•How to beat depression — without drugs (the Guardian, 19th July 2010)

Dr Steve Ilardi is slim and enthusiastic, with intense eyes. The clinical psychologist is 4,400 miles away, in Kansas, and we are chatting about his new book via Skype, the online videophone service. “I’ve spent a lot of time pondering Skype,” he says. “On the one hand it provides a degree of social connectedness. On the other, you’re still essentially by yourself.” But, he concludes, “a large part of the human cortex is devoted to the processing of visual information, so I guess Skype is less alienating than voice calls.” Read full article on the Guardian website

•Do the maths — for 5 million dollars (the Times, 2nd July 2010)

Question: what’s a million times five? No, it’s not a trick. The answer is the amount of dollars you could win if you solved all five mathematical conundrums in The Num8er My5teries, a new book by the iconic popular mathematician Marcus du Sautoy. The book is based on a competition set up in 2000 by an American businessman called Landon Clay. Five puzzles, $1 million each. Read full article

•Israel’s most famous rapper (the JC, 1st July 2010)

Sha’anan Streett, the frontman of Hadag Nahash – the biggest hip-hop band in Israel – is hung over. And the waitress in the Jerusalem cafe clearly knows it. “Black coffee followed by a big green salad?” she suggests. He gives her a wry smile. “You know me too well,” he replies.

Then he turns to me, sotto voce. “Last night,” he murmurs, “too many substances.” He motions to his “f*** the police” T-shirt. “This is my own design,” he tells me. Read full article on the JC website

•Hug a hoodie? Yes, of course you should (the Times, 1st July 2010)

Hello, Jake, how are you?”

“OK.”

“How was your day at school?”

“OK.”

“Have you got much homework?”

“Yup.”

“What is it?”

“Oh, stuff.”

“Darling, is everything OK? You’re very quiet.”

“Yup.” Read full article

•Our big, cheap, green wedding (the Times, 25th June 2010)

We were sitting on the sofa, surrounded by glossy wedding bumph, when my fiancée Isobel had a moment of clarity. “These people are thieves,” she said, tossing aside a brochure for Blenheim Palace advertising two wedding packages – a no-frills option for £16,400 and a standard for £23,900. “We don’t have that kind of money. Let’s set ourselves the challenge of having a lovely wedding for less than £5,000.”

I smiled encouragingly. It was late at night. Within a few hours, I thought, she would recognise this idea for the tomfoolery it was. Read full article

•Oliver James: it’s all about you (Independent on Sunday, 30th May 2010)

On my way out of the bathroom of a café in South Kensington, I collide with an unusual-looking man. There is something of the artist about him. He is wearing a flamboyant silk scarf and a capacious greatcoat, and peers through his spectacles like a character from a wartime spy novel. We make our apologies and I find my way to the corner of the café to wait for Oliver James, the esteemed clinical psychologist and broadcaster, author of such iconic books as They F*** You Up, Britain on the Couch and Affluenza. After a couple of minutes, I realise I have just met him. Read full article on the Independent website

•On the same side (BBC Radio 4, From Our Own Correspondent, 27th May 2010)

Listen to the audio (5 min 54 sec)

Just ten minutes’ walk from bustling downtown Jerusalem is the district of Meah She’arim, home to the most inaccessible ultra Orthodox Jewish community in the world. It is a labyrinth of narrow, winding alleyways, and the apartment blocks are rickety, cramped and overcrowded. This is a poor community where life is dominated by religious conservatism and a dislike for outsiders. Enter this neighbourhood improperly dressed, and you risk being pelted with rubbish or stones, or even attacked with mace gas. Read full transcript

•Personality disorders? I blame the nursery (the Times, 30th March 2010)

With some difficulty, I manoeuvre my extra-long double buggy — dubbed “the gondola” — into a room cluttered with plastic toys. The psychotherapist gets up from her beanbag to help me to fold it up. I introduce her to Isaac and Imogen, my seven-month-old twins, and then put them down on the mat. The babies, blissfully unaware of the therapist’s eyes, proceed to give the toys a good gumming. Read full article on the Times website

•High noon in the middle east (Prospect Magazine, 18th March 2010)

“Netanyahu thinks he is the superpower,” remarked Bill Clinton bitterly in 1996, “and we are here to do whatever he requires.” Today, as the Americans and the Israelis refuse to budge on the fraught issue of settlements in East Jerusalem, this statement rings truer than ever. US-Israeli relations are at a historic low. But the current standoff is about much more than settlement-building. Underlying it is Washington’s concern that Netanyahu’s repeated gestures of provocation—like the establishment of Jewish heritage sites in the Palestinian territories—are drawing the region towards a conflict unprecedented since 1948. And this time there is a nuclear dimension. Read full article on the Prospect Magazine website

•I broke out of my orthodox cocoon (the Guardian, 13th March 2010)

The prospect of Britain and Israel going to war is an unlikely one. At the orthodox Jewish school that I attended, however, it must have seemed like a distinct possibility. We used to regularly debate which side we would fight for. Although steeped in religious observance, we had been born in England, grew up here, and developed strong allegiances to English football teams. We spoke little modern Hebrew and had been to Israel just a handful of times. Nevertheless, the feeling was unanimous: we would take up arms on behalf of the Jewish state. Read full article on the Guardian website

•There’s a third person in this marriage — Spinoza (the Times, 12th March 2010)

The people known as “America’s brainiest couple” met over an irregular verb. “It was ‘stridden’,” says Steven Pinker, regarding me steadily from beneath his mop of curly hair. His wife, Rebecca Goldstein, laughs. “Steven cited my use of the word in one of his books,” she explains, “and we started exchanging e-mails about it. You could say that our relationship started with conjugation.” Read full article on the Times website

•The British PoW who broke into Auschwitz (the Times, 25th February 2010)

Denis Avey, even at the age of 91, cuts a formidable figure. More than 6ft tall, with a severe short back and sides and a piercing glare, he combines the panache of Errol Flynn with the dignity of age. This is the former Desert Rat, who, in 1944, broke into — yes, into — Auschwitz, and he looks exactly as I expected. He removes his monocle for the camera, and one of his pupils slips sideways before realigning. It is a glass eye. I ask him about it. He tells me that in 1944, he cursed an SS officer who was beating a Jew in the camp. He received a blow with a pistol butt and his eye was knocked in. Read full article on the Times website

•The happiest men in the world (the Times, 8th February 2010)

It is a most unlikely scene. I am in an elegant sitting room in the Royal Society of Arts. Opposite me, sitting uncomfortably side-by-side on a too-low leather sofa, are an English peer and a French Buddhist monk. The contrast is striking. Lord Layard is white-haired, well-dressed and unobtrusive; the Venerable Matthieu Ricard is larger than life in flowing, burgundy robes. Yet despite their differences, these men have a common denominator: both have devoted their lives to the study of happiness. Read full article on the Times website

•Chekhov at 150: brilliance in brief (the Guardian, 29th January 2010)

“I’m crazy about Chekhov”, Woody Allen once remarked. “I never knew anyone that wasn’t.” Today, on Chekhov’s 150th birthday, that statement rings more true than ever. Much has been written about the enduringly modern quality of Chekhov’s work, and with good reason. He is one of the most frequently cited influences of contemporary writers, and it is possible to argue that echoes of his brevity, impressionism, and disregard for traditional plot resonate through the majority of modern literary fiction and drama. Read full article on Guardian website