In a Mail Online article on 7th June, Philip Hoare, author of the critically acclaimed book Leviathan, or The Whale wrote of his encounter with a sperm whale in the Azores. "I've never been so terrified. I could even feel the click of the whale's sonar as it scanned me, physically reading me. Then it came close enough to touch, and turned its eye to look at me. In that gaze, I saw sentience. And all I could think was of one word: sorry."

Why was Hoare's impulse in coming eye to eye with this fellow thinker, dreamer and survivor to say sorry? The answer is obvious really.