Average male pay is higher than average female pay for a simple reason. Despite decades of enforced equality, women still have babies, and men still don't. So women who wish to spend any substantial time at all with their own offspring will fall behind in their careers, and their earnings will be less.

Female politicos mostly represent a rather militant faction.

The BBC TV programme 'Back In Time For Dinner' doesn't just have one of the cleverest titles ever. It is a more-than-usually-serious attempt to recreate the recent past, the day before yesterday.

I wonder how many illegal migrants fanned out across the country while I and others were subjected to the stone-faced, suspicious inefficiency of the Border Force?

I think ancient cultures incorporated death into the experience of life in a more natural way than we have done. In our obsessive focus on youth, on celebrity, our denial of death makes it harder for people who are grieving to find a place for that grief.

Antonio Stradivari of Cremona, Italy, made about 1,200 violins, half of which still survive. After his death in 1737, factories churned out hundreds of thousands of copies. And every day, people bring violins with Stradivarius labels to appraisers, thinking they have bought the genuine article for a song.

I spent 30 years on Alabama's death row for a crime I did not commit.

The news of any politician's death should be listed under 'Public Improvements.'