The muses modernised.

Clio changed a vowel and was in the magazine within a month (curves are out this season).

‘Calliope? Try Calypso!’

Thalia out, EPIC FAILIA in. And you don’t want to know what Urania turned into.

As for me, modest Melpomene, I tried ‘Mel the Morbid’. But there was nothing to be morbid about. Vaccines, democracy, peace and a working Large Hadron Collider – it’s too good a time to be alive!

Maudlin Mel was as unwelcome in this era as in every other.

Or so I thought. But Arachne’s Web 2.0 might have something to it. A billion people spilling raw emotion in Twitter shots, email schooners, blog liqueurs and MySpace glasses. Too much of the bad stuff and a girl might lose her head!

Grief in the age of Google. It’s got to be shiny, open source, global, interactive.

Interactive.

Let them write their own tragedies! Hand them a keyboard; let them do the rest. Get them writing and hate and sorrow will pour out; a modern Deluge of my making!

Humans can break their own hearts for once.