James Cherkoff and I were in the pub yesterday, celebrating a recent success... to say nothing of marking the birth of his first born, daughter Maggie.

James makes me laugh because he seems to take such life changing events in his stride. (He moved house a couple of weeks ago and made that sound like a no-brainer too). Was being a parent daunting? Not really, he explained. He found that when he was 16 he wanted to date (I am being discreet) all the girls in his school. And now he's a parent, he feels like a whole lot of parental instinctive behaviour is simply kicking in.

I find this a refreshing view of life skills... that we have a huge amount of inbuilt talent that is ready to emerge when needed. It reminds me of the story about Michelangelo's David. An admirer asks the artist how he was able to produce such a fine piece of work. "Simple," says Michelangelo, "I just take a large block of stone and chip away anything that's not David."