We were all born with wings. In times of doubt: spread them.

Some of you...have never read a Patrick O'Brian novel. I beseech you to start now. Start with Master and Commander, which should be available in paperback from your nearest bookseller. And if he-or she-does not have a copy, then beat the wretched fellow.

A decade or so ago, all over the world, cinemas underwent one of those prince-into-frog mutations, and became, instead popcorn-restaurants, which offered the option of visual diversions for diners.

The International Brigade was not formed to protect freedom and democracy. It was founded as a tool of of the Comintern, to promote the interests of the Soviet Union - and thereby of Joseph Stalin, the butcher of millions. It made political sense for the International Brigade to recruit non-communists - useful fools was what Lenin had called such people in an earlier manipulation of gullible decency - but of course most were then vetted by the NKVD, the Soviet Union's secret police.

The same tantalizing guile and sublime skill....[The series is] reinforced in its claim to be one of the major literary works of this century....Only two other writers that this reviewer can think of have each created an entire, discrete and compelling world, a totally believable entity which one might wish to inhabit, and they are Joyce and Proust. It is not pretentious to place Patrick O'Brian in the first canon of literature.

Sure, there's no 'i' in team, but there is an 'm' and an 'e'.

It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance.