Some people will fly from London to LA for a Taylor Swift concert; others will fly across the planet to follow their sports hero or favourite team but as a tree-hugger I am always keen to travel to look at a tree I have never seen before, particularly when it is new to science...

Oh, how we Brits are enjoying France’s political travails! The UK’s mainstream media, reliably francophobe when it comes to politics, economic policy and business, have revelled in the inability of President Emmanuel Macron to keep his prime ministers for longer than a few months. They have welcomed his attempts to reform the French economy but mock the French people’s unwillingness to accept the consequences - working longer hours, retiring later, and taking smaller pensions

“Very flat, Norfolk” Noel Coward wrote in Private Lives (though I prefer the legend that he said it to the Queen Mother after she referred to a Royal weekend at Sandringham).  Norfolk certainly has that reputation; flat and remote with big skies.  North Norfolk, where your correspondent generally deploys his quill pen, is not flat; it is rolling, and wooded, and really rather mysterious and beautiful.  Move east from here though and there is a definite feeling that the land i

Words have always intrigued me. I amused my English teacher, the wonderful Jack Roberts, by weaving new words into school essays: perfunctory, desultory and mendacious were early examples. Not an easy task. I was hoping to impress and also showing off. Mr Roberts was perhaps more amused than impressed by my clumsy efforts, though I also got a hint of encouragement...