I’ve been busy, which explains that lack of posts recently, but there are a number of items worth mentioning

The first is being broadcast as I write on BBC Radio 4. It's a documentary originally broadcast last May about a farmer who refused to move out of his home when the M62 motorway was built in West Yorkshire in the 1960s. Three lanes of traffic now go speeding past both sides of Ken Wild's house 24 hours a day.

At one point someone says “the purpose of life is death”, and the rest of the half-hour programme makes for equally compelling radio. You should be able to listen to it on the BBC’s Listen Again page, or read about it as Life in the fast lane.