Mikey Brett, Craig, Leo, Zem Joaquin and Basil and me.

Basil entered the city on 11 June 1011, reestablishing Byzantine authority.

Basil died in 1016, after years of peace in southern Italy.

Basil Jones But actually we're going to start this evolution with a hyena.

AK So in 1981, I persuaded Basil and some friends of mine to form a puppet company.

The paper's color corresponds to what plant seeds it contains for example, red is tomato and green is basil.

Apex By 1025, the date of Basil II's death, the Byzantine Empire stretched from Armenia in the east to Calabria in Southern Italy in the west.

In short, when we're thinking like academics, we regard people as elaborate and complicated machines, like computers or cars, but when we revert to being human we behave more like Basil Fawlty, who, we remember, thrashed his car to teach it a lesson when it wouldn't start on gourmet night.

Personification and the imputing of intentional purpose is such a brilliantly successful way to model humans, it's hardly surprising the same modeling software often seizes control when we're trying to think about entities for which it's not appropriate, like Basil Fawlty with his car or like millions of deluded people with the universe as a whole.

Puppets always have to try to be alive, says Adrian Kohler of the Handspring Puppet Company, a gloriously ambitious troupe of human and wooden actors. Beginning with the tale of a hyena's subtle paw, puppeteers Kohler and Basil Jones build to the story of their latest astonishment the wonderfully life like Joey, the War Horse, who trots convincingly onto the TED stage.