Laikipia When I saw the Chief in his Land Cruiser filled with hangers-on bouncing towards me through the bush I knew he was after his Christmas fatted lamb. It is customary in this part of the world for ranchers to hand out barbeque-ready slaughter animals to our local officials as thank-you presents for the help
We are in danger of losing our eels. To many people this may be of little interest, but it is a serious matter. The vast numbers of baby eels (elvers) which cross the Atlantic from the Sargasso Sea, somewhere near Bermuda, and end up in European rivers two or three years later have been falling
Years ago, when the Times was a newspaper for grown-ups, it was said to have published a letter illustrative of our misuse of statistics. This was to the effect that there were about 3 million people in Wales, of whom about 3,000 had one leg and 300 no legs at all. Thus, the ‘average’ number
Once again Mary has invited some of her favourite members of the prominentii to submit queries for her consideration. From Toby YoungQ. I am a theatre critic currently appearing in a one-man show in the West End. Not surprisingly, several of my colleagues have been less than generous about my performance. One in particular, a
People ask me why I spend Christmas in South Africa. Why don’t I remain in England and have a proper British Christmas? Or, why don’t I go to Hungary, where I used to go, for the snow and the River Danube, which, when partly iced over, resembles shattered crystals? I’m not sure myself. In England,
I felt, the other day, like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken. The nova in my telescope was not just a new word but a new tense. No doubt this heavenly portent bodes no good. The tense might be called the past continuous future. (It is something the
