The world's richest half billion people - that's about seven per cent of the global population - are responsible for fifty per cent of the world's emissions.

Self-importance is a trap, because the moment we start to think that we actually matter is the moment when things start to go wrong. The truth is that you are supremely unimportant and nothing matters. All of man's striving is for nothing; all effort is wasted. To realize that everything is meaningless is tremendously liberating, since it then leaves us completely free to create our own lives and ignore the plans that others have for us.

We think we have to work because the advertising industry has elevated wants into needs. The newspapers and the television batter us incessantly with the latest "must-haves", whether that's shoes, videogames or patio heaters. As a result, mums think they "have" to work at Tesco in order to buy expensive trainers.

We have an idea that if something we're doing isn't actually earning money, or spending it, then it's completely worthless. But if you start to work less, you can actually start to give more to society, but on a local level.

Am I the only person in the world who is shocked and amazed at the ongoing flattery of uebergeek Mark Zuckerberg?

It will soon be difficult to put up a shelf without a degree in shelf putting up.

When stuck years ago in a job I hated, my only friend was the public bench. As the tedious mornings dragged on, how I would long for the lunch hour, when I would be able to escape the torture of the office and stroll over to the churchyard and into the comforting wooden embrace of one of its benches.