Somehow the instruction manual for a new child always gets lost between the maternity ward and home, and they don’t do reprints.

So, you’ve got a baby. Now what?

It took the suicide of the headteacher of Hendon School in North London to get pupils and staff talking about mental health. The terrible event shocked them into dialogue, and two years later a group of more than 30 pupils have organised conferences for other schools and created a mental health app to help fellow students find support.

It’s a new year, so how about a new you?

Most of us are free to move around and do what we like, but is that true for our minds? We tend to associate our thoughts with our sense of self, and according to mindfulness teachings, that is an illusion that leads to suffering.

People will always need medical care, so any job associated with the medical profession is a long-term winning proposition. And doctors like getting paid, so they need people to sort out their billing for them. Medical billing in the United States is a professional job involving medical jargon and a complex system of codes and insurance terms. People familiar with this environment are in high demand and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

How do you speak without opening your mouth? With your hands of course. American Sign Language is a fully-fledged and widely-spoken language consisting of a standardised set of gestures and expressions. It helps to prevent the sign language version of the Tower of Babel, allowing signers worldwide to avoid misunderstanding and confusion. And you don’t have to be deaf to speak it.

What was Edison thinking when he invented the light bulb? Did it occur to him that his bright invention would deprive millions of healthy sleep patterns for the rest of time? Before electrification, we tended to go to bed when it got dark, to avoid the tedium of stumbling into furniture by the feeble light of oil lamps or candles. We pretty much went to sleep when most animals did. Sure, bedtime changed with sunset times throughout the year, but people practiced natural ‘sleep hygiene’. We evolved to function in this way, after all.