STEPHEN HAWKING’S 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, surprised everybody by becoming a bestseller.

A FEW decades ago, whale sightings were rare events.

SO, at long last, the rogue Gulf of Mexico oil-well has been capped.

SOUTH AFRICA’S beautiful Garden Route is much travelled by tourists.

IT’S believed the lion that roars at the start of Metro Goldwyn Meyer films was born in Dublin Zoo.

RODENT lovers are over the moon – beavers are breeding again in Scotland.

IN An Enemy of the People, a village doctor discovers that the waters of the health spa are contaminated.

THE headline in the Dublin People declared “Locals Battle A Plague Of Rats”.

CUCKOOS, the first of the migrant birds to leave our shores in the Autumn, are packing their bags.

I WROTE last week about the battle of the sexes among phalaropes, little wading birds which used to breed in Ireland.