Marx was wrong. Religion is not the opiate of the people. Opium suggests something soporific, numbing, dulling. Too often religion has been an aphrodisiac for horror, a Benzedrine for bestiality. At its best it has lifted spirits and raised spires. At its worst it has turned entire civilizations into cemeteries.

Sport provides the spectacle, the metaphor, the religious ritual, the putty to fill the cracks in countless lives.

To many people holidays are not voyages of discovery, but a ritual of reassurance.

The Internet provides a delivery system for pathological states of mind.

The most intense hatreds are not between political parties but within them.

Today, words. Tomorrow, sticks and stones. And the day after that?

When I was five, a tree was my best friend. An old peppercorn on Grandpa's little farm. I'd haul myself into its calloused arms and hide from the world in its foliage. Apart from the pleasure of looking down on unsuspecting adults, I could be Robin Hood in a one-tree Sherwood Forest or Johnny Weissmuller in his jungle. I fell out of my friend once while Tarzan-ing. Gashed a large chunk from a leg. Almost 70 years later, there's still a scar.