"Been a long time been a long time been a long lonely lonely lonely time". It's almost as if Led Zeppelin wrote that song for us, don't you think, because it has indeed been a long and lonely time for all people interested in RUTH. Such people have always had to bear a certain amount of unreliability and disappointment, but perhaps never more than the giant gap from last July to now, when it must have seemed as if we had simply disappeared or split up or moved to another country or planet.

"Both new single and Harrison will emerge in about September" it says in ALAN 8, clear as day. That wasn't true. There can be no excuses. Still, the super-thickness of this all-new ALAN 9 hints at the weight of new RUTH material all ready for you to get! And we really mean it this time! Where is the one 22nd June! Harrison 6th July!

One of the functions of this epoch-defining edition is to invite you all cordially to come and see us play parts of our lovely album as we tour around in July (see the coming up section). We do apologise to Children of ALAN who live in areas far from where we're playing - we plan to play everywhere eventually…

As usual you will find out-of-date cards with your ALAN. This is partly to ask you very kindly to give them to friends or strangers you feel might enjoy our work, but mostly because we made too many and we want to get rid of them.

Once again, friends old and new, thankyou for your support and your continued belief that one day RUTH will rule supreme, and when you buy the album and see there in the credits a thankyou to ALAN, consider that thanks personally from us to you.

So get on in and read, dammit.