Did you know, ji,’ Zulu offered, ‘that the map of Tolkien’s Middle earth fits quite well over central England and Wales? Maybe all fairylands are rig… - Salman Rushdie

This is who we are as a species: We contain within ourselves both the possibility of murdering an old stranger for almost no reason — the capacity in Shakespeare’s Iago which Coleridge called “motiveless Malignity” — and we also contain the antidote to that disease — courage, selflessness, the willingness to risk oneself to help that old stranger lying on the ground.

After a winter's gestation in its eggshell of ice, the valley had beaked its way out into the open, moist and yellow.

One of the problems with defending free speech is you often have to defend people that you find to be outrageous and unpleasant and disgusting.