In America, you have the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. You've got drones now being considered for domestic surveillance. You have the National Security Agency building the world's giantest spy center.

Say what you will about Americans, but one thing they are not is passive. The Bush administration may have pushed through the Patriot Act weeks after 11 September, but, as the American public got to grips with how the law was affecting their individual rights, their protests grew loud and angry.

If the public can't see justice being done, or afford the costs of justice, then the entire system becomes little more than a cozy club solely for the benefit of judges, lawyers and their lackeys, a sort of care in the community for the upper middle classes.

We pay a lot for our court service, but it's not enough. Courts are under-resourced, which leads to delayed justice - particularly in criminal courts.

Gratitude helps you to grow and expand; gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you.

My dachshunds are not substitutes for children. But the pattering of tiny feet around the place is a joy.

It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should be only organized dust.

I'm sure there was some part of his soul was intrinsically happy, but he probably had to go through some permutations to really get that to blossom. I'm sure Dad had his challenges, but I think that joy was there from the beginning and he had to find a way to make his life support that and express that.