Advisers who think that they are very clever while all around them are a bit thick, and that all the problems of the world would be solved if the thick listened to the clever, are liable to be disappointed.

Many of the greatest composers and musicians do their best work in extreme confinement but we are seeing it in other fields - uses of technology to link people together in networks to solve problems and almost certainly we'll get better ideas than we would from them just doing it on their own.

With a fractured sense of self, we come to depend on what people feed back to us - often mediated through social networks - not what we are. We have complex identities but may become less able to act as a subject - confident in what we really are.

Britain is rich in radicalism, and anyone who says that our society has drifted into fatalism and apathy should get out more.

Systems governed by only one set of rules are more vulnerable than those with variety.

The longer you commute the less happy you're likely to be.

A lot of people in government don't really read books at all.