To scale? you have the stars aligned- timing is everything. When we created the first personal digital assistant, the Newton... we were probably 15 years too early. Even some of the best computer scientists in the world didn't realise that at the time, we needed Moore's Law to continue doubling processing power every couple of years for at least a decade before it was practical to build products like iPhones.

It's really complicated to work-out how much of our wealth came from empire, it's like trying to take the egg out of a baked cake.

Think about your water kettle. When you heat the water and you see the transition from water to gas, not all water molecules are converted at once. The same happened in the world economy. Since this transition was associated with such a fantastic increase in income per capita, those societies that took off first increased their gap from the rest of the world tremendously.

Research shows that individuals who are slower to habituate to negative events tend to be more prone to depression. This ability to habituate is crucial for moving forward.

Politicians often forget that people are much more complex, and are a mix of many identities – and each of these identities can be of differing importance to the individual.