Two years ago I woke in the middle of the night having just finished reading William Blake as my bedtime reading (odd bloke eh!?). I wrote the following on my bed-side pad: "I saw the world in a grain of sand, then realised I am very short-sighted." Then, I turned over, knocked the pad under the bed, and fell asleep.

Here in the UK we have had a long, hot and dry summer – problematic for some and glorious for others. Autumn came almost a month ago with only a slight drop in temperature. Yesterday, I felt …

I was playing with aphorisms and here are a few of my own to add to the millions that already exist.

Here is the transcript of the statement of a man arrested for substance abuse. It speaks for itself. It amazes me that materials as strong as those described are freely available on most highstreet…

Yesterday the BBC reported the shooting of a Marsh Harrier near Westerdale in the North York Moors, near to where I live. These are wonderful birds and an important part of our local ecosystem. Whi…

I was pleased with the short parody that came out of my meeting with that lone angler who was the inspiration of Post 188. However, I felt I needed to capture some of the essence of fly angling in …

There is a small sea loch and settlement on Arran called Lochranza. Today its castle is attached to the land by a narrow spit of gravel, and is a ruin. While I was there I heard that there is a lon…

While I was in Islay I met a very pleasant man who was on a fishing expedition. His name put me immediately in mind of some of the novels of John Buchan. Since then, I have been working on this sho…

While on Islay we walked on Machair Bay’s remote beach. It was supposed to be a gentle walk after previous days excursions, but the showery wind blew hard at us. The strand was a moving carpe…

St. Columba landed on a small pebbly beach on Iona in AD563 . He brought with him 11 or 12 companions (the sources differ) and they travelled by curragh – a rather large corracle made from ti…

We were not much bothered by midges until we arrived on Jura, probably because of the previous blustery winds. However, Jura was midgy. I cannot underestimate the disturbance these beasts can cause…

Developing countries lead the historic clean energy charge but the US and EU rely more on fossil fuels than before, a think tank study shows.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Barack Obama are among those paying tribute to the leading conservationist.