No matter how old we become, we can still call them 'Holy Mother' and 'Father' and put a child-like trust in them.

No matter how old we become, we can still call them 'Holy Mother' and 'Father' and put a child-like trust in them.

Monks, nuns, long-term spinsters and bachelors and permanent homosexuals are all, in a reproductive sense, aberrant. Society has bred them, but they have failed to return the compliment.

This unusual and highly successful species spends a great deal of time examining his higher motives and an equal amount of time ignoring his fundamental ones.

We are to put it mildly, in a mess, and there is a strong chance that we shall have exterminated ourselves by the end of the century. Our only consolation will be that as a species, we have had an exciting term of office.

Aquatic animals suffer from the disadvantage that they cannot scream when in pain, so we find it hard to gauge the degree of their agony. If fish could scream, angling purely for sport would be outlawed without delay.

We may prefer to think of ourselves as fallen angels, but in reality we are rising apes.