Sometimes, they understand exactly how stupid I am. * At one end of the scale, you have a nameless local pub that took to extremes its...

When you are complaining about feral pigeons in Trafalgar Square, it is worth reminding yourself that, twenty feet or so below your own,...

‘The idea,’ said Wendell Berry, ‘is that, when faced with abundance, one should consume abundantly, an idea that has survived to be the...

Consider Tashpolat Tiyip. And, if you haven’t got the faintest clue what I am talking about, or rather who, check out the attached link,...

Over the years, Maureen and I had reached a sustained accommodation. It was a sort of ‘don’t-ask-don’t-tell’ arrangement. If she wished...

You don’t say much, so I know little about you. It’s probably the way you like it, and I don’t blame you. Simply by the process of...

Dear Ursula Your biographical notes don’t say whether or not you are a film buff but, if you are, I wonder if you watched that Marx...

There is a little known branch of science called glottochronology, that researches how, and how quickly, words change their usage over...

When the male black-footed albatross is courting, he indulges in a dance that is unique to him, and which includes head-bobbing,...

We all have our rituals. One of my strangest is an enforced daily reading that I push myself through of the latest pronouncements of one...

I’m 61, and I’m in love with a tee-shirt. I mean love in the sense of ‘being deeply committed and connected to someone or something’...

‘Through all of my youth I was looking for you,’ wrote yet another American poet you probably haven’t heard of, ‘Without knowing what I...

As the 45th Presidency in United States history glides to its dignified conclusion, and with sweetness and light very much the order of...

In the league table of things that irritate people about me (talks too much, listens too little, too confident of own opinions, lousy...

As with every evening for the last 359, I am having my late night cuppa under the Dunning-Kruger effect. Indeed, it followed me down the...

Back in 1859, when Italy was convulsed in a noisy departure from the Austrian Empire, a young man came up with the idea of creating an...

Brownie had a narrow escape this week. We had got to that desultory stage of a Sunday evening when Antiques Road Show is on in the...

If someone had said to me at the start of 2020 that there would be a global pandemic that reaches into every corner of the globe, and...

I like to think that Jesus first said ‘I am that I am’ after being asked unsuccessfully by Mary Magdalene to help with the washing up, by...

You may not be familiar with the term, but the ‘house edge’ is that rule which dictates that the casino never loses. Not at roulette, not...