Category Archives: The stuff of daily life

It must be five, six, possibly more years since Bob Mortimer taught me a lesson which has more than once been important in the business of getting through the days. In an episode of Gone Fishing, Bob Mortimer reflected on … Continue reading →

Perhaps it was the discovery that bees could count up to four that made me think about intelligence in the natural world. A friend still doubts the studies of Queen Mary University, London that shows the mathematical ability of bees, … Continue reading →

‘Do you remember the time we took you to the youth club and you stood looking gormless?’ There was no answer to be made, there was no memory of such a moment, no belief that it had ever occurred. There … Continue reading →

Forty years ago, in the summer of 1984, I read most of Jean Paul Sartre’s novel Iron in the Soul, the third volume in a trilogy called the Roads to Freedom. A piece of existentialist fiction, it is set against the … Continue reading →

‘The Beatles will be remembered long after Abba have been forgotten.’ It was an assertion with which it would have been hard to argue.  It was the late 1970s and Abba were at the height of their popularity, but the … Continue reading →