6.15am and I'm sitting in front of my computer. Berg's violin concerto is playing on Radio 3 (it's through their "listen again" feature). This seems appropriate as the work is dedicated "To the memory of an angel". The "angel" was a teenager, Manon Gropius. Paralysed by polio at age 17, Manon died the next year. Unhappy and sometimes tragic teenagers - yesterday I...

In an earlier post (January 3, 08), I looked at how common sense isn’t common, at least for healthy behaviours. Only about 3% of the population are ticking all the right boxes for non-smoking, alcohol use, exercise, weight and diet. This is interesting and maybe surprising, but does it really matter much?

Well, if...

The postman delivered piles of post-holiday letters and parcels yesterday. In amongst the late Christmas presents and even a late Christmas card, was a book I had ordered called “The How of Happiness” by Sonja Lyubomirsky. I spent half an hour browsing through it in the evening. It looks good. Quite “worthy”. Fascinating too how it emphasises the sheer bloody-minded hard work that is likely...