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" Every time humanists try to get a slot on 'Thought For the Day' on Radio 4, they are told it's reserved for 'the faith community,' whatever that is. Yet 'TfT' is almost always pabulum about how God wants us all to love each other and care for the unfortunate. I'm sure humanists would say much the same, without God. "

Simon Hoggart

Time

Love

God

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" She is the first head of government in history to give a whole country its second childhood. "

" It's sad that the BBC is toning down Dennis the Menace for a cartoon series. He is losing his weapons, catapult and peashooter, will no longer pick on Walter the Softy, and his ferocious grimace is to be replaced by a charming, boyish smile. "

" When I was collecting material for a political gossip column, and someone said something interesting, I would wait for them to add, 'and I don't want to read that in your magazine!' In which case I wouldn't use it. But if they didn't remember to say it, I'd nip off to the loo, write the story up, come back and change the subject. "

" Denis Healey refused to contribute an article to the 'Guardian' about his intentions, and was punished by the electorate - and then all Labour MPs - for his presumption in assuming they already knew everything about him. He became famously the best prime minister we never had. Perhaps. "

" I think Tony Blair has to come down on one side or the other. You can't be a half-hearted supporter of the possible attack on Iraq. You're either with George Bush or you're against him. "

" Most successful American politicians look well-fed on endorsements, campaign contributions and chicken dinners. "

" I also learned to play Fruit Ninja on an iPad. It is quite hypnotic, and I hope one day to get past 100 points. I remembered that David Cameron admits to being an addict. I wonder if it helps him in his work. 'Great, just destroyed a pineapple! Reminds me, shall we send those grenades to the Syrian rebels?' "

Simon Hoggart

Great

Past

" When you visit a foreign city you are in it, but not of it, separated by a glass wall. Once, while a student, I was getting dressed in my ground-floor room when a family of Italians crossed the grass to watch, as if I were laid on for their amusement and instruction. "

" I think the great thing about grandparents is seeing another home, realising that people you love can have different priorities, different diversions, different opinions and lead quite different lives from the ones you see every day, and that is immensely valuable. "

" What has always puzzled me is the flexibility of God's word. For instance, Catholics can now eat meat on Fridays. And limbo has been abolished. How does this work? Who tells them? "

Simon Hoggart

God

Always

" British diplomats who worked in Iran during the 1980 hostage crisis are deeply upset by Ben Affleck's Oscar-winning film 'Argo,' which suggests they refused shelter to the group who managed to get out of the U.S. embassy. "

" In Washington, success is just a training course for failure. "

" A married vicar is likely to regard his vocation as a job - a tough and ill-paid one, to be sure - but a priest is seen as a pillar of the community, answerable only to his parishioners and his God, rather than to a wife and children. "

" Jim Sheridan, the MP who wants to ban sketchwriters from the Commons for being rude about politicians, is a blithering idiot. Sorry, scrub that - clearly a very thoughtful person with whom I might conceivably disagree on some marginal issues. A blithering savant, perhaps. "

" There are few tribes more loathsome than the American Right, and their vicious use of the shortcomings in the NHS to attack Barack Obama's attempts at health reform are a useful reminder. "

Simon Hoggart

Right

Health

" The Tory party is like a rugby union match in which all 30 players are wearing the same strip. They're not sure who they are grabbing round the knees, but they're having a lot of fun doing it. "

" Even I would find a book about my life pretty dull. "

" While it is entirely untrue that Canadians lack a sense of humour, the funniest ones tend to head south: Dan Aykroyd, Jim Carrey, Michael J. Fox. "

" Remember how Margaret Thatcher came to believe that abroad was more important than at home? Didn't do her much good. "

" Switzerland still has a huge share of the watch market, all advertised at the airport on illuminated hoardings. Gosh, they are ugly. "

" When people move from one extreme set of views to embrace another equally batty picture of the world, they expect us to applaud their choice, as if the fact that they have rejected one form of nuttiness somehow validates the screwball views they hold now. "

" When you actually see Barack Obama, it's startling how slight he is and how young he looks. "

Simon Hoggart

How

Looks

" I've served on five different juries, and many of them were bonkers in their own way. "

" The formal Washington dinner party has all the spontaneity of a Japanese imperial funeral. "

" One of the pleasures of staying with friends is that you get to browse their shelves. I always arrive with a book, but I almost never read it. It would be like sitting at their dinner table and opening a packet of sandwiches. "

" My colleague Bill Keegan has written a very short book ('Saving the World?') on an unlikely topic - he is the first economist to try to rehabilitate Gordon Brown. "

" What puzzles me is the way that some of the smaller, unknown chateaux imagine that because Chinese millionaires pay ludicrous sums for the great names, they can overcharge for their own inferior fluids. There is no trickledown effect in wine prices. "

Simon Hoggart

Way

Wine

" The Chinese do make vast quantities of wine for home consumption, but you wouldn't want to drink it yourself. "

" During my own gap year, I learned an invaluable lesson - that I was a lousy teacher. Even though the children I 'taught,' in upcountry Uganda, were desperate for qualifications, they largely ignored me. Until, that is, I realised that they wanted to hear about other young persons around the world. "

" I cannot be alone in being pretty nauseated by Red Nose Day, or at least its television manifestation. Do I think that wretchedly poor children in Africa should get food and life-saving drugs? Of course. Do I want to be hectored into contributing by celebrities who earn more in a 10-minute slot than many of these families get in a year? Nope. "