It's very hard to imagine the phrase "consumer society" used so cheerfully, and interpreted so enthusiastically, in England.

It may be a cliché, but it's true - the build-up to Christmas is so much more pleasurable than the actual day itself.

My favourite spectator sport is watching people who should know better searching for something, and often claiming to find it, where it never could be. Women claiming to find feminism in Islam is a good one.

Being a child is horrible. It is slightly better than being a tree or a piece of heavy machinery but not half as good as being a domestic cat.

And call me a pig, but isn't it brilliantly refreshing how early the Dutch eat dinner? When they're still laying out the cutlery in achingly hip Barcelona, they're hanging the Closed sign on the restaurant doors of old Amsterdam.

A good part - and definitely the most fun part - of being a feminist is about frightening men.

Being a monarchist, and fawning over those 'above' you, you must naturally despise those 'below' or on the same socioeconomic level as yourself, because that is how hierarchy worship works.