Nature is not horrible. Nature is not wonderful. Nature is not cruel. Nature is not beautiful. Nature only is.

Acquiring the trick of listening to birds will teach you how better to enjoy life and how better to endure it

What politician ever thinks beyond 4 or 5 years? But such thinking is hopelessly inadequate for the big questions that involve the fabric of the world we live in

Sven must have neglected to pay tribute to one of those strict Nordic gods. But instead of cursing Eriksson himself, Thor has done a still crueller thing and cursed the England strikers. I can only assume that Eriksson was never informed of this curse, otherwise he might have more than a 17-year-old up his sleeve.

Nature is not horrible. Nature is not wonderful. Nature is not cruel. Nature is not beautiful. Nature only is.

Never mind, love, it's not the end of the world.

Behind every footballing tough guy there lurks a mincing aesthete with a love of art for art's sake, football for football's sake. A win without art is somehow less than a victory; less, almost, than a beautiful defeat. In football, the romantic and the pragmatist are ever at war in the same breast. Beauty, it must be understood here, is not Barcelona's aim but their method. And last night they were ready to use this method at every opportunity - quick-fire passing of wit and purpose in the danger areas, seeking always to produce an unlooked-for player in a position of threat.