It was during this period that I stopped off in London and found a book called "A Brief History of Everything" by Ken Wilber.  Although strangely attracted to the book and to the cover, initially I couldn't bring myself to buy a book with such an arrogant title.  At that stage I hadn't discovered many Americans with a sense of irony and took the title to be literal.  (I have sinced discovered that Ken has a great sense of humour and most of our early communications were about "Absolutely Fabulous" and Eddie Izzard.)  The title is meant to be ironic but it is also strangely accurate.