Each time you admire the façade of the New York Public Library, you are paying homage to Western civilization.

You can't grow up without taking a few knocks on the way. All parents know that, but children when they're growing up, they take some knocks, and nasty knocks sometimes if they've been too protected.

The idea that the West was economically successful because of slavery, it's just nonsense.

Slavery had very little to do with the economic success of the West. Just look at the facts and figures and how much slavery actually contributed to development.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: this triptych succinctly defines the attractiveness and superiority of Western civilization.

I always have tendency to form very strong local attachments, so I was very keen to find out about the school I was going to, its history, and the countryside. I was acquiring a kind of English character if you like, Englishness about things and my attitudes.

As Luxenberg's work has only recently been published we must await its scholarly assessment before we can pass any judgements. But if his analysis is correct then suicide bombers, or rather prospective martyrs, would do well to abandon their culture of death, and instead concentrate on getting laid 72 times in this world, unless of course they would really prefer chilled or white raisins, according to their taste, in the next.