in a village you can't sack or fight with someone, as you'll find yourself stuck beside them in the hairdresser's next morning.

If you feel compelled to give a New Year's Eve party, don't invite people to arrive too early or they'll go off the boil before midnight.

hurting other people is not excusable because you've been hurt yourself.

The memo's chief function ... is as a track-coverer, so that you can turn on someone six months later and snarl: 'Well, you should have known about it, I sent you a memo.

Go to lots of interviews, at least one a month even when you don't need a job, to keep in training for when you do.

I can assure you that the class system is alive and well and living in people's minds in England.

The letter of application ... should be a masterpiece of fiction, papering over all the cracks. Get it properly typed on decent writing paper. Never let it run over the page, people get bored with reading.