Mary Wakefield

How pleasant it is to live in the 21st century, enlightened, no longer scared of science. We can marvel at the diversity of life with David Attenborough; face the vastness of the cosmos with Brian Cox. These days we talk of colliders and particles as casually as we shop for milk. Science is our oyster. Except of course when it comes to genetics. Just try starting an excited conversation about gene therapy, or about the young Chinese genius Zhao Bowen, who is, right now, hunting down the genes for intelligence. Faces will fall, there’ll be talk of eugenics, perhaps a sudden burst of inexplicable fury. This I know because I’ve felt it myself.

  An emergency shelter funded by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has been opened to offer a lifeline to rough sleepers in the capital whenever three consecutive nights of freezing temperature are predicted. Mr Johnson said: ‘This shelter will offer a vital lifeline when temperatures tumble to sub-zero levels and rough sleepers risk losing their lives in the cold.’ Just how and why Dave and his mother, Nancy, came to be sleeping outside, in the corner of a car park, is too complicated and surreal a story to explain. But what you need to know is that there’s no easy solution to their problem, and sleeping rough in itself isn’t alarming or even unusual for them.

Andrew Mitchell, formerly of DFID, urgently needs Coffee Housers' help. It seems he won't believe DFID wastes money, unless he sees actual, concrete examples. Last week, in the magazine, we ran a foreign aid special in which Jonathan Foreman and Justin Shaw  showed us how and why we waste so much on ineffectual aid. In principle of course aid is a wonderful idea, but it can also be a blight: propping up dictators and entrenching corruption in the countries that are struggling most. We identified two major concerns: A lack of DFID due diligence The daft ring-fence around aid ­ 0.7% of GDP ­ which means the DFID has its work cut out trying to get rid of all the cash quick enough, and has an incentive to turn a blind eye to what happens to it on the ground.

Four a.m. Something was triggering the motion-sensor on the outside light. One minute, darkness, the next, a window-full of flailing palm leaves, bright with rain. I blinked for a bit, then remembered: hurricane! There was one on its way, we’d been told by Rudy, the beach barman the day before, a bruiser called Ernesto. But Rudy had been phlegmatic: Ernesto is category 1, no problem. iPhone said different. By the light of that terrible little rectangle I fed my fear with headlines from round the world: ‘Ernesto gathers strength and takes aim at Tulum.’ ‘Ernesto careens across the Caribbean towards Mexico.’ ‘Ernesto could devastate Yucatan.’ By morning, I was pale with terror; a victim of my own profession.

Quite soon, it will be impossible to ignore the fact that a revolution is taking place. You’ll look up one day and the skies will be full of flying robots: pilotless drones or UAVS (Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles) — all programmed to carry out different tasks. There’ll be security drones circling shops, streaming video back to base, Royal Mail drones flying parcels to and fro. Even the birds and bees may not be what they seem. The tiniest drones on the market right now are called MAVs (Micro Air Vehicles) and their designs are inspired by nature. There are robot flies with camera eyes — perfect for corporate espionage; mosquito drones that can inject a payload of poison; hummingbird drones that perch and listen on windowsills.

I first heard the name ‘Dan Jarvis’ on a dance floor at a wedding in Bath. ‘Move like Jagger’ was thumping through the speakers, and most people had given up trying to chat, but I’d been collared by a cavalry officer who was damned if he was going to let disco get in the way of his politics. ‘Not enough soldiers in the Commons,’ he yelled at me, ‘and the ones who are there are a bit flawed. There is one chap though,’ he paused for effect: ‘Jarvis, he’s called Dan Jarvis. A Labour MP, but who cares? He’s a proper soldier. Just what the country needs. Should be prime minister. I’m telling you.’ The glitterball threw a veil of little lights over his military chin.

Do you paint yourself? Or...sing in a choir maybe? John Studzinski looks at me anxiously from the other side of a conference table, in a sleek little office belonging to his firm, Blackstone, the American private equity giant. He’s normally a confident man; outspoken on the subject of leadership, networking and England’s art scene (which he generously props up). But getting him to answer a personal question is like trying to flip a cat on to its back. Every time I think he’s about to reveal the underbelly of a personal life, a hobby or habit, he swivels in the air and lands on safe ground again, discussing the nature of philanthropy or the importance of art. So come on then, John, what do you do for fun? Watercolours? The flute? ‘Well...