1 SALUTING MAGPIES This centuries-old practice is still common across the British isles in rural and urban communities alike. The magpie is commonly associated with death – perhaps because, legend say

October brings the first of the frosts, bewitching mist, the turning of leaves and a host of otherworldly visitors, finds John Lewis-Stempel

“One might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” goes the old proverb. The meaning is simple: if you are going to be punished for a small crime, you may as well commit the bigger one. In the early

Smothering, transformative and beautiful, fog’s close-set shroud has inspired titans of literature, cinema and art–and forces the rest of us to look at the world a little closer, writes John Lewis-Stempel

On being told that they had been bitten by a venomous snake, most eight-year-olds would panic. Not Nicholas Jubber; he was not terrified but disappointed by a diagnosis that contradicted his own. Nich

SAGITTARIUS 23 November – 21 December Give some ...