In the closing days of July 2003, my late friend Norman Geras launched a blog with what he termed the immortal words of Sam Peckinpah – let’s go. For more than 10 years until his untimely death in October 2013, normblog was one of the finest blogs on the planet. Setting thukhuma on its way today, I do not aspire to the depth of analysis or breadth of coverage routinely found on Norm’s site. For sure the focus will be narrower, and even matters of great interest to us both (such as cricket) will likely gain no airtime here. Nevertheless, I do hope to follow Norm in generating a forum for civilized discussion – in this case of art, culture, education and politics in Myanmar. I am thus very keen to carry guest posts on this site. The easiest way to make a submission is by email to [email protected].