A friend was telling me about a story that was told to her by her grandmother. The day of her engagement was also the day that George VI was crowned. There was a large party at the Cafe Royal to celebrate the coronation and her engagement to my friend’s grandfather.

I was just talking to an anthropologist who said that in biblical times and places, they had village elders who were experts in dialects and shibboleths. They would know after a couple of sentences whether or not the people or person at the village gate was friend or foe.

I was talking to a female friend last night – an engineer in aeronautics, about the changing face of the female leader in industry. Up until a few years ago many female leaders rose to their positions at the top, fuelled by the energy of the dispossessed.