The sky was the bluest it has been in a long time. There was a bit of a breeze keeping things cool. We had a cappuccino at the bar, my second since mid-March, me keeping a respectful distance from The Main Squeeze, and then we ran for a bus.

So exciting, my first excursion off the Green Mountain since it all began.

It’s so nice when things just happen to come together and move me forward. A teeny thing, but mine, and I hope worth sharing.

A week back I wrote about tending my zettelkasten garden, and trying to become more of a curator and less of a hoarder. Two days later someone mentioned readwise.io, which I had a quick look at. That same day, a cyberchum posted something “from this morning’s Readwise email”. So I was well primed.

In 1984, I published a book about the past, present and future of zoos. One chapter was about the idea, quite new at the time, of behavioural enrichment. That is, giving animals the opportunity to perform some aspect of their natural behaviour. High-tech versions, like a contraption that fired live locusts into the fennec foxes’ enclosure at Antwerp Zoo. No tech versions, like simply making sure that the sea otters in the Seattle Aquarium had a supply of stones with which to demolish a bucket of clams. And all sorts of in-between examples.

Doing a bit of research recently for a future podcast, I came across this astonishing little passage.

“The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated … The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the...

I’ve just finished the most delightful book I have read in a very long time. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is simply breath-taking in the way it spins its magic. I freely confess to being extremely sentimental, easy to tears in a film or even music, but I don’t recall having wept tears of joy...