Authors Electric

What happened , the title of Hilary Clinton’s recent book, was not a question. Had it been, I’d have offered the following answer, based on evidence from an article I read quite a long time ago in my newspaper. First, though, when I write the word ‘Neanderthal’ what springs to mind? I know that readers of the AE blog are cultured sophisticates whose only prejudices concern grammatical issues and linguistic niceties but, for at least some of you, I’d guess that, despite your determination to avoid it, there might be some speciesism in your reaction. You’ll see creatures of indeterminate gender with no foreheads who sit in caves grunting monosyllables and tearing raw meat from bones with their prognathous jaws. Perhaps now and then, one will stand, rise to his (this one’s a male) full height of 4 feet 10, club a neighbouring creature (this one will be a female), and drag her off to procreate. The more enlightened among you will probably envision noble savages sitting around a fir...

If no one had said 'Spring's here! ', if I’d not been able to see the light and the primroses and hear the birds shouting, I'd still have known. Spring! What a good word for it!   Today I sprang out of bed at 6am and,  eschewing the usual slorming about in my pjs until after the post’s arrived,  sprang through my ablutions and into my clothes. Primped, prepped and ready.  ‘What’s got into you?’ asked my partner. ‘Are you going somewhere?’  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘It’s just that I want to be ready. I don’t know what for, I just do.’    Did he know something we don't know?  Deep in the limbic Neanderthal recesses of my brain, something stirred, a bright blood compulsion to clean out my nest, and my thoughts and my life, to make all clean, clear and fresh again.        Do you suffer from SAD? Seasonal Affective Disorder. Disorder? Really? But, isn't this alteration from low to high spirits, as the year moves from wint...