It is a simple but sometimes forgotten truth that the greatest enemy to present joy and high hopes is the cultivation of retrospective bitterness.

Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.

Adele Adkins' retro-soul debut '19' was striking less for her songs than for that voice: a voluptuous slightly parched alto that swooped and fluttered like a Dusty Springfield student trying to upstage her teacher or at least update the rules.

All religions have periods in their history which are looked back to with retrospective fear and trembling as eras of persecution and each religion has its own book of martyrs.

In their heyday the Pet Shop Boys were the Interpol of the Eighties dressing up to sing really weird pop songs about lust and loneliness in the big city. They're low-pro now not retro-worshipped in the manner of Depeche Mode New Order or The Cure but you can hear the reason why - these guys are too sad.

Vinyl is the real deal. I've always felt like until you buy the vinyl record you don't really own the album. And it's not just me or a little pet thing or some kind of retro romantic thing from the past. It is still alive.

Man is a creative retrospection of nature upon itself.

One could not have isolated this retrovirus without knowledge of other retroviruses that's obvious. But I believe we have answered the criteria of isolation.

When you put something out there into the world there's all these words you don't want to hear that you hope people don't say. I don't like anything that starts with 're' - like retro reinvent recreate - I hate that. It's always like living in the past - copying emulating.

If any country was a mine-shaft canary for the reintroduction of cholera it was Haiti - and we knew it. And in retrospect more should have been done to prepare for cholera... which can spread like wildfire in Haiti... This was a big rebuke to all of us working in public health and health care in Haiti.