Western funerals: black hearses, and black horses, and fast-fading flowers. Why should black be the colour of death? Why not the colours of a sunset?

The verb ‘to darn’ is explained in my pocket dictionary as follows: ‘To mend by imitating the texture of the stuff, with thread and needle.’ But this definition does not correspond to the work accomplished...

I have done the journey between Tientsin and Peking so many times that I recognize even the stray dogs (known locally as wonks) that frequent the platforms in the hopes of picking up something thrown...

To many people I have no doubt that it appears merely silly. I once found it expressed in a rather amusing way in a Russian Book called Dal Zoviet, which means the lure of far...