Something has gone badly wrong with our culture. We've created a culture where really large numbers of the people around us can't bear to be present in their daily lives. They need to medicate themselves to get through their day.

There is an emerging scientific consensus that global warming is making hurricanes more intense and more destructive. It turns out that Katrina fits into a pattern that scientists and greens have been trying to warn us about for a long time.

Your working assumption, when you meet a homophobe, should be that they are gay.

You will get something wrong today, and tomorrow, and every day of your life. So will I, and everybody you know. You don’t have a choice about being wrong sometimes: mistakes will be your life-long companion. But you do have a choice about whether to approach your error in terror so you suppress, ignore and repeat it — or to make it your honest, open ally in trying to get to the truth.

The truth emerging from this scattered picture of nuclear proliferation is simple: there is a stronger chance of a nuclear bomb being used now than at almost any point in the Cold War.

I got my dad a great father's Day present. He called to say: 'Ach. Zis present is so good I now think it vas almost vorth having children.

For all the chatter that Britain has moved beyond class, recent studies have found that it determines the life chances of British people more today than at any point since the Second World War... A child born into a rich family in Britain will almost certainly live and die rich, while a child born into a poor family will almost certainly live and die poor.