Are neurologists paying attention? To what? To what matters to their patients I suggest, and that includes their need for and correct use of walking aids. But we went to a geriatrician for the review article on page 24, perhaps because Graham Mulley is well known in the area and because he had previously written such a good article for us on wheelchairs—another aid rather neglected by neurologists. Coincidentally, we went to another geriatrician to remind us that “age matters” when managing “neurology” patients (page 4). And are we paying enough attention to the parasomnias? Way back in 2002 Sam Berkovic and Philip King wrote an editorial in Practical Neurology entitled “Sleep neurology—a wake up call for neurologists”.¹ Well Paul Reading woke up and rather quickly established himself as one of the few UK neurologists interested in sleep problems, a very productive niche, and so he was an obvious author for the article on “things that go bump in the night” (page 6). If we don’t pay attention to what matters to patients, then I am sure others will (funders of healthcare for example), and that will not bode well for the specialty or for patients with “neurological” problems. Of course, in Practical Neurology we must and will continue to cover well what neurologists do do, and do a lot of—for example, progressive supranuclear palsy, so often rather thoughtlessly called Parkinson’s disease by non-experts (page 16); a rare but treatable cause of ischaemic stroke which was nearly written off as bad migraine (page 52); a rare but treatable cause of myelitis revealed by taking a travel history (page 48); and the emerging diseases which may be associated with, and even caused by, antibasal ganglia antibodies (page 32). If you want an easy-to-assimilate guide to memory problems, then read the Andrew Budson and Bruce Price article on page 42. Finally, read the neurological letter from Ireland (page 60), such an attractive and literary country, but with fewer neurologists per head than even the UK (a fact generally omitted when we complain that there are not enough neurologists in the UK compared with the rest of Europe).