Such a brilliant title from Jane Ferguson of the University of Sydney – I couldn’t resist. Also a great paper, as ever, delivered at BSC in Singapore just over a week ago. Mainly, of course, Jane focused on the manifold ways in which Myanmar’s 2014 census lacked sensibility, through not being appreciative of, or responsive to, the complex social setting it was designed to map. Noting that British colonial administrators conducted their first Burma census in 1872, followed up in 1881, and then at 10-year intervals from 1891 to 1941 sought to audit the territory they seized fully in 1886, she argued that they found neither caste nor religion to be a useful marker of difference in their new colonial holding. They therefore alighted on language. In a society that, especially in peripheral parts, was far from monolingual, this was a fateful decision that continues to play out today. The 135 ethnic groups that structured the 2014 census have long been part of the political landscape, but remain deeply problematic. Some reference language groups, others location groups. Notably in Chin State, some appear to overlap through the use of distinct spellings for what is in reality a single group. Particularly in Kachin State, the official list conflicts with entrenched local understandings of ethnic identity. In the northwest of the country, at least one group is found in two different states (Chin and Rakhine). Nationally, several groups with a decent claim to recognition are lost without trace. Jane’s paper, read from a prepared script and no less compelling for that, was a tour de force.