I am seriously down-sizing my library. I managed to clear about 90% of the books I took to the 2025 AES Annual Exhibition. Here are a few left-overs that were not snapped up. Please email me at [email protected] and I … Continue reading →

I’ve got the following stereomicroscopes for sale. All pretty well used over the years, but all in useful workable condition. I mainly had them for workshops and group activities, but they are now all surplus to requirements. All would suit … Continue reading →

I am seriously down-sizing my library. I shall be taking a stand at this year’s Amateur Entomologists’ Society Annual Exhibition at Kempton Park, Saturday 27 September 2025, where I will be selling off a large number of titles at real … Continue reading →

Okay, perhaps that’s a contentious title; maybe it should be “Down with these butterflies“. What butterflies? Well, the Black-veined Whites at Hutchinson’s Bank for a start. The appearance of this long extinct butterfly made the national press after they were … Continue reading →

This is the MI6 building at Albert Embankment, Vauxhall. When I worked for a medical publisher in nearby Bondway during the mid-1980s there was a bus-stop here from which I caught the number 36 routemaster back home to Peckham each … Continue reading →

I’ve always been drawn to the more obscure insects — small, insignificant specks that can only be appreciated down the microscope. Part of this is, I admit, my elitist snobbery, but it’s also a response to the easily available images … Continue reading →

There is no mistaking the inky blue-black domed form of Timarcha tenebricosa — the bloody nose beetle. I let out a little squeal of joy when the 17-year-old bent down and scooped this up from the grass at the edge … Continue reading →

In 1962 the world’s postal services (not the UK’s Royal Mail though!) supported the United Nations ‘World United Against Malaria‘ campaign — a concerted effort to focus attention and funds onto a disease killing half a million people a year … Continue reading →

It’s become a bit of a clichéed joke in my family that whenever we’re out and about I can point casually out of the car window and claim “I’ve done a survey there, you know”. Part of the reason for … Continue reading →

On a bright and sunny 9 June 2004, I left London down the A2, exited through Strood, across the Rochester Bridge, and turned sharp left into the bluntly named Gas House Road. Parking near the gas storage holders, I emerged from the car … Continue reading →

I’m not sure what sort of emergency will see me needing 50 Mexican pesos in a hurry. Nevertheless, this is the latest bit of framed entomological ephemera to grace the wall of my office. The entomological bit is small, but … Continue reading →

When my family moved from urban terraced Croydon to a sunny detached house in Newhaven, in Sussex, in 1965, the great vistas of the South Downs, Sussex Weald and English Channel were laid out before us, and we leapt at … Continue reading →

I like old churches, I like them very much indeed. Which is something of a paradox for someone who is very strongly atheist. I think it’s because I find a familiarity in them which, despite my views on organized religion, … Continue reading →