Ian on Sunday

There is no connection between sexual mores and job performance. Many of the greatest leaders in history were unbridled lechers.

If you think about it carefully it seems impossible to reconcile two things which most people would very much like to believe – one, that they enjoy free will and in some ultimate sense are masters of their fate, and, two, that the God of all creation is omnipotent and has a master plan for us all.

Headlines which constantly remind us of lethal crime heighten the sense of life’s fragility in all of us.

It is frustrating, not to say humiliating, to think how much one is missing by not knowing any language except one’s own.

Consider yourself fortunate if you are right 51% of the time.

When I was young, and benefited not only from a fresh and eagerly absorptive mind but also from a strong belief that an eternity of life stretched in front of me, I loved to read big books, books of immense length.

Sveinsson Knut, Canute the Great, King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018 and King of Norway from 1030 until he died in 1035, was perhaps the most successful and effective of the early rulers of England.

If one had the power to give a child a single gift but no other, the gift to choose would be a love of reading.

In my 84th year the time for ambition is long past.

T20 cricket, the way it has developed, is unbalanced in favour of batsmen.

I find it hard to believe that Donald Trump – whose candidacy was declared a year ago seemed a bad joke – is the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States.

I have changed my mind about limited over cricket. When this slash and burn form of the game began to emerge prominently I was accustomed to dismiss it as a superficial and corrupt version of the great game.

Elie Wiesel, Auschwitz survivor, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, died recently at the age of 87.

Age has slowed me down but at least no day goes by without reading bringing me the fascinating and penetrating insights of other minds.

One of the things I enjoy the most is to browse in good bookstores and buy a stock of books to read and add to my library.

I find it hard to understand why most people never, literally never, read poetry.

I wonder what it would be like to exclude sport completely from one’s life for, say, one year?

Recently I read two poems which I want to share without much commentary – partly because they speak for themselves.

There is a never-ending battle against those who think – no, who are sure – they know what is best for us.

I like to tell the story of Tony Judt. Tony Judt was a writer on recent world history whom I greatly admire.