First: vying with Beijing. For the opening ceremony, London, in the capable, quirky imagination of Danny Boyle, did not even try. The UK chose a different discipline, but one that played no less to its strengths than Beijing's ultra-regimented extra...

Two weeks ago these Olympics were being denounced as chaos and fiasco. Suddenly, in the twinkle of Danny Boyle's eye, the coverage has shifted, culminating in ululations of joy in the Saturday and Sunday papers.Forget the lurches. The truth is, inevi...

Insert Mr Romney himself into the mix, however, and the result has been anything but presidential. Casting doubt on London's ability to host the Olympics successfully was not only mean-spirited (particularly from a man who staged the Games himself i...

So often we hear it said that it has become impossible to sum up a coherent idea of Britishness – but Boyle pulled it off with energetic but somehow effortless-seeming panache, weaving ancient history, lines from Shakespeare, the story of the Industr...

The world is awash with international agencies and organisations trying to help "developing countries" develop. Why on earth should these economically poorer countries, that have slowly and painfully succeeded in producing small but critical cadres o...

Only, as anyone who watched Dream School can testify, an expert does not a teacher make. Consider David Starkey petulantly insulting a bored pupil or actor Simon Callow's admission: "I somehow got some sort of silence simply by shouting louder than t...

It's a symbol of a growing commitment to a simple idea: locals collectively cough up the capital to fund energy projects which are co-operatively managed to ensure fair energy prices. As an added bonus, profits are reinvested into the project, often ...

Teachers Kay Johnston and Anne Broni have their fingers on the pulse when it comes to suggesting remedies to stop the knifings and murders. In one sense, it is not rocket science to come up with the idea of giving every teenager work experience to a...

Please, do stop being so unreasonable in asking me to have a "surprisingly good time". To support the Olympics because they benefit us (which I doubt since I do not see any benefit to the little person in McDonald's, Coca-Cola and other multinationa...

The four ex-prime ministers belong to a class in which men must wear ties, that uniquely pointless instrument of male oppression, and can all get to work in air-conditioned cars. Those who must walk, bus or Tube to work have to come up with more pra...

I'm sure this scene of tranquillity was what my neighbour had in mind when she hung wind chimes in her garden, some 20 feet from where I sleep. I imagine she wanted to introduce some feng shui into our little corner of south London. But I'm afraid t...

Thirty years ago, when he appeared on television on an almost weekly basis with most of the world's middle-distance runners flailing vainly in his wake, Sebastian Coe was about the nearest thing this country possessed to the Corinthian ideal: clean-c...