When you are facing the wilderness on your own you have a totally different attitude to someone who works in government or who has a monthly cheque.

Reason clears and plants the wilderness of the imagination to harvest the wheat of art.

Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.

On banks I make no apology for attacking spivs and gamblers who did more harm to the British economy than Bob Crow could achieve in his wildest Trotskyite fantasies while paying themselves outrageous bonuses underwritten by the taxpayer. There is much public anger about banks and it is well deserved.

When it comes to raising civilized kids there are no hard rules but there are two things on which most parents agree: Boys are generally wilder than girls and adolescents are wilder than kids of any other age. If you've got an adolescent boy you're in the sweet spot for trouble.