If you are an Imperial soldier, you work jolly hard, before facing pitiless mid-term and year-end exams.

FORBES: Lessons for Life: 3 Things No Parent Should Do

This is an incredibly hard thing to do when facing the most opera-like of our lives, the end.

FORBES: Christopher Hitchens, As I Knew Him

Anonymous care-packages of clothes and food, secretly paid utility bills, presents for children-and, most of all, homemade pound cakes-are their way of helping those facing hard times and spreading hope and happiness.

FORBES: Sandra Fluke Can Have 2012, Let's Celebrate Non-Coerced Giving In 2013

For peace, it will help overcome a psychological barrier facing the Geneva talks: instead of dismantling their hard-won missiles, generals will be able to see them off in a blaze of glory.

ECONOMIST: Stop that comet

Put it another way, it's hard work these days trying to sell things to people they don't strictly need - as any "consumer facing" company will unhappily confirm.

BBC: UK inflation: A positive surprise for prices