Oscar Wilde quite rightly said, 'All art is useless'. And that may sound as if that means it's something not worth supporting. But if you actually think about it, the things that matter in life are useless. Love is useless. Wine is useless. Art is the love and wine of life. It is the extra, without which life is not worth living.

It is the useless things that make life worth living and that make life dangerous too: wine, love, art, beauty. Without them life is safe, but not worth bothering with.

Atheism is not just about not believing there is a God, but on the assumption that there is one, what kind of God is he?

Money and fame are trashy and don't guarantee happiness, but we all refuse really to know it.

I now accept that it is looking increasingly likely that Tiger Woods is, in fact, straight.

It only takes a room of Americans for the English and Australians to realise how much we have in common.

Love in all eight tones and all five semitones of the word's full octave.