“My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid, to glut my appetite”

It is a privilege to witness the transformation that happens when someone begins to uncover their own abilities—and you can often learn something yourself, too

Hermes, Trojan, Rubicon—for the Classically-minded, brand names can be a major source of amusement

Outside the range of our senses, the animals around us chirrup, shimmer and moan

In sport the only thing that works is constant, relentless, completely excessive effort and concentration. And sometimes that doesn’t work either

Work and family are the dominant, often warring, features of many lives, and there’s an increasing overlap even for those of us who aren’t related to our colleagues

Formerly, only film stars knew what it was like to be on a billboard looking marvellous while feeling broken inside. Now that experience is available to anyone with social media

Watching sport is like eating fibre—it does no harm and it cleans out the system

The original myth is no less weird and insane than the UK’s current political situation—though a touch more sexually lurid

Extracts from memoirs and diaries compiled by Ian Irvine