It's a good job I'm married, and therefore not planning any first dates in the near future. Because now, based on the results of a recent survey, there could be an awkward silence when it comes to paying the bill.

Whilst one day it would have been customary for the...

The Olympic Games can be a cruel mistress at times. For every winner, for every athlete who stands on the podium, medal around neck, listening to the roar of the crowd and the strains of their National Anthem, there are a handful of... non-winners, shall we say. Losers seems like...

The sun has set on the first full day of the Olympics, although at the time of writing the matches are not yet over. In fact, I have one eye on Brazil v Turkey in the volleyball, and another on Natalia Partyka's excellent form in the table tennis. If I...

A few weeks ago I was one of those Scroogey, miserable types who got all hunched and huffy whenever anyone mentioned the Olympics. I'd scowl and look at the floor and mutter about the cost, or the traffic, even though I don't live anywhere near the capital.

But now I...

First things first, I ask Alessio Rastani. In light of the latest economic news, and bearing in mind what you said on the BBC last year about going to bed every night dreaming of another recession, how are you feeling?

"There's a known joke amongst traders that no two economists...

The other day I tuned into BBC Radio Five Live to be greeted with the sounds of yelling, laughing and the occasional vain plea to calm down. I assumed it was some kind of report from a local school playground where children ran boisterously, giving one another wedgies and playing...

Since March 2011, when the uprising in Syria first began, over 8,000 people have been killed by Bashar al-Assad's regime. Videos surface daily of injured men, women and children, targeted by snipers, blown apart by relentless shelling. Yet still the nations of the world watch, and do nothing.

Every day I am terrified that something awful will happen to my children. I worry that I will receive a phone call or a visit from someone telling me that my sons are injured, or worse. It is a fear which grips me and every parent who cares for their...

Sometimes, when I'm sat on my own in a darkened room, I like to imagine social networking sites as actual buildings. Allow me to explain.

Friends Reunited is like a Wild West ghost town, all banging doors and tumbleweeds, with no-one around. MySpace is similar, but it's like an old...

'Now I ain't gonna be just a face in the crowd, you're gonna hear my voice when I shout it out loud...'

Sound familiar? Probably. They're lyrics from It's My Life by Bon Jovi; you know, that song that has that weird gravely 'whoa-whoa' sound in it. No, I've never...

Earlier this week Rebecca Leighton - the 27 year-old nurse charged with the deaths of up to 40 patients who had been poisoned - walked free, after the Crown Prosecution Service stated that it was 'no longer appropriate' for a prosecution to be pursued.

Free in body, perhaps, but not...

Much has been written about the process behind naming Hurricane Irene, who is lashing the eastern coast of the United States as I type. We are familiar with the system: Atlantic hurricanes are named on a six-year rotational system, with those attributed to particularly devastating storms - Katrina,...

It's hard to believe the humble SMS is not yet 20 years old. Conceived in 1992, a single message which read 'Merry Christmas' began a form of communication which now sees a predicted 8 trillion text messages sent this year alone. And that's not counting the

Today is the day that young, attractive girls get their A-Level results, or so the photos on tomorrow's front pages would have us believe. For many students, the days and weeks leading up to that terrible moment when you open the brown envelope with your results in has been a...

This week saw the 40th anniversary of the 'Mr Men' books, written by Roger Hargreaves and an almost default inhabitant of bookshelves for generations of children. There was Mr Tickle, firstly, in 1971; then followed Greedy, Happy, Nosey, right through to the rather depressing Mr Nobody, published in 1985 and...

There was a time when, in order to have a conversation with a celebrity, you had to stand outside the stage exit of a London theatre or club in the freezing cold for three hours; and, even then, there was no guarantee that you would get the dialogue you so...

As I write this, buildings are burning in Manchester. Shop windows are being shattered in Birmingham. And, in the capital, stunned business owners are picking through the smouldering wreckage of their livelihoods and wondering what the future holds.

The disturbances that have been seen across England over the past few...