I usually like David Aaronovitch’s columns (even though, or perhaps because, they sometimes make me squirm slightly – not enough to rattle the chair, but enough to rearrange a few dust particles), but I take issue with something in this one. It’s about the pope and the ructions last week, and what to make of it.

The cover of last week’s New Statesman, for example, proclaims of the dead Pope that ‘he did more to spread Aids in Africa than prostitution and the trucking industry combined’. By opposing the use of condoms, the argument went, the church had created intense and unnecessary suffering.
But this won’t do, either. The church has only succeeded in Africa by tolerating polygamy, and,

This is good fun – although a few of the answers will give people like Philip Blond fits. But that’s good, that will give him something to talk about next time he’s on the radio. No doubt producers are calling him all the time, now that he’s an expert on What’s Wrong With Science.

Anyway. Lots of good ones.

I would teach the world the importance of staying actively intellectually engaged throughout our lives, especially as we become elderly. There are good data now that point to the fact that continuing to challenge yourself late in life — taking up a new hobby, learning to play a musical instrument, doing crossword puzzles, etc — actually helps to maintain cognitive function,