Happy Christmas or Bleak Midwinter?
‘Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind’. The words of US President Calvin Coolidge. What state...
The appeal of Big Brother
You can’t get a job, a passport, a loan, a mortgage, insurance or a good school place for your children. Why? ...
Why you could get a lot out of group therapy
‘It’s a real adventure. You’re constantly discovering new things about yourself and other people. You get the...
Words fail me
One of the worst blunders in the history of foreign language translation was made by a Russian interpreter assisting...
We’re all glowing on a summer holiday
It started to go wrong on the ferry over. He’d built his car himself from a kit and it was his pride and joy. He...
That pain could be telling you something interesting
Three engineering students were talking about what kind of God designed the human body. The first said, ‘God must be...
Who does your mind belong to?
Are you the sole owner of your mind? Maybe not quite as much as you think. A while back I came across an empty...
Midlife crisis? Go on, you know you deserve it.
Age-inappropriate cravings for sports cars, affairs with secretaries, mutton dressed as lamb – all stereotypes of the...
Your candle burned out long before the penny ever dropped
Burnout is insidious. Its causes –chronic stress chief among them – are cumulative and it’s easy not to realize...
Why do people look miserable in art galleries?
A colleague of mine recently went to see an exhibition at the Tate Britain. He really enjoyed himself because it was...