Blackpool's illuminations are nothing if not splendid, and they are not splendid. - Bill Bryson

One consequential change is that people used to get most of their calories at breakfast and midday, with only the evening top-up at suppertime. Now those intakes are almost exactly reversed. Most of us consume the bulk — a sadly appropriate word here — of our calories in the evening and take them to bed with us, a practice that doesn't do any good at all.

Almost three-quarters of the forty million antibiotic prescriptions written each year in the United States are for conditions that cannot be cured with antibiotics.

Three things alone are certain when you venture into a loft: that you will crack your head on a beam at least twice, that you will get cobwebs draped over your face, and that you will not find what you went looking for.