In my experience, those who make the biggest fuss about not spending much at Christmas are generally the ones who buy what they want and eat where they want 12 months a year.

If we find it hard to believe that winning millions might not be so lucky after all, we just don't have a good enough imagination. If I fantasise about winning the lottery, it doesn't take long before all sorts of worrisome potential consequences occur to me.

I think that internet technologies are making everything so transparent. The arms race of deception and spin against the public trying to keep up with it - I think the forces of spin have to lose. In the corporate world people are finding this. Corporate social responsibility has been on the agenda for a very long time - and a lot of people say it's a kind of green-wash or white-wash - but because there's nowhere to hide anymore, people are coming around to the realization that the only way to be seen to be good is to be good. You can't fake it.

It is true that legality is not morality, and sticking to the law is necessary for good citizenship, but it is not sufficient.

You don't choose what you believe moment to moment, but choices you have made do shape what you come to believe.

Yesterday's news feeds our fear that our neighbours are more likely than not to be bad eggs: benefit fraudsters, bogus asylum seekers, paedophiles or jihadist terrorists.

Seek first what is true and of value, and then whatever happiness follows will be of the appropriate quantity and, more importantly, quality.