Dear Mr Hands,

I received an invitation to at dinner which is to take place next Thursday (20th June) at the House of Lords - at which you are billed as the main speaker.

I understand that you are a banker by profession, a Government Whip in...

A dystopia is a nightmare vision of the future and there are two great books which have defined the genre: 1984 and Brave New World. Both books are brilliant but they were written in the 1930s when the world quivered under the shadow of totalitarianism. They are useful for understanding...

I had to laugh when I saw the government's reaction to the recent report that hospital admissions due to alcohol had more than doubled in nine years.

"It's encouraging to see that more people are getting help for problems with alcohol" said a Department of Health spokesperson,

Plan A was India. Plan B was Albania. Plan C was Greece. The plan is to take some time off, to get away from the internet and mobile, to disconnect. Plan D is nervous breakdown. Burnout.

The two biggest problems were time and money, both of which are always in...

I wonder how many of you have been ripped off when on holiday in Turkey, Egypt, Morocco? Sometimes I think getting overcharged is part of travel but it doesn't have to be like that. I am currently on a short break in Turkey and I made up some rules about...

Russell Brand, the notorious actor and comedian, recently published an article that gives the most penetrating insight into the struggles of a heroin addict that I have ever read.

"The last time I thought about taking heroin was yesterday" writes the star of Get Him to...

Why not give yourself a great Christmas present? It doesn't cost anything - in fact it will save you a lot of money - and it's really good for your health. The only problem with this present is that you can't give it to anyone apart from yourself, and that...

On Christmas Day 1989 Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were shot by a military firing squad. Ceausescu was the last of the Central European dictators to be swept from power in that momentous year when Communism was overthrown in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland. It was the end...

Rehab isn't taken seriously in Britain. It's not taken seriously by the NHS, by HR professionals or by the general public. It may get a mention in the pub if Amy Winehouse's name comes up, but the general assumption seems to be that rehab is too expensive for ordinary people...

Books about therapy don't usually sell very well and when Dr Scott Peck, an American Psychiatrist, wrote The Road Less Travelled he wasn't sure he would sell any. After all it was about the role that spirituality can play in therapy, a concept that was widely ignored by psychiatry at...

The legalise cannabis lobby should be reeling from recent reports that show the negative impact of cannabis: a group of New Zealanders were studied over 40 years and the results show that the IQ levels of teenagers can be permanently reduced by the drug; and a

I can't stop listening to the new album by the Stagger Rats, a charismatic rock band from the small Scottish town of Dunbar. They remind me of all the best music I have heard over the last 30 years. Some critics use the word "Beatles" when trying to define their...

New figures from Scotland show that methadone is now the main source of drugs deaths north of the border.

In 2011 a total of 584 people died from drugs - a ''record high'' according to The Scotsman newspaper. This figure includes alcohol, which killed 129 people in 2011, and heroin...

Meditation is a word that fills me with a sense of boredom. The word reminds me of sincere couples sitting cross-legged on the floor of a Buddhist monastery, of calm, well-travelled middle class people who have a bookshelf full of profound volumes on the subject. These people give off a...

Corruption, poverty, stray dogs, orphanages - these are the impressions most people have about Romania, an East European country of 19 million souls that has been an EU member state since 2007. Those who know the country better appreciate its friendly people but despair at the corruption in their vast...

I've been having a rather interesting conversation with Silvana, a Romanian friend of mine who works in France. Silvana tells me "I have the impression that almost everybody in Romania drinks. They don't admit they have a problem and they don't go to rehab." Silvana has turned my lifelong assumption...

Many people sneer at the idea that addiction is a disease. "Surely so-and-so can just stop drinking" they say about alcoholics, unaware that an alcoholic can't control his craving for more drink -- just as a cancer or diabetes patient can't control the progression of his disease. Anyone who knows...

I got my first BlackBerry about three months ago. I decided to get one because a journalist convinced me how useful they were and Orange made me an offer I couldn't refuse - an almost free phone in exchange for a reasonable monthly subscription.

Immediately I was hooked. Gmail works...

Drugs and alcohol are getting a lot of airtime these days - David Cameron recently launched his new Alcohol Strategy and Sir Richard Branson leads the charge against the so-called War on Drugs. There is more debate on these issues than there has been for years.

At issue...

If you are not sure what a 'legal high' is just click on this link and see what the Shiva Head Shop in Greenwich has to offer. You can order over the internet - in perfect legality - Snow Blow, Jungle High Energy Pills ("will bring out your...