Why has our countryside inspired ghost stories for millennia? — Britain has a long and often dark history, with our ancient landscapes and buildings telling the tales of our ancestors. Our history is also steeped in tales of ghostly goings-on with the countryside and ancient monuments and buildings providing the perfect creepy fodder. From ancient castles to haunted hills and…

Is it a natural way to go decaf? — Introduction Naturally caffeine-free coffee might not strike you as either a worthy subject for a toast or the perfect drink to charge a glass with, but the health benefits of managing the caffeine intake of you and yours could lead to better outcomes and long life. That’s something we can all…

A slightly more than Just a Minute guide — I can’t help thinking this exercise is like the BBC Radio 4 panel game, Just A Minute, where contestants are invited to speak on a subject — without repetition, hesitation, or deviation — for sixty seconds. Indeed, the rules of Just A Minute are great guidelines for some communications. If…

An English safari through the Knepp Estate — At the end of a warm day in June, in sticky-sweet air laced with threats of thunderstorms, a bone-rattling safari drive in the back of an Austrian Pinzgauer troop carrier comes to a halt under a twilight sky, turning inky blue. By the bank of a hammer pond, where smoke…

Who are the people who dig up coin hoards and ancient gold, silver and bronze? — You’ve probably noticed them from the road as you passed by in the car, purposefully pacing up and down a field, sweeping detectors from side to side, looking for all the world like some kind of dress-down Friday forensics unit. An interesting assortment of…

Alfred Watkins’ ancient tracks or telluric tram lines? — Much has been written about ley lines, but amid the sacred energy, UFOs and levitating boulders, it’s sometimes forgotten that the phrase was coined by a modest man who believed that ley lines were simply…

Rules on socially distanced rendezvous — Social Distancing The Department of Social Scrutiny has updated its advice on social distancing during the current pandemic. This advice overturns the previous advice as announced by the Secretary of State for Social Scrutiny this morning which, in turn, was an amendment of the lobby briefing of yesterday lunchtime that sought to…

Plan a summer escape to Cornwall’s secluded paradise. — A parcel of Cornish land, little more than a dozen miles long and only a few miles wide lies remote between broad, languorous rivers and the sea. …

One May Day in Cornwall — Every May, usually on the 8th, tens of thousands of people take to the streets of Helston for a Cornish festival that’s “bigger than Christmas”. Everything stops for Helston’s Flora and the town goes slightly mad for the day. An earthy sweetness hangs in the early morning air of the old Cornish town. It is a little before seven, and we make our way through car parks and back lanes to the town centre, where the doorways and windows of every shop and home are framed with flowers and…