Rod Fleming, Rod Fleming's World, Page 2

18/06/2026

Croutons and Cheese! French Onion Soup 2

Originally posted 2021-01-08 10:47:24.

Croutons and Cheese: French Onion Soup 2 is the second in Rod Fleming’s hilarious series of memoirs about his life in France. Filled with anecdotes about aviating cats, the Bull in the Back Passage, what to do about ex-pats, transporting the cheese to Scotland, it’s a laugh a minute.

With the lovable and roguish characters you first met in French Onion Soup!, this book will keep you entertained all right, so much you’ll come back for a second read!

Available now in paperback: ISBN: 978-0-9572612-4-2

Irrational Unknown: Fear of Madness

Originally posted 2016-10-25 13:17:01.

When I was a child, madness was the most terrifying affliction I could imagine. The idea that I might not be able to control my own life was bad enough. But to think that I might be controlling it, yet in ways that my conscious mind would never allow, was enough to give me nightmares. The irrational unknown inside me was terrifying.

The notion that I might be someone other than the sane person I thought I saw, when I looked into the mirror, was simply horrific. The idea of losing rationality and, with it, my central core of me, that hub around which my life revolves, has always been more frightening than anything else I can think of.

This sense of horror is not unique to me.

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10/06/2025

Selection and Beauty: sexual selection shaped us

Originally posted 2020-10-23 17:24:08.

There are two forms of Selection involved in Evolution. Both were described by Darwin.¹ One is Natural Selection, which is the cumulative effect of the environment on organisms, and the other is Sexual Selection, which is how individual organisms choose their partners. Key to Sexual Selection is attraction: we select partners we find attractive. In humans, this is important, because we have overcome most of the environmental factors that impinge upon us.

While the effects of Sexual Selection are best known in domestic animals, where humans do the selecting, we have shaped ourselves through it, by choosing our sexual partners and at the same time, by making ourselves appealing to our targets.²

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