The shark that bit me on the hand I put in his mouth

Remember the line abut how you didn't punch that guy, you just held out your hand and he ran his face into it? Well:

The man was surfing about 150 to 300ft offshore at 7.30am on Friday when he was approached by a 5 ft blue shark. Apparently, he felt something next to his leg, thought it was seaweed and tried to brush it off… then he realised it wasn’t seaweed. He tried to punch it to get it away from where he was but as he went to punch it, his right hand went into its mouth. After a brief struggle, the shark let go...

Swimming with shadows

One of my heroes is Dave Martin, the 66-year-old triathlete who was killed by a great white shark off the coast of San Diego last year. It's not so much the circumstances of his death. It's that he raised children so fearless they went surfing in the same waters the very next day.

I have had to think a lot about bravery recently. About whether it is braver to accept death or to fight it. About growing up deeply different. About ambiguous ends rendered in sharp focus. I haven't arrived anywhere especially profound. I just imagine Kevin Martin paddling out into the Pacific, unable to ignore the swimming shadows below, but completely able to accept them.