This morning the back yard is moody and sullen and so am I. 

A dense grey mist presses itself against the windows, attempting to insinuate itself into my little flat. The washing I hung out days ago is still on the line drooping and disconsolate. What passes for a lawn is almost as high as an elephant’s eye. It’s certainly higher than a Fox Terrier’s eye. 

The dog, who hates wet weather as much as I do, has made just one expedition outside, driven by an irresistibly full bladder. The long grass closed over his head immediately and the only evidence of his passage across the yard was the twitching of green stems in his wake. 

Death was robbed of his sting by the speedy arrival of an ambulance, the attentions of skilled and doctors and nurses, and the rapid application of modern pharmaceuticals and medical technique.

Not entirely coincidentally, I have been reading an arcane piece of literature called “Touching on Deaths” I uncovered at the Founders Book Fair. It’s a medical history of early Auckland based on the first 384 inquests held in the city. Its author, New Zealand doctor turned historian, Laurie Gluckman, spent ten years transcribing reports - hand-written in spidery pen and ink - of all the inquests held between 1841 and 1864. 

Heart attack was recorded as the cause of death in twenty of the 384 inquests. Before succumbing, victims complained of “unpleasant sensations” or “uneasiness in the chest” and one 25-year-old was so agitated by the pain that observers at first thought he was ”in the throes of a nightmare”. One Charles Trainor, suffering a headache and “something pulsating under the collar-bone” did not even bother to call for a doctor. Nor did he avail himself of over-the-counter remedies like “Holloway’s Pills - The Greatest Cure of any in the Globe” or “Dr Simpson’s Infallible Worm Lozenges”. Instead he attempted to ease his discomfort by bathing his feet, then “lay down, stretched out his right arm and died immediately” of “a rupture of the large blood vessel near the heart”.

My friend would most definitely be dead now if he had suffered his heart attack in Auckland in the decades covered by these inquests: medical attention would have come slowly on foot or by horse, if at all; many doctors of the period had only the most rudimentary of medical training; analysis of blood or urine was by sight or smell (or occasionally taste, in the case of urine); the causes and transmission of disease and infection were imperfectly understood; the stethoscope, ophthalmoscope and thermometer were very recent inventions.  Even the accurate measurement of the pulse was unusual before pocket watches became cheaply available in the 1860’s.

Happy! Happy! It’s the Queen’s Birthday! Such jubilation does not descend upon me in June each year because it is the birthday of the Queen. Though I am, like Will and Kate, a Cambridge, I am not a monarchist. I believe the royals should holiday in New Zealand at their own expense, and that Helen Mirren would make a much more amusing monarch than Elizabeth.

So, why the outbreak of gaiety? Well, it’s because the annual Founders Book Fair always opens on the Saturday of Queen’s Birthday weekend. My J.Q. (Joy Quotient) always is always high at this time but it reached dangerously high levels when I discovered that Nelson Musical Theatre was staging a garage sale, right next to Founders on the very same day. 

These two competing manifestations of Nirvana drove me to the brink of madness. I would have toppled over the edge, except for my responsibilities as chairperson of the Founder's Book Fair Awards Committee.

It is in this capacity that I would like to announce 2014 Award winners. Envelope please ...