This has been yet another successful year for Thorax. The number of submissions to the journal has remained high, and the number of original papers is still rising (table 1). The geographical distribution of submissions reflects the international flavour of the journal (table 2) and, relative to previous years,^1,2 our acceptance rate has been even lower this year (table 3). Median time to first decisions is now at an all time low, reflecting our policy of trying to give a rapid decision and also only publishing the best papers in the journal (table 4). The journal impact factor has risen further to 4.09 and we are still third amongst the respiratory journals, just behind the two American Thoracic Society publications.³ We have continued to publish strong review series,^4–7 management guidelines,^8–10 and the Year in Review.¹¹

This is our final year as editors of Thorax, and we therefore take this opportunity to express our gratitude—not only for this year but also for the whole of our term of office—to the Associate Editors for their hard work and support, and the Advisory Board for providing expertise on which to draw. Our Technical Editor, Liz Stockman, has tirelessly edited hundreds of papers ensuring the final quality of the published work has been excellent. We thank the Editorial Assistants who have been running the journal for the last year, Hilary, Marie and Laura. Hilary in particular has done a superb job in keeping the journal on track over the past seven years, through thick and thin. We thank our reviewers who again have done an excellent job and whose names are listed on page 1090. Finally, we would like to thank the scientific respiratory community who sent us their work over the last seven years. Many of you will not have agreed with some of our decisions which, with so many good papers to choose from, have ultimately at times appeared rather arbitrary. By the time this article is published the incoming editorial team (Wisia, Seb and David) will be in full control of the journal and we wish them all the best. We are sure that the journal will continue to do well in their hands.

Our term as Editors has been interesting, exciting and frustrating, but never dull. If we had had full heads of hair when we started, we would surely have lost it all by now. Fortunately, we had nothing to lose. The success of the journal has sadly not been mirrored by the progress of Nottingham Forest Football Club, although, hopefully, now that we have more time to give them vocal support, things will turn around. They probably won't!