How do you make any sense of history, art or literature without knowing the stories and iconography of your own culture and all the world's main religions?

My mother begged doctors to end her life. She was beyond the physical ability to swallow enough of the weak morphine pills she had around her. When she knew she was dying I promised to make sure she could go at a time of her choosing, but it was impossible. I couldn't help.

Inequality makes everyone unhappy, the poor most of all, and that is well within the remit of the state. More money gives less extra happiness the richer we get, yet we are addicted to earning and spending more every year.

So what really works? Treatments in jail do some good, but it's mostly too late: finding a family and a job or just growing older make most prisoners eventually give up crime.

Working lives are for the state to influence. Unemployment makes people unhappy. So does instability.

But the single overwhelming reason why jails are bursting is longer sentences given for more crimes.

How do you make any sense of history, art or literature without knowing the stories and iconography of your own culture and all the world's main religions?