diff --git a/TODO b/TODO
index 6a6214f8..36f83c6e 100644
--- a/TODO
+++ b/TODO
@@ -1,9 +1,3 @@
-- check C++ with arg order stuff
-
-  check travis php-vips
-
-
-
 - not sure about utf8 error messages on win
 
 - strange: 
diff --git a/whatsnew-8.5.md b/whatsnew-8.5.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..79bdbbc0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/whatsnew-8.5.md
@@ -0,0 +1,97 @@
+This branch has a new implementation of sequential mode:
+
+https://github.com/jcupitt/libvips/tree/remove-seq-stalling
+
+It'd be great to get this merged to master for 8.5, but it needs some testing.
+
+How seq used to work:
+
+* The vips sink functions create a set of N threads and scan images
+top-to-bottom in tiles, allocating tiles to workers as they finish.
+
+* They have extra logic to keep workers together. They track the position
+of the most-delayed worker and if the lead thread gets more than M scanlines
+ahead, it stalls until the stragglers catch up.
+
+* There is more logic in the loaders: they keep track of the current
+Y position, and if the lead request thread gets ahead of the current
+read point, it stalls with a 60s timeout until the intermediate tiles are
+requested. This logic is implemented in the `vips_sequential()` operation.
+
+The point of trying to keep thread locality and ordering is that we want
+to limit the number of scanlines that loaders have to keep behind the read
+point. We want to stream images through memory, not be forced into a load /
+process / save model.
+
+This works reasonably well for simple cases, like thumbnailing single images,
+but can fail in more complex cases, such as repeated `vips_insert()`. Consider
+this Python program:
+
+```python 
+#!/usr/bin/python
+
+import sys import random
+
+import gi gi.require_version('Vips', '8.0') from gi.repository import Vips
+
+composite = Vips.Image.black(100000, 100000)
+
+for filename in sys.argv[2:]:
+    tile = Vips.Image.new_from_file(filename, access = Vips.Access.SEQUENTIAL)
+    x = random.randint(0, composite.width - tile.width) y = random.randint(0,
+    composite.height - tile.height) composite = composite.insert(tile, x, y)
+
+composite.write_to_file(sys.argv[1]) 
+```
+
+This makes a 100,000 x 100,000 pixel black image, then inserts a lot of
+other files into it and writes the result.
+
+With vips8.4, this could very easily fail. Imagine this situation:
+
+* image1 is very tall and thin
+
+* image2 is short and fat, and by chance covers the centre of image1
+
+* we'll write the top part of image1, then write the body of image2
+
+* after image2 has been written, we need to write the bottom of image1,
+so a thread will ask for a set of pixels near the end of image1
+
+* image1 knows that the previous request was for some scanlines near the top,
+so it thinks this request must be from a thread that has run way ahead of
+the pack and stalls it
+
+And we have a deadlock. In fact, vips wouldn't deadlock, it would just
+pause on a 60s timeout on each thread. Sad!
+
+Here's how the new seq works:
+
+* Sinks work as before.
+
+* Loaders use a revised `vips_sequential()` with the stalling logic
+removed. All it does now is track the read position, cache a few 100 lines
+behind the read point, and makes sure that lines are evaluated in order
+with no missing areas.
+
+* Operations like `vips_shrinkv()` which can cause large non-local references
+have an extra bit of code which, if the input comes from a sequential source,
+adds a an extra `vips_sequential()` operator on the output. This forces
+`vips_shrinkv()` input to be sequential.
+
+The old one constrained thread location on output, and on input as well. The
+new idea is to get rid of input constraints, and instead add extra code
+to the operations which could trigger large non-local references. Rather
+than tying threads down to stop them drifting apart, it makes sure they
+can never get too far apart in the first place.
+
+Running the test program with git master gives this result:
+
+``` 
+real    1m2.317s 
+user    2m58.472s 
+sys     0m7.568s 
+peak mem: 10gb 
+```
+
+Not bad!