Dear Mischa,

You know that I love you. That love is something best taken at face value: it just is, and that's enough.

Sometimes, though, I wonder why I love you. I am (nominally) a human; you are a dog, and a fairly primitive breed of dog at that. How can two so very different species have evolved to live in such close communion, and with ( Read more... )

Written two weeks ago:

Our culture is gradually learning not to stigmatise depression, but to recognise it as an illness which is at least partly treatable. For me, the most fortunate aspect of this (apart from the treatment, bless it) is that I can be open to my colleagues about my condition. I gulp down my citalopram with my morning decaf, and ( Read more... )

These days, if you set foot in the abortion debate, you are immediately required to identify yourself as being in one of two opposed camps, the "pro-choice" or "pro-life" side. The "pro-life" side are, by obvious implication, "anti choice", representing the totalitarian aspirations of the the Second-Coming movement and their burning-eyed fixation ( Read more... )

There are two things I always loathed about Twitter ( Read more... )

As my last purchase in America (except for a sandwich), I picked up an e-book reader, one of these little black-and-white low-powered devices that will probably be eclipsed by sleeker coloured tech in a year or two. It's a marvellous little gizmo, which has revolutionised not only how I read but what I read. Flicking on at the touch of a button, ( Read more... )

Oh, you beautiful young things ( Read more... )

Why are we so sensitive to having a complete stranger think badly of us, and why do we have so little control over the emotion ( Read more... )

Dear Mischa ( Read more... )

I hate sheep ( Read more... )

I think I've figured out what I'm good for. So let me retrace a little of my life: first by boasting, and then showing how I was cut down to size.

( Age four to twenty-six: what a CLEVER little puppy! )