Thinking Allowed

Here's an experiment. Look around the room you're in and notice all the yellow things.

When I was young and ignorant, I thought the Great War sounded just that, great.

It's a bit over 40 years since Gil Scott-Heron penned the piece that would earn him monikers like ''the godfather of rap'' and ''founder of the spoken word movement'' for the rest of his days.

I was brought up on traditional Christmas stories, the sort that saw me going to midnight Mass and arranging holy plaster figures in a home-made wooden crib.

When I lived in Japan for a year, I saw many marvellous things. A photo booth in Osaka that could merge two faces to show you what your offspring might look like.A vending machine selling hot coffee on the top of Mt Fuji. Shops that sold sock glue. Students that wore thick white ruched socks held halfway up their legs with sock glue.

Sometimes the numbers don't add up to much of anything, Liz Breslin writes.

Last week a friend opined that if there was a pill you could take three times daily to give you all the food nutrition you need, she'd never cook another meal.