Like most citizens of popular and international urban centres, I don't take advantage of the cultural opportunities. Perhaps this comes from growing up in suburbia. Home is where you eat, sleep, read, watch television and ignore your parents. It is not where you go to the ballet and then attend a heated panel discussion about it afterwards.

Our brains are like bonsai trees, growing around our private versions of reality.

Unless you are a professional, you will find the tart to be a high-maintenance, unforgiving whistle-blower of a pastry.

I use Ole Henriksen eye gel when I think of it, and go for facials when spa gift certificates appear as a professional thank-you or in a gift bag. Once ensconced in a facialist's chair, I let myself be coaxed into all sorts of treatments, because I'm there already, so why not?

Given my age, I am pretty near the end, probably, of my career as a writer, a scholar, a teacher. And I wanted to speak of things I will not be able to do.

I've had a decent career, I've been a decent player but coaching is a whole different ball game. I can take the experience that I've got but there's so much more to it than that and I'd never take it for granted and just say I can jump into a new role and it will be easy and a breeze because I know it won't be like that.

My first career ambitions involved turning into a boy; I intended to be either a railway guard or a knight errant.

Studies have shown that inmate participation in education, vocational and job training, prison work skills development, drug abuse, mental health and other treatment programs, all reduce recidivism, significantly.