Editorial I

Communication strategies emphasize concerns for content (what is said) and process (the way things are said). Scientists have a responsibility to communicate the findings of their research, enhancing prospects that their insights can meaningfully inform management practice. When used effectively, principles from geomorphology provide critical guidance for environmental management. Three key geomorphic messages are outlined here: Respect diversity through communicating spatial and temporal controls upon landscape character and behaviour; Work with nature in conveying the range of behaviour of any given system; and Be proactive by determining the trajectory of landscape change. Uptake of geomorphic understanding reflects, among many factors, our ability to communicate findings clearly. In communicating these messages, different approaches are likely to prove more effective when addressing differing audiences, whether school/university classes, stakeholders, managers, politicians, or the broader community. Collective approaches to learning through dialogue are encouraged as they promote deeper learning, prospectively enhancing the uptake of geomorphic understanding, thereby promoting healthier environmental futures.     

I Watussi

The article reflects on the ‘absent connection’ between the fictional Watussi of the Italian hit song of 1963 and the real Tutsi, many of whom had fled Rwanda at that time to escape violence from the ascendant Hutu majority in the last years of Belgian rule. It considers the song's long afterlife and the stubborn persistence, decades later, of comic stereotypes of ‘Africans’ in Italian popular culture despite the growing number of African migrants and their children in Italian society.     

Ad horatii sat. I 4 et I 9

The traditional interpretation of lines 75–6 is supported both by the immediate context and by the novel presentation of the Laudamia myth. Lines 73–8 show a balanced pattern of thought which demands that hnes 75–6 should refer to a neglect of sacrifice. Throughout the myth there is a strong connection between passion and disaster, while Protesilaus himself appears as a sacrificial victim. This new approach makes sense only if lines 75–6 refer to ceremonial negligence by Laudamia and Protesilaus.