I wondered idly what the builders of Stonehenge would have created if they’d had bulldozers and big trucks for moving materials and computers to help… - Bill Bryson

It would be lovely to think I had become a genius," he smiles, "but the fact is that I've forgotten most of it. Occasionally I can be watching University Challenge and a stray fact emerges from the recesses of my subconscious that I didn't know I knew, but for the most part I'm as vague on the details as I ever was.

One of my duties, this week, is to open the new Ustinov college," he confesses, "and while I'm delighted that Durham should honour its former chancellor this way — and I sincerely hope it continues this tradition for me — I can't help feeling that an American university would only have done so had the chancellor also handed over a substantial amount of dosh.

Let’s not lose our perspective here. The Smokies achieved their natural splendor without the guidance of a national park service and don’t actually need it now.