It has been one of those rare weeks when things actually fall into place, or close enough to fool one into thinking they have. Between half-awake writing sessions at unholy hours and the usual avalanche of emails, I somehow managed to add a few more pages to my next monograph. A small victory, especially considering I sacrificed the mid-week Serie A match for it (Cagliari played atrociously, which in hindsight made my sacrifice feel almost saintly). Still, the real thrill came from taking my ideas out for a walk - almost literally, if could actually pull off a step. I presented Investment Arbitration’s Tightrope at Warwick to an engaged and curious audience, the sort of people who listen, think, and then ask the kind of questions that make one want to rewrite half their argument before dinner. Those encounters are rare these days – at least for an academic in my position (literal and otherwise), and when they happen they remind me why I started doing this whole academic thing in the first place. It was fun, stimulating, and oddly reassuring, proof that serious discussion has not yet been entirely replaced by soundbites and social-media grandstanding. I left tired (the M69 is a nightmare at any time of the day) but content, notebook full of scribbles and the faint suspicion that the next leg of this ongoing tour will come together without too much struggle. I’m not sure where the next stop will be, but if it’s half as well-organised as this week turned out to be, I might even manage to catch the next Cagliari disaster.