Skyfaring

Even today many travellers leave home not just to see new places, but also to see the whole of the place they have left from the various kinds of distance – cultural, physical, linguistic – that travel opens for them. Indeed, a fascination with this perspective is something I associate with the most experienced travellers.

By one estimate, the portion of the earth’s surface on which an unclothed human could survive for twenty-four hours is about 15 per cent.

clockwise is only clockwise because that is the direction of time, of a shadow, on a sundial in the northern hemisphere.