"The plans of mice, men and Maureen gang aft a cock-up."

"She taught us Hygiene. And you know what that meant: s-x, pr-cr-ation and p-r--ds."

"I'm a games player by nature. Don't get me wrong. Nothing that involves movement. Like leaving my chair."

"Are you sitting comfortably? Then get up. This is no time for sloth."

"The more I thought about it, the more obsessed I became with the idea of a swimming journey. I started to dream ever …"

"From water level, I observed the mating joined in flight like refuelling aircraft, and the random progress of the clo…"

"It is through trees that we see and hear the wind: woodland people can tell the species of a tree from the sound it m…"

"Waterlog (1999), Roger's now-classic account of swimming through Britain, published twenty years ago this year, opens…"

"In 1973, Roger Deakin, a British writer and environmental activist, acquired a tumbledown sixteenth-century farmhouse…"

"Besides the darkness of the night, many minor shadows cross our paths, making the hues of Life obscure. These are not…"