Articles in ‘General Interest’

The constant strife and hurly-burly in the public forum and on social media suggests we are suffering from a collective Histrionic Personality Disorder. ### *John Leake**- Alexander von Wagner’s 1882 imaginative painting of the Circus Maximus* Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt. —Decimus Junius Juvenalis, know in English as Juvenal As readers of my recent columns know, I’ve lately been thinking about the fall of the…

I was sent the article below and do not know who the author was but full credit to them for a brilliant bit of humour. ***Students were asked*** **to write an essay on "THIEVES". This is what one student wrote:** **Thieves are an important part of a nation's economy. They play a significant role in providing employment and contributing to the nation's development.** **Safes, locks, lockers, cupboards, etc., are made only because of thieves.…

Your dog looks up from his food bowl and speaks to you with the voice of your best friend. A lover you haven’t seen in years has appeared at your door with a bundle of roses. Or, perhaps, you’re screaming and flailing your arms and legs as you plummet from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Dreams can be moving, hilarious or terrifying by turn, but they are almost always absurd. It only adds to Freud’s mystique that he put stock in them as a source…

As the two most popular pets in the world, it’s impossible not to compare cats and dogs. We talk about which species is the better companion and which is the best cuddler, and there’s also the age-old debate of which animal is smarter. While dog people will always refer to canine trainability, we can’t discount a cat’s independence and problem-solving. Pet owners could debate the merits of each species all day, but thankfully, scientists have…

Humans do it, monkeys do it, even polar bears do it. And now researchers have reconstructed the evolutionary origins of kissing. Their study suggests that the mouth-on-mouth kiss evolved more than 21 million years ago, and was something that the common ancestor of humans and other great apes probably indulged in. The same research concluded that Neanderthals may have kissed too – and that humans and Neanderthals may even have smooched one…