Last week saw chess Grandmaster David Smerdon play 20 opponents at once in a simultaneous game. This was an opportunity for amateurs to get a rare chance to play against a master.

I am told that to have David Lovejoy’s life missing from the Echo editorial would seem strange, despite his son Hans’s comprehensive review, so I am your huckleberry – obscure Doc Holliday reference.

Echo co-founder, author and avid chess player, David Lovejoy, died with dignity and on his own terms last Wednesday, at his home in Mullumbimby.

Humans have been muddling along in cities for around twelve thousand years, says Wikipedia, although if you count using an alphabet of some kind as the criterion of civilisation, the time span drops to a mere fifty centuries.

The Apostrophe Protection Society, founded in 2001, has announced its end.

After all the sound and fury from the Nationals, the Prime Minister announced that his government would move to net zero emissions in 2050 by printing glossy pamphlets and making PowerPoint presentations.

There I was last week, reading the latest Echo, nodding in agreement with Phillip Frazer, smiling at Mandy’s column, shaking my head over the weird Trump equals Julius Caesar article, when I was suddenly brought to a halt by page 10.

This is one last head-scratch about Donald Trump and the American political paroxysm before the forty-fifth president drags himself, or is dragged, away.

Something has changed in the climate crisis argument…

Thirty-one years have passed since Nicholas Shand dreamed up this newspaper and collected a band of similar dreamers to help him make it real. In those 31 years The Echo has grown, like a magic beanstalk, far taller than we ever imagined, and it is now one of the primary institutions of Byron Shire.