current anti-osteoporosis armamentarium. In addition, Louise Foley and colleagues highlight their work in bringing academic rigour into the hugely important world of the built environment (page 15).

Finally, Saffron Whitehead (page 17) and Bernard Donovan (page 30) have supplied two very personal accounts of their early careers, reminding me again that the past really is a foreign country, where they do things differently.

Have a great summer.