Leppo had been a rudeboy since his teens, earning his first three-month jail rap for vagrancy in 1971.

The [Isaac] Newton that emerges from the [unpublished] manuscripts is far from the popular image of a rational practitioner of cold and pure reason. The architect of modern science was himself not very modern. He was obsessed with alchemy.

Oxygen is an inspirable gas.

Music brought up our rear: the chanting of the old doctor, the clap and echoing after-clap of his rhythm sticks as he shuffled out of his sorry camp.