Why can't we have those curves and arches that express feeling in design? What is wrong with them? Why has everything got to be vertical, straight, unbending, only at right angles - and functional?

If your children want to alter society, listen to their reasons and the idealism behind them. Don't crush them with some clever remark straight away.

We don't, in a sensible world, want to hand on an increasingly dysfunctional world to our grandchildren.

Any difficulties which the world faces today will be as nothing compared to the full effects which global warming will have on the world-wide economy.

Personally, I have been very impressed by the slow food movement. It is about celebrating the culture of food, of sharing the extraordinary knowledge, developed over millennia, of the traditions involved with quality food production, of the sheer joy and pleasure of consuming food together. Especially within the context of family life, this has to be one of the highest forms of cultural activity.

The whole imposing edifice of modern medicine is like the celebrated tower of Pisa - slightly off balance.

I think we'd be very foolish to expect that we can just import everything from somewhere else and imagine that that's going to last for ever and ever and ever