At work people are expected to be at the beck and call of employers all the time. You have blackberries and other things, and they just don't leave you alone. People have less time just to drop into an art gallery.

It would be unforgivable to use the role I have, such as it is, to inflict my incoherent, half-baked view of the world on people. That would be illegitimate and unacceptable and I should be fired.

It's not just politicians. Any spokesman for a vested interest is well schooled in how to say what it is they wish to say, which may bear no relation at all to what you've asked them.

I have neither the learning nor the experience to know whether the doomsayers are right about the human causes of climate change. But I am willing to acknowledge that people who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that it is the consequence of our own behaviour. I assume that this is why the BBC's coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago.

The idea of a tax on the ownership of a television belongs in the 1950s. Why not tax people for owning a washing machine to fund the manufacture of Persil?

Sharing holiday snaps on social media is an act of arrogant vanity.

The early bird may get the worm, but its the second mouse that gets the cheese.