I call on the Iranian people: it is not too late to replace the corrupt regime and return to your glorious Persian heritage a heritage of culture and values and not of bombs and missiles... How can a nation allow a regime to instill fear take away the people's freedom and shock the young generation that seeks its way out of the dictatorial Iran.

The universal human laws - need love for the beloved fear hunger periodic exaltation the kindness that rises up naturally in the absence of hunger/fear/pain - are constant predictable reliable universal and are merely ornamented with the details of local culture.

I had to confront my fears and master my every demonic thought about inferiority insecurity or the fear of being black young and gifted in this Western culture.

Slowly but surely we are acquiring that famous culture of democracy which is our objective.

Celebrity culture it's everywhere isn't it? It's reality TV Big Brother. I didn't become a footballer to be famous I became a footballer to be successful. I didn't want to be famous. Now people want to be famous. Why? Why would you want people following you about all day?

Whereas you have someone like Houdini who works really really hard to get really really famous and then has actual intellectual ideas that he puts into the culture that stay there.

I studied Japanese language and culture in college and graduate school and afterward went to work in Tokyo where I met a young man whose father was a famous businessman and whose mother was a geisha.

We need to teach our kids because there is such a celebrity culture at the moment that however rich you are however famous you are however glamorous you are everyone has to live by the same rules.

The whole celebrity culture thing - I'm fascinated by and repelled by and yet I end up knowing about it.

Until he lost all his money my father was a successful north London Jewish businessman. He was unusual among his immediate family in that he was enormously cultured and had an incredible library.