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There are still plenty of ‘old schoolers’ who believe that both doctors and vets, like clergymen, are following a vocation. Apart from...

In “To A Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church”, one of Robert Burns’ most amusing yet profound poems, written in 1786, the...

We must begin with abject apologies to Jan Morris; that great writer, doyenne of travellers, and Celtic poet, whose book title we have...

We live in an age of golden travel. Never has it been so easy to go so far and wide. Yet moving around also has limitations, bounded by...

Bravo, Vincent! The United States of America’s self-inflated bubble of arrogance, stupidity and self-indulgence deserves to be punctured ...

Sit yourself down in a chair. Bend your left leg over your right. While keeping your back straight, scratch the end of your nose with...

“Is it original?” the member of the film crew asked me. “Yes. It’s a letter he wrote to his mother. One of about a thousand that...

The Isles of Yap lie in the Mid Pacific, some 800 miles East of the Philippines. If both name and location suggest something out of...

Every week there are yet more examples of a country, or indeed a world, which seems increasingly insane. Clearly, this is not the first...

“I didn’t think you were the type.” Zu Henry, our neighbour in Bath, was looking through the passenger window of our car and addressing me.