A diner having a row with a waiter in a swanky restaurant chills the blood in a way that a quarrel over a pizza order elsewhere would never do. Compassion is rarely the custom of the privileged.

I would like a bit of me - that’s how I put my back out!

I control the conditions so my testers become my testees.

...there is a fine line between wishing to produce child-like astonishment and treating people like infants.

Each of us is leading a difficult life, and when we meet people we are seeing only a tiny part of the thinnest veneer of their complex, troubled existences. To practise anything other than kindness towards them, to treat them in any way save generously, is to quietly deny their humanity.

To impress people as much as we would wish, we would first need to successfully adopt each of their value systems

Seems the seance has become the most complained-about show. It received 700 complaints. I might add that the prospect of me blowing my head off on live TV last year attracted only twenty. Fair enough, I suppose.