"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."

"The make-up sat on the surface of my skin like scrambled egg."

"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…"