When you visit a foreign city you are in it, but not of it, separated by a glass wall. Once, while a student, I was getting dressed in my ground-floor room when a family of Italians crossed the grass to watch, as if I were laid on for their amusement and instruction.

They're called Virgin Trains because they don't go all the way.

I'm often amazed at the way politicians, who spend hours poring over opinion poll results in a desperate attempt to discover what the public thinks, are certain they know precisely what God's views are on everything.

Remember how Margaret Thatcher came to believe that abroad was more important than at home? Didn't do her much good.

The nanny seemed to be extinct until 1975, when, like the coelacanth, she suddenly and unexpectedly reappeared in the shape of Margaret Thatcher.

I know of no wars started by anyone to impose lack of religion on someone else.

Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?