‘Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless.’ Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire, 1968

I saw this quote recently on Twitter and it really resonated for me. The past year or so has been like no other and, whilst I’ve tried to keep hopeful, at times it has been challenging. I’m an avid data follower − but I have found there is too much data that takes a little bit of hope away.

I realised that, even when things are bad, there are things I can do that give me joy. For me, it is playing tennis (when my Achilles allow it) at my new clay court club, surrounded by trees, hearing the birds and the sounds of cricket and golf balls being hit. Other joys include watching my teenager play cricket, reviewing the progress of my ‘crops’, hot composting, and hiring and filling a skip with rubbish. Lockdown took away many of the activities we do for fun. Now we can mix again, and this weekend I am going away with my best friend to see the sea – and that will definitely lead to joy.

As we were all a bit busy in March, and recovering from the onslaught that was January/February, this issue has once again had the Editorial Board browsing through the archives. We enjoyed this greatly and, interestingly came up with very similar lists of favourite articles.

They range from describing the first @hormone_doc, Ernest Starling and the first SfE BES Meeting in 2003. John Kopchick describes how doing the laundry led to the development of pegvisomant (maybe that ‘floordrobe’ of mine will lead to something equally profitable!). Open access was topical in 2004, as discussed by Steve Byford; Adrian Clark gives a 2021 perspective on the same topic. And as this may or may not be an Olympic year, Ian Gallen describes what it takes to keep an elite athlete with diabetes competing at the highest level.

As always, we hope you enjoy reading this issue. Maybe you, like Hotspur who found joy in ResearchGate, will find a little piece of joy in an unexpected place.

HELEN SIMPSON