As the sub-title suggests, and, as I start to write, this might not turn out to be an ordinary thesis. And who ever said that contingent agency was the sole preserve of the "posties". This introduction is intended to be a digressive statement of annoyance/anger, condensation of the research's core theoretical themes, continuation of a theoretical project started in the '70s, an indication of areas that require further work, and thus, as that solidary prosaism would have it, 'work-in-progress'.