You can inherit male-pattern baldness from your mother's father, but not a tendency to fight in the First World War.

Why don't people just accept that life is sad and cheer up? After all, it's not going to last for ever.

The need to compile lists is a personality disorder, as is the need to assert the superiority of some things over other things.

All socialists have bad backs because we slouch - except when we're watching the news when we sit on the edge of our seats, shout, and wave our arms. Generally we sit hunched, arms crossed in a judgemental way, the whole of our bodies pulled into a frown.

Marriage is like the witness protection programme: you get all new clothes, you live in the suburbs, and you're not allowed to see your friends anymore.

It seems a shallow observation, but... the Tory Conference are not an attractive lot, are they? I mean, if all those people were born in the same village, you'd blame pollution, wouldn't you?

Northern Ireland is part of Ireland, not Britain, as can clearly be seen from aerial photographs.