In my family, I am well known for hyperbole: deliberate exaggeration for effect. "I've told you that a thousand times!" I say regularly. As a literary device, hyperbole (all three syllables of it: it's a lovely word!) and its opposite, litotes, are often effective in...

I love watching little children. They worship God so enthusiastically; they approach life so positively; they have a gleam and a sparkle in their eyes that shines more brilliantly than the finest diamond. It doesn’t matter how mundane the thing seems to us, they have...

A few years ago there was a lot of controversy again about politicians and their morality. John Major's Back to Basics campaign backfired because of media focus on its moral aspects, where they exposed "sleaze" within the Conservative Party and, most damagingly,...