Spring

Pagan plagiarism and the season of sex Spring is my favourite time of year.  This year the Christian festival of Easter, the Jewish festival of Passover and the Islamic festival of Ramadam are in unusually close proximity. But these are all upstart religions; at heart Spring is pagan and associated with the change in seasons …

Entangled

Can we trust fungi or are they leaving us without mushroom for manoeuvre? On a whim I recently bought a book by a man with the unlikely name of Merlin Sheldrake called Entangled Life. Merlin is a mycelial groupie who will literally get down and dirty with his favourite fungi and hang out with them …

Straplines

What’s the best way to get someone’s attention and then keep it? An image, yes. But also a strap line. Some years ago I was driving to work and passed three quite unrelated vehicles a few minutes apart from each other. Each one had a strap line on them. I had a better memory and …

The Budget

"It's a trap!" cries the reptilian alien life form in Star Wars when it suddenly realises what we knew all along, namely that the powerful never give up without a fight and that things are not what they seem. So it is with Jeremy Hunt’s first budget proper. Actually there is a hint of the …