If you haven't read it, I would highly recommend reading the superb Better Angels of Our Nature by the Canadian cognitive scientist Steven Pinker...

For Pete's sake; you must have thought; or perhaps worse.

WITH kids of nine and ten, Hallowe'en has become an annual sugar-festival which we're compelled to observe.

IT'S not often that life presents you with that metaphorical bowl of cherries, but the other day I was asked to chair a panel discussion on 'Arts, Culture and Creativity'.

IF you pass Compton Dundon's splendidly refurbished Castlebrook Inn and look west, you can't miss the mound of Dundon Beacon bulging up from the earth.

LIKE many people, I've done one or two interesting things for charity in the past.

LONG ago, in the foggy depths of Greek mythology, Sisyphus tried to deceive Zeus, king of the gods on Mount Olympus.

The magnificently named King Camp Gillette not only invented the safety razor, but also attracted one or two myths.

I once complimented one of the impressive House of Commons doorkeepers on the remarkable way that the Chamber is run. "Well," he said, "we've had 750 years to practise getting it right."

I WONDER what happened to the BBC newsreader Martyn Lewis.