The charity Rethink is the largest voluntary provider of mental health support in the UK and conducts many high profile campaigns in a continuing effort to achieve a greater understanding of mental illness. In March 2006 such a campaign was targeted at the city of Norwich, as explained on the Rethink website: During March, Rethink is taking the fight against prejudice, ignorance and fear to the streets of Norwich. The campaign will involve ads on buses, bus stops, billboards and on the radio together with a major statue unveiling in the Forum on March 10th.

The East of England Faiths Agency arranged and hosted a half-day conference on ‘What do the Faiths teach about the Environment?’ on Sunday March 5th at the University of Essex. The theme was chosen after a consultation on the Faiths and the Environment with staff from the Environmental Agency, who attended the conference. There were contributions from some of the faiths and philosophies in the region, including Baha’is, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Jews, Muslims, Pagans, and Sikhs.

In a few days, it will be New Year’s Eve, when Scots like my mother’s family celebrate Hogmanay. The Scots seem to attach more importance to Hogmanay than they do to Christmas, but at one time both were celebrated at the same time – on the shortest day, the 21st December. This was when ancient societies in the northern hemisphere performed rituals to ensure the rebirth of the sun because they depended on it for their survival.

With all the fuss they’ve been making about pensions, you’d think it was news that we’ve got an ageing population. It isn’t. There’s been plenty of evidence for a long time that people like me, born during or soon after the war, are living longer, and that younger people are either not having children, or not having many. It doesn’t take much imagination or arithmetic to work out that there are fewer people to pay tax and National Insurance contributions to keep us in reasonable comfort in our declining years.

If everyone who produced a child became a responsible parent overnight we’d solve a lot of problems, but they don’t, so when I hear that “parents’ rights” are in the news, I anticipate nonsense. There are currently two news stories about “parents’ rights”. The first is about Mrs Axon from Wythenshawe, who’s going to the High Court to try to change Department of Health guidelines stating that girls aged under sixteen can have abortions without their parents’ consent and that doctors should respect their privacy.

The funeral of Sir Hermann Bondi takes place at midday today in Cambridge. Sir Hermann was 85. He was a staunch supporter and former President of the British Humanist Association, and was Vice-President when he died. Sir Hermann came from Vienna to study at Cambridge in the 1930s, just before Hitler took over. There isn’t time to detail his distinguished career now, but his obituaries are worth reading. He’s described as a mathematician, astronomer, civil servant, and teller of homespun jokes.

Those who know me probably wont be surprised to hear that I used to get into trouble at school, not because I was a juvenile delinquent, but for asking so many questions too many, as far as some of my teachers were concerned. They expected us to absorb all the facts, dates, grammar and maths they taught us, and not to spend too much time questioning where all of these things came from, and what they were for, and whether they were likely to be any use to us.

Since the 7th July, there’s been no shortage of opinion about what we ought to do about terrorism. The official line is that we stand resolutely together against it. The trouble with this is that we don’t know which direction it’s coming from, so we’re not sure where to stand. Some young Muslim men in Leeds were interviewed in the street by a BBC journalist, and one said something about the silence in remembrance of the dead.

I should have been doing all sorts of useful things yesterday, like tidying my office and trying to find all the unpaid bills and unanswered letters. Then there was the usual outbreak of dirty dishes in the kitchen. Dunno who leaves them there, but if I ever catch him or her therell be hell to pay. Anyway, it had been raining, so there were lots of lovely puddles and drips to play with around the garden.

When intelligent people display ignorance of world affairs, such a poverty and global warming, I can’t help feeling they’ve put some effort into staying ignorant. If you don’t know or care about the suffering of other human beings, you won’t feel any compulsion to do anything about it. Many of us are keenly interested in what will happen in Scotland next week, at the G8 summit. I’m afraid that all the emotional hoo-ha generated by Live 8, the so-called ‘anti-poverty’ international music event, may distract attention from the issues, rather than highlight them.