ALT First Examined A storm can dredge up memory, guess El Niño events are the churning worst, but sometimes sedimented-thoughts surface without any obvious cause. Long ago, asked a girl for use of a pencil sharpener, my name immediately criminalised by a teacher thinking wrongly, I was stealing her math’s answer. This minuscule public opprobrium returned last night as burning slick, like once sunken barrels of spent then dumped radioactivity, grown tired of their historic seals; heat buried deep at a depth of half a century but still suddenly capable of viciously searing skin. Julian Cason