It is not as if farming brought a great improvement in living standards either. A typical hunter-gatherer enjoyed a more varied diet and consumed more protein and calories than settled people, and took in five times as much viatmin C as the average person today.

I was heading to Nebraska. Now there's a sentence you don't want to say too often if you can possibly help it.

For a long time, I'd been vaguely fascinated by the idea that Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic and Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in the same summer.

Britain still has the most reliably beautiful countryside of anywhere in the world. I would hate to be part of the generation that allowed that to be lost.

99.99 percent of all species that have ever lived are no longer with us.

The great failure in education, much of the time, is the lack of excitement and stimulus

As my father always used to tell me, 'You see, son, there's always someone in the world worse off than you.' And I always used to think, 'So?