So, this is weird. I have just been awarded an OBE. I am grinding my teeth a bit at the Empire thing, whilst feeling very pleased with myself and knowing, too, that things often just kind of fall in your lap. Or how often it really is who you know, rather than what you know. Or even more so, who your friends and fellow workers are.

Funding to help children of addict parents stay out of care is a ‘no-brainer’, experts say, because it saves the taxpayer far more than it costs

A truth in life is that the older you get, the more endings and fewer beginnings there are. You don’t lose beginnings altogether. Heaven forbid. There is always the space to to encounter something or...