The Big Read: Kicking the bucket list

It is one of the great mysteries of life that it was the Egyptians who invented a sun god, rather than the English. The only divine thing the Egyptian sun has going for it is omnipresence. It's always just there, like air. When they came up with Ra, it must have been at the end of a long brainstorm - everyone was bushed after inventing jackal-headed men and lion-headed women and talking crocodiles, but there was still one more slot to be filled before they could all go home and relax in front ...