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High above the building in many parts of the world, a weather vane tells which way the wind blows. Usually above the arrow itself, the vane has a symbolic figure of some kind – and more often than not it is a cockerel. But whether the vane has a cockerel...
Despite the evidence of the cobwebs that accumulate in our cellars and gardens, relatively few of the world’s spiders regularly weave webs. Most of them regards it as too laborious and risky a means of trapping their food. Webs give weaving spiders a...
Although we have been building houses for many centuries, we have not always constructed them in a way that achieves maximum warmth in winter and coolness in summer. Termites , probably the most prolific insects of the world’s warmer areas learned that...
Many plants park a powerful dose of poison, a fact known since earliest times. The ancient Greeks used infusion of aconite, an extract from the roots of monkshood (wolfsbane), to dispose of the aged and infirm. Spears dipped in aconite were deadly weapon...
Cheetahs seem out of place on the African plains where most of them live. Unlike other cats, they hunt in full day-light and against a background of dry grass and scrub, their strongly spotted coats give them little camouflage. Rarely successful in stalking...
Chilies, cayenne pepper, chili pepper or powder, paprika and hot red pepper come from one or more of the several varieties of the capsicum pepper, which was one of the taste surprises from New World brought to Europe by the Spanish in the sixteenth century....
The point is often made that, if we can establish December 25 as the day for celebrating Christ birth, why can’t we set a date for Easter, the commemoration of His Resurrection? In some years, the clamour to have a fixed date becomes louder, because Easter...
By the early nineteenth century, Christmas was no longer a festive event in the lives of many people. In Britain, it had still not recovered from its banning by the Puritans, an edict long since revoked but still lingering in it’s somber effects. Christmas...
The colour of beer or of any translucent liquid depends on how much of it you look through. A single drop f beer looks colourless. A glass of it may, according to the brew, appear to be an amber yellow or dark brown. Beer that is yellow in a tumbler would...
Champagne was once drunk almost exclusively by the aristocracy. The Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century created a fast growing group of manufactures, and brought wealth to people who had never had it before. Because of its touch of class,...
