Coffee in Brazil is always made fresh and, except at breakfast time, drunk jet black from demitasses first filled almost to the brim with the characteristic moist, soft coffee sugar of the country, which melts five times as fast as our hard granulated. For breakfast larger cups are used, and they're more than half filled with cream. This cafe con leite doesn't re-quire so much sugar as cafe preto-black coffee.

There is a spiritual side to our connection with the planet. And in this material world, that's anathema. It is somewhat worrying. What I say.. it makes life. It gives us fulfilment. It makes us whole human beings. And without it, we make mistakes. And, boy, are the leaders of the world making mistakes at the moment.

Australia must prioritise education spending. It is not a question of whether or not we have the money, it is a question of how we choose to spend it.

We must have an expansionary vision, one that captures the imagination and diversity of the whole community, one which benefits a nation which has moved beyond the basics of literacy and numeracy and which wants to develop a learning culture.

Every time I get a bit worried about having made some second rate choices in life I go back and read about the Suffragettes or William Wilberforce, people who were "wrong" in their own time and think, ah well.

Renewable energy is proven technology, the price is dropping, the rest of the world is going that way, that's where our investment should be going as well.

I've always thought, and it gets tested at times, that I have a great faith in the fundamental goodness of human beings.