Among last time's guff about metaphors and their relationship to reality, I confidently stated that the phrase 'toeing the line' came from lining up on the running track to start a sprint. Seems yet again I was wrong! Hard to believe, I know. Actually, it comes from our language's deep and rich roots in Britain …
When you're immobilised for a while, you have a lot of time to think. Recent events caused me to ponder the massive effort we put into finding meaning in this thing called life -- or imposing one on it, really. And what better way is there to provide some insight into, some context around, the …
Bodies, eh? We've all got one, haven't we? It's one of those things all people have in common -- and which has all kinds of implications for how we interact with the world; indeed, implications for the universe and everything in it. But let's not go too far down the road of phenomenological theory, which …
When I was a student, back in the early '80s, among the staples of our mixed tapes would be a song or two by moustachioed singer-songwriter Jim Croce -- he of 'Mad, Bad, Leroy Brown' and funereal weepy 'Time in a Bottle' fame. Although it rapidly became deeply uncool to like Jim as New Wave …
You know how, in movies or novels about private detectives, the grizzled, shopworn gumshoe or cop says, "There's no such thing as coincidences, kid," or, more sophisticatedly, "if we assume it's a coincidence, kid, that leaves us nowhere to go"? This is something a bit along those lines. Without the involvement of anyone you could …
You may have intuited from the odd subtle reference herein that I do rather like to head out on a bicycle now and then, to explore the countryside hereabouts, air out the lungs, and best of all, give the psyche a good rev. Most of these expeditions are uneventful, which is a good thing when …
Well, it's not the first time your author has been wrong when it comes to natural facts. Bit it's the most embarrassing by far. Remember the piece I wrote about platypuses? I would hope it still may linger in the memory, being all of two weeks ago . . . But be that as it …
OK so this one is fraught with rabbit-hole risk, so I'm going to have to keep it tight. That's because it's about very complicated cross-cultural interconnections and disconnections -- boring really, with not much to reveal about life the universe or anything. As I so often have to say, though, bear with me -- there …
Platypus is back on the menu, photographically speaking. After months of raptor obsession, a change of approach is required, mainly because the good old Panzerwagen has finally rattled down the final curtain, making longer expeditions less frequent, but also because the season is changing (as they do) and other opportunities beckon. In addition, September was …
Archie turned three the other day; butterflies are starting to flutter by; the days are warmer and the nights shorter. So we mark another seasonal cycle as the earth turns and the planet circles the sun. With all this carrying on about the changing of the seasons and the passage of time, the unspoken element …
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