Reflections

Jerothony Naylor was the happiest of men. He was in no way bothered about being told he was far from handsome, nor indeed that he gobbled unbecomingly when applying himself at table. No, Jerothony is not a spelling error. An unspecified dispute between mother and...

Three hundred miles off the Scottish mainland and eighteen hundred miles east of Newfoundland, a light flashes every twenty seconds on a low pinnacle of rock breaking the emptiness of the North Atlantic.  This is the island of Rockall, Scotland's remotest territory...

The daily round is the quasi-mechanical process of keeping going in the hope of receiving future endorphin fixes, and these endorphin fixes are automatic chemically induced rewards which the animal provides to itself for what it views as satisfactory behaviour.  I am...

Here it is a mist, here a fog, always in the end it conceals all things; it is called time. Almost faded from sight now, although not so far back through the obscurity, lies a drifting danger which is sometimes another mist, sometimes another fog. Here it conceals all...

Location Two adjoining villas at Jard, on the Vendee Coast, owned by two French sisters, Marcelle and Suzanne. People Who Do Not Appear Lucette, wife of the Author, Suzanne and Marcelle. People Who Appear Jackie, son of Suzanne and his wife, Evelyn, and 36...

Here I am, master of my destiny, compact, athletic, taking in nourishing meals at one end and disposing of the residue in a fashion both orderly and useful at the other.  Only those who have experienced it can appreciate the pleasure of sensing food slithering...

The brain is an electro-chemical entity, which in the case of humans is stated by one author to contain some 1011 self-organising neurones with some 1014 connections.  Whatever the precise numbers, the human brain is of huge complexity, with a processing power...

Thoughts on a problem in the loft God, many of us are inclined to agree – theist and pantheist alike – is Love.  Starting from this premise, and as far a possible ridding ourselves of all slanted thinking, the mouse poses an unkind dilemma not only to us but to all...

Does a coral polyp give a fleeting thought to the giant reef on which it is rooted and which gave it life? The answer is, probably, no. In success it is confident and ruthless. Its concerns are to compete with its neighbours except where co-operation is to its own...

30th September 1994 It’s not much more than fifty years later, but a Roman centurion returning to Hadrian's Wall after two millennia might have less of a problem in recognising his surroundings.  To say our fortifications are in ruins would be an...

It is of the nature of man to build a theory of life by projecting from such data, however limited, as are available to him.  The data today, in the late Twentieth Century, are more comprehensive than ever before, although still far from complete.   The Eden...

This account was, as I sharpened my pencil, intended to concern Her Majesty's Fijian Ship Latui, The Hawk. But there seems to be some writer-resistance, so now it appears the topic is to be Mbengga (or Beqa if you prefer) lagoon.  As I write, though, Mbengga...