Introduction

Last year I spent a number of weeks visiting San Francisco and an old friend from England asked me to send him news: he is a fan of Alistair Cook’s radio broadcast, Letter From America, and requested something similar. I replied by sending a number of reports each linked to a single letter of the alphabet, thus giving him A letter from San Francisco, 26 separate ones to be precise.

http://www.letterfromsanfrancisco.blogspot.com

I am sure he anticipated something less frivolous, possibly more political or insightful as well, but he was polite and said that he had enjoyed them, I certainly enjoyed writing them and also relished the challenge to find something to say for each letter.

This summer Seattle is home for two months and so I have resolved to do something similar. My friend has not asked me to, in fact he has not spoken to me for almost 10 months and I have no advanced idea for the almost impossible X this time, but a challenge is a challenge even if self inflicted.

Each installment will cover some aspect of life here in the city or elsewhere nearby, it may or may not include political analysis, economic or cultural understanding but will probably end up as another personal and eccentric guide not necessarily in alphabetic order.

X will probably be left to last to give me time to find something.

important update on this challenge here!