There were periods during my childhood when I stammered so badly I couldn't talk at all.

There were periods during my childhood when I stammered so badly I couldn't talk at all.

No birdcall is the musical equal of a clarinet blown with panache.

It's incongruous that the older we get, the more likely we are to turn in the direction of religion. Less vivid and intense ourselves, closer to the grave, we begin to conceive of ourselves as immortal.

If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can't go at dawn and not many places he can't go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live alongside a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking - one sport you shouldn't have to reserve a time and a court for.

Our loneliness makes us avid column readers these days.

Animals are stylized characters in a kind of old saga - stylized because even the most acute of them have little leeway as they play out their parts.