Nelson Mandela once said "I can't help it if the ladies take note of me; I'm not going to protest."

One of the things that I noticed with my own eyes was Nelson Mandela ability to engage with kings and queens and heads of state on the one hand, and his ability to engage with ordinary people, equally comfortably.

Whenever anybody called Nelson Mandela a saint, he would say: "If by saint you mean a sinner who is trying to be better, then I'm a saint."

I was 15 years old when I first heard the name Mandela, or Madiba, as he is fondly known in Africa. In apartheid South Africa he was public enemy number one. Shrouded in secrecy, myth and rumour, the media called him 'The Black Pimpernel'.

Sandy was a climate change warning. Obama must now take the stage and fulfil the promise of hope the world needs.

I've come across a lot of people in my life who talk about poverty and talk about the poor, but you rarely have a sense that it matters to them to the point at which they will be willing to sacrifice something.

The city of Copenhagen is a climate crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport in shame. World leaders had a once in a generation chance to change the world for good, to avert catastrophic climate change. In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through.