Feminism in some ways has become quite dormant.

I haven't spent years, like Alyse Nelson of Vital Voices, toiling for female economic empowerment on five continents.

Obama, for all his brilliance, has no real, felt understanding of management structures or of business.

What does it take to be a great social chronicler? Perhaps one of the key attributes is an understanding of what it feels like to fall from grace.

I started life in a poor family and could not even afford a proper tertiary education.

I was never any good in the school theatrical productions. I always got a role like the March Hare. A Latin teacher told me I might make a good actress, and that stuck in my memory.

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate little volumes.

As a kid, I was school swot, but I used to hang around the billiard halls, learning that Geordie sense of humour, mixing with low-lifes. They were the sort who'd pick your pocket and then say 'Here you are lad, here's tuppence, get yourself some chips'. I was a good rugby player, a good runner, so I fitted in at Cambridge quite easily.