Breathe

For days now it’s been distracting you, this problem. You just can’t see a way forward. You’ve tried all the usual fixes – journalling your feelings, comparing pros and cons, talking it over with friends – but nothing has shifted. Exhausted at the end of a dispiriting week, you’re having a long soak in the bath and suddenly, almost miraculously, the solution presents itself.<...

Smaller than a house cat, and twice as nimble, the pine marten is a dextrous ghost of the woods. If you didn’t come across its multi-coloured scat, you’d be hard pushed to know you were even sharing a forest with it.

The pine marten is a small, omnivorous predator that’s widespread across the world. Mic Mayhew, project manager at

Imagine if your body and mind was run by tiny people at work inside you. They would flip switches and send commands to control your organs – your brain, lungs, liver and kidneys. They could run your digestion, and even fight off bacteria. That was the nutty idea behind The Numskulls, a comic strip born in the 1960s that’s been so popular it’s still going strong today, current...

Look around the next time you’re out and about or on public transport: tiny earbuds and chunky headphones are everywhere. If you tuned in to listen to them, what would you hear? These days, rather than your eardrums being subjected to thudding bass beats, you’d be more likely to hear a history podcast or the mellifluous tones of an A-lister reading the latest bestselling nove...

In a small souvenir shop on a Greek island, you spin the wire rack and postcards flicker past in a blur of Aegean blues and chalky whites. You take your time before choosing: an image of mouth-watering local dishes for a foodie friend, a vibrant underwater scene for a scuba-loving cousin. After a day of sightseeing, you sit at a cafe table, splay the postcards out and smile a...