Penalties are not football. They are not even as television people keep telling us, great drama. They are cheap melodrama.

Never mind, love, it's not the end of the world.

Acquiring the trick of listening to birds will teach you how better to enjoy life and how better to endure it

The comfort zone is always the most desirable place to be. But in settling for comfort, there is a price to pay and it comes in the death of ambition, of hope, of youth and the death of self.

Sven must have neglected to pay tribute to one of those strict Nordic gods. But instead of cursing Eriksson himself, Thor has done a still crueller thing and cursed the England strikers. I can only assume that Eriksson was never informed of this curse, otherwise he might have more than a 17-year-old up his sleeve.

There was an advert I rather liked. Devastated woman: "I've just seen the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!" Husband: "Never mind, love, it's not the end of the world."

We can only truly be civilised people when we have regular and meaningful contact with the wild world