"Last month I made the mistake of going to the Monster Sale in the district department store. Not the sort of thing I usually did, you know. Nor will I in the future.

An ancient neighbour, notorious far beyond our electoral boundaries for her inveterate tittle-tattling ways, happened to be standing close by, though I didn’t notice her at first."

"Many European languages use a word for Easter that derives from a Greek adoption of the Hebrew for Passover, with which celebration Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection coincided in time. Examples include Latin pascha, French Pâques and Dutch pask.

The English word Easter, however, is of pagan origin."

"Consider this. Google has over three million references to curmudgeon. Why so many entries for such a bizarre word? And one whose origins are as obscure as those of insect wings or the Sars virus?"