There are those who love travelling, and those who don’t. I love riding motorcycles. I love the feeling of controlling a bike as it moves through space, and the feeling of being a part of the scenery I am riding through.

This is the polar opposite of how the vast majority of drivers experience car travel. For them, the objective is to get from A to B as quickly as possible and without experiencing anything of the intervening space. What most car drivers really want is the transporter technology from Star Trek: step in, and reappear instantaneously at your destination.

One of the worst aspects of modern life is the unceasing pressure to review things after purchase. Approximately 30 seconds after buying something substantial, you are bombarded with requests to review it. That's fine for a raspberry and sour cream waffle, but reviewing major hardware after 20 minutes of ownership seems a little premature.

The joy of riding a motorcycle is to take the road less travelled, to go off the beaten path. It is about avoiding the infrastructure put in by traffic engineers with the sole aim of transporting people from A to B with as little contact as possible with the intervening space.

What are we to make of the 2023 UK local elections? The results so far point to a crushing defeat for the Conservative Party, while Labour is on course for a solid, if not exactly stunning performance, and the Liberal Democrats are crushing the Tories in their heartlands.

There are many terrible things about Christmas, but the worst is the way it steamrollers the rest of the winter into submission. It is a juggernaut from which there is no escape, with iron rules of conduct surrounding it. Truly the Saddam Hussein of holidays.

He spotted the eagle not long after sun had chased the slate grey of twilight from the dawn sky. A brown speck soaring high, the familiar upturned bow of her wings not yet visible. He was glad the sun would soon drive the bitter chill of the mountain night from his bones. This was the best part of the day. Well, the least bad part of the day and night. The cold numbed the sores where his shackled wrists and ankles bound him to the rock. After his liver had regrown during the night, the wound below his sternum had closed and was healing.