If there are occasions when my grape turned into a raisin and my joy bell lost its resonance, please forgive me. Charge it to my head and not to my heart.

I grew up reading '2000 AD' and the occasional Transformers and GI Joe comic, but when I could finance comics myself, I lasted only a little reading superheroes.

In the deregulated realm of US banking and finance, crime does occasionally pay for its foul deeds, not in prison time but by making modest rebates to the victims.

My family, although they're very large on both my parents' sides, they don't know much about their family tree. Occasionally, they try to dig, but they can't get very far, and it's baffling. In Dublin, it seems that so many public records were wiped out; it's proven to be very difficult, so I know very little.

I got introduced to yoga in drama school. It's now a mainstay in my life, ever since I got instructor certification at a teacher-training intensive. I even occasionally guide an intimate class of friends and family, but mostly the training was to serve and deepen my own practice.

My wife once said that one of her great ambitions was to walk down the streets of Hong Kong with her children. So we all went to Asia on one occasion. Then she said she'd like to walk down the streets of Jerusalem with her children. So we arranged our family finances and all went to Jerusalem.

The things that make me happiest in the whole world are going on the occasional picnic, either with my children or with my partner; big family gatherings; and being able to go to the grocery store - if I can get those things in, I'm doing good.

A family is a unit composed not only of children but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold.

Despite differences of faith or even the occasional collisions between them, Egypt is united.

Without our faith, we wouldn't have been able to succeed. On many occasions, before we'd go out on a sit-in, before we went on the freedom ride, before we marched from Selma to Montgomery, we would sing a song or say a prayer. Without our faith, without the spirit and spiritual bearings and underpinning, we would not have been so successful.

Barack Obama's decision to come out in favour of gay marriage may be a historic occasion, but it is not an isolated one. His administration has been making pro-gay noises for some time; his demographic in the upcoming election is young and educated, precisely the group that favours equality for the LGBT community.

The Moon stabilizes Earth's obliquity. Well, almost. The tilt actually varies between 22 and 24.5 degrees - and the variation is enough to induce such environmental inconveniences as the occasional ice age. Without the Moon, it might be much worse.

The hardest problems of all in law enforcement are those involving a conflict of law and local customs. History has recorded many occasions when the moral sense of a nation produced judicial decisions, such as the 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which required difficult local adjustments.

Generally, occasions like Maundy Thursday and Easter can strictly be family affairs for Christian households. But, while I was growing up in my ancestral home in Ponkunnam in Kottayam district, they weren't so. My late dad was a very cool, affable person who liked to involve our friends and neighbors too in such celebrations.

I have to thank my mother for this. When I was a little boy she used to teach me poems. I would go in church and tell the poems in church for the Easter program, and again for Mother's Day and any occasion she felt would fit. I was very energetic with delivery at that time as a boy, so it stuck with me.

Christ appeared alive on several occasions after the cataclysmic events of that first Easter.

The diet is a twisted, noxious thing, all tortured abstinence and short-term fraud. I speak from bitter experience. As a restaurant critic, I eat to live and live to eat. And having a toxic aversion to exercise, there is little to prevent the inevitable bulging of my gut. Hence the need for the occasional diet.

I get a delivery of a diet food during the week, which doesn't mean that I don't eat the occasional Krispy Kreme doughnut.

My diet has definitely become greener; however, I am a big proponent of everything in moderation. I enjoy having a farm-to-table dinner, as well as indulging in a special, decadent treat on occasion.

I exercise, walk a lot, and break into the occasional trot. I also lift weights three days a week, and I like to read about what makes a good diet. Overall, I do follow a healthy lifestyle.

I always design with the occasion in mind, so I particularly enjoy creating bespoke pieces; it's always an exciting challenge for me creatively.

What people respond to in my room makeovers is the daring design - fearless colors, bold fabrics and occasionally outlandish decor.

We look at life from the back side of the tapestry. And most of the time, what we see is loose threads, tangled knots and the like. But occasionally, God's light shines through the tapestry, and we get a glimpse of the larger design with God weaving together the darks and lights of existence.

In Seattle, I soon found that my radical ideas and aesthetic explorations - ideas and explorations that in Richmond, Virginia, might have gotten me stoned to death with hush puppies - were not only accepted but occasionally applauded.