This post is number 33 in a series.

We were visiting a friend who is responsible for a large garden. He had to check the greenhouses. Plural. In one, row upon row of seedlings, including many tomatoes. I cannot see tomato seedlings but that I have to brush my hand over the tips. My science brain...

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This post is number 32 in a series.

Back in Rome, and there is definitely something less buzzing about the atmosphere. There are crowds in the streets, but they seem to be plodding. There isn’t the spring in the step or the purposive energy. More like knots of people hanging around, or walking a...

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This post is number 31 in a series.

Prices are sky high. Japanese restaurants are two a penny, whatever that is. Hordes of visibly different people, mostly young, crowd the streets. Voices fill the space with an incessant Babel. Old shops have been replaced, probably more than once. I’m in Londo...

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Hands up all those who noticed that instead of a misty bloke in a boat, collecting pond scum on the lake at the Summer Palace in Beijing, the header image for this site now sports a springtime view over the domed roofline of Rome?

It is, I think, a little more appropriate. It is also not too racy...

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I swear, I don’t go looking for these things. But having saved How to disagree not ten minutes ago, I cannot help but notice that xkcd has been similarly inspired. Or perhaps not.