I intend, before the endgame looms, to die sitting in a chair in my own garden with a glass of brandy in my hand and Thomas Tallis on the iPod. Oh, and since this is England, I had better add, "If wet, in the library." Who could say that this is bad?

One day all of us will die but - and this is the important thing - we are not dead yet.

They say that the eyes of some paintings can follow you around the room, a fact that I doubt, but I am wondering whether some music can follow you for ever.

So let's not get frightened when the children read fantasy. It's the compost for a healthy mind. It stimulate s the inquisitive nodes, and there is some evidence that a rich internal fantasy life is as good and necessary for a child as healthy soil is for a plant, for much the same reasons.

Knowing how bad you could be is a great encouragement to being good.

Well, yes, but it's not about the football." "You're saying that football is not about football?" "It's the sharing," she said. "It's being part of the crowd. It's chanting together. It's all of it. the whole thing.

Ah," said Mr Pin. "Right. I remember. You are concerned citizens." He knew about concerned citizens. Wherever they were, they all spoke the same private language, where 'traditional values' meant 'hang someone'.