Charlie Hebdo: Satire was the father of true political freedom, born in the 18th century; the scourge of bigots and tyrants. Sing its praises.

DIY, cricket, automobile repair. I could study it for a lifetime and not produce a word on the carburettor.

We seem wired to grieve with greenery. Allowing the dead to dissolve into the earth, to become part of the cycle of the seasons, has, for millennia, held the promise of cheating mortality.

There are some places where history just grabs you by the jugular. This is one of them.

I felt New York was a big, more stylish, more metropolitan Golders Green. I was thrilled.

I first read War And Peace about 100 years after Tolstoy wrote it.

In the end, history, especially British history with its succession of thrilling illuminations, should be, as all her most accomplished narrators have promised, not just instruction but pleasure.