I’ve always really liked Jonathan Meades’ work. But I completely missed this programme. Nothing new (to me), but brilliantly well packaged. (Like a hamburger?)

The War on Christmas folks object to the removal of Christ from Christmas. (If you’re going to be an etymological Feinschmecker, please note that Jesus is a name -- cf. Jehoshua, Joshua -- while Christ is a title or epithet. Which is to say that if you’re seriously into the Etymological...

There’s more ➢

This is a poinsettia, Euphorbia pulcherrima, the most beautiful euphorbia. (Euphorbius was a Greek physician, who promoted the use of resin spurge's sap as a painkiller. He was right to do so.) You will note that the colour of the bracts (bracts are the leaves immediately below the flowers, whi...

There’s more ➢

The Sunday Times asked me to review Oliver Morton's book Eating the Sun. A fine book that made it easy to review. Better yet, Oliver has a blog for each of his books, where he collects reviews and responds to them. Thoughtfully. That’s a neat idea. As for not writing enough about agriculture, I...

There’s more ➢

Sometimes xkcd just nails it.