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Jason Goodwin: 'There's a hum about the whole house that reminds me of a great ship charting its course through the high seas'
The gardener’s lot is a happy one, says Jason Goodwin, even though you might end up with an inch of wood in your hand.
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Jason Goodwin: 'A Journal of the Plague Year is not a cheerful read, but it’s a wonderful book for the times'
Jason Goodwin remarks on the cancelled conferences of late, thinking back to how writers of earlier times dealt with the publication of serious issues.
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Jason Goodwin: 'He had power of a prophet who knows he is right, because there is only one way of living sustainably'
Our spectator columnist admires H. J. Massingham, the journalist who became a sustainable visionary before his time.
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Jason Goodwin: 'Urine is sterile – I recommend the bucket-by-the-back-door method, myself'
A single hen can produce about 10lb of manure a month and is the perfect compost accelerator – although Jason Goodwin is looking a little closer to home to produce his compost this year.
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Jason Goodwin: 'My own predictions would be for the return of fountain pens and safety razors'
Jason Goodwin suspects that shag carpets may not be making a comeback, but praises the few things that Brexit could bring to our doorsteps – especially those which significantly lessen our environmental impact.
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Jason Goodwin: 'I pedalled for dear life with the devil at my back'
A nighttime excursion leaves our columnist with one clear thought: do less of this sort of thing.
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Jason Goodwin: 'It was only later, in the kitchen, that he was told that Gludenfrieda’s actual name was Rachel'
Jason Goodwin examines the truth behind diet fads in an attempt to discover who is actually making waves in saving the planet.
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In Focus: The scandalous child of Empire, the murderous photographer and the woman who fatally brought them together
Eadweard Muybridge was not only the pioneering photographer of motion, but also a murderer. Jason Goodwin relishes this tale of the dashing rogue and adventurer who became his victim.
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Jason Goodwin: 'In the rain it looks like a teahouse in a run-down corner of Uzbekistan'
Jason Goodwin explains the origins of his garden glass house; a twinkling, relaxing spot in summer, but come winter, a place where no one dare go but the mice.
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Jason Goodwin: 'A rising wall of grey water threatened to dash me onto the stones like a rag doll'
Our spectator columnist battles the waves on New Year's Day,
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Jason Goodwin: The joy of a catalogue from the 'pornographers of herbage, greenery and legumes'
Our spectator columnist extols the wonders of the January gardening catalogues, relishing the chance to plan his fantasy garden from the comfort of his bed.
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Jason Goodwin: The £9 million-per-pylon removal programme has begun, and it's already revealed bizarre secrets
Our columnist writes about the unsuspected secrets revealed by a project to rid our prettiest skylines of electricity pylons.
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Jason Goodwin: The Amazon delivery man who went up a driveway and came down a hill
Our columnist Jason Goodwin on the ups and downs of that most first world of problems: figuring out how to make sure you get your packages delivered.
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Jason Goodwin: 'The envoys were plainly wrong, otherwise no one could have built the shopping centre at Elephant and Castle'
Our spectator columnist dwells on where wise men find beauty, from the Hagia Sophia to the the upper storey of Superdrug in Bridport.
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Jason Goodwin: Naughty mandarins, the GIs who changed Chinese cooking and an app which almost beats reading
Our columnist picks not just his books of the year, but also his favourite app and YouTube video.
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Jason Goodwin: ‘Sow is one of the mildest sweetest pigs ever. Boar is bigger, a gentleman and a scholar.'
Jason Goodwin muses over whether it's his moral duty to begin to keep pigs again, given the pork shortage soon to shake the globe.
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Jason Goodwin: 'We have dropped the UFOs and the phantom social workers, just as we once dropped the fairies'
Our spectator columnist comments on the decline of UFO sightings.
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Jason Goodwin: The second, little-known verse of our National Anthem
Our spectator columnist comments on this past Remembrance Sunday.
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Jason Goodwin: 'They swerved, reversed direction and became a solid wall that struck Aphra at 30 miles an hour'
Our spectator columnist discusses the wonderful (and frightening) moments of owning a miniature poodle.
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Jason Goodwin: 'Politicians need historians as much as kings need minstrels'
Jason Goodwin undertakes a family cycle ride along the Danube.
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Jason Goodwin: 'In those days, the French government seemed to use sugar wrappers to effect social change'
Jason Goodwin speaks of collections – from stamps and bus tickets to sugar packets and mushrooms.
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Jason Goodwin: 'Insofar as anything made of stainless steel can be considered a member of the family, I loved that pan like a brother'
Our spectator columnist Jason Goodwin dons his cape and ventures off to save the planet, one lifetime guarantee frying pan at a time.
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Jason Goodwin: 'In Yorkshire he spat on them, down south he peed, either way, they aren’t good eating'
Jason Goodwin hunts ley lines, from St Michael Line (which stretches from St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall to Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk) to the Mary Line as he ponders the religious end of the blackberry season.
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Jason Goodwin: 'Coleridge never stopped talking... Wordsworth was more private, more reflective, and finally, more successful'
Jason Goodwin remarks on how tracking one's pet past the boundaries of one's home is comparable to Coleridge's 'This Lime-tree Bower My Prison'.
