To coincide with Valentine’s Day, an eLearning content provider is offering a free course in Emotional Intelligence for the workplace. Does this mean showering your co-workers with chocolates and teddy bears in the hope that they will like you more? Um, no. Well maybe, but it would be pretty sappy and would probably backfire on you. What this course is about is recognising your own emotions and those of others, acknowledging them, and using that wisdom to defuse conflicts, stop tantrums before they start, and stay cheerful and productive.

Having an ‘ace in the hole’ is a popular expression which means to hold a hidden advantage or secret weapon. It comes from the game of stud poker, a version in which a mix of face-up and face-down cards is dealt at the beginning of a series of betting rounds. The face-down cards are called ‘hole’ cards, and any valuable card that lurks there is called an ‘ace in the hole’.

Many bookshop chains in the United States have a coffee bar where shoppers can read in comfort with a pastry and a skinny latté or caramel macchiato. It’s a pretty good business idea, because even as people are evaluating books and making buying decisions, the store is selling them coffee. For the customer, it beats leafing through books whilst standing in aisles.

Of all the courses there are out there, there’s one in particular that promises to lay the groundwork for achieving what we all desire: happiness. What use, after all, is a degree in Food Science, a diploma in Business Management, or a certificate in Survival Skills if our underlying ‘operating system’ is broken, preventing us from experiencing pleasure or self-actualisation? Surely there is more to life than the acquisition of skills and the creation of wealth?

What do private detectives actually do? Well, they don’t spend all their time solving murders. The police tend to deal with that. In reality what private detectives do is work that the police won’t or can’t do, don’t have time and resources for, have failed at, or are not required to do. PIs are also often employed by people who for various reasons do not want the police to be involved. And they are not all men.

Christmas does not come with a global user manual. There aren’t really any written protocols for what must happen in every country on Christmas Day. There is plenty of variety in how religious or secular the last week of December is, when and how gifts are given, what is eaten, and what traditions are observed. Over the years each country has made up the celebration of Christmas in its own way, created its own iconography and found its own blend of the Pagan and the Christian, the culinary and the playful.