"For example in English we have made sure we include black poets and in history we have black history month. Several papers reported that I was doing Celebrity Big Brother. I issued a press statement immediately saying those reports were untrue, but no one paid any attention. That's what my life's been like for the last two years.Which alternative remedy, if any, do you consider absolute rubbish?Katie Jones, by e-mailThere are many that are rubbish, especially some health supplements, which are made up mainly of chalk.

They are impossible to digest and don't do you any good.How much chocolate can you eat in one sitting? Jo Kirkby, KnaresboroughI'm a complete pig. I can go out and buy six or eight chocolate bars and they can be gone in two to three minutes. I like Dime bars, Flake and anything with caramel in the middle - that is my orgasmic favourite. And then I'm so sick that I don't do it again for nine months My other weakness used to be trying to rescue people. People don't always want rescuing and so I've learnt in the last five years to stop doing it.The last few years have been turbulent for you.

What advice are you giving yourself for 2005? Helen Grove, CoventryWhen you go through something like I have, you can become very closed, very cynical People tell me not to be so trusting. So, this year, I need to get the balance between being who I've always been and being silly.'LifeSmart: Get the Facts, Follow the Steps, Feel the Difference' by Carole Caplin is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, price £16.99. It not only walked with the dinosaurs, it ate them. The beast in question was a dog-sized mammal that lived more than 130 million years ago when dinosaurs were supposed to have no serious competition as land-based predators It not only walked with the dinosaurs, it ate them. Although it does not closely resemble any mammal living today, Repenomamus grew to more than 3ft long and weighed up to 30lb.The discovery upsets the conventional view, which sees early mammals as small, shrew-like creatures that fed on insects and that they were only able to grow more formidable once the dinosaurs had become almost instinct."This new evidence of larger size and predatory, carnivorous behaviour in early mammals is giving us a drastically new picture of many of the animals that lived in the age of the dinosaurs," Dr Jin said.The last meal of Repenomamus was a juvenile psittacosaurus or "parrot lizard".Wear marks on its teeth showed that it was not an embryo, which ruled out the idea that Repenomamus had raided a nest. Some of the psittacosaur's bones were still connected, suggesting that Repenomamus had swallowed the young dinosaurs in chunks.. The Mayor of London has intervened to back Richard Desmond in his feud with the owners of the Evening Standard over launching a new free newspaper for London.

It has also applied techniques known to succeed with all students - such as regular progress checks with a senior member of staff - and applied them intensively to black students in danger of underachieving. "We regret having to withdraw provision we had introduced - it is yet another loss of services to rural areas." Other colleges, such as Colchester Institute, have had to cut the number of places they provide for mature students in favour of young people. Colchester expects hundreds of full-time places will go.When Labour was elected in 1997, it signalled a wholly welcome new emphasis on lifelong learning. After 2003's dismal showing, a number of initiatives were introduced, and by last summer results had leapt to 28 per cent, according to the figures.This is a massive improvement, although still below the national average of 53.7 per cent, for a borough that was until recently considered one of the worst education authorities in the country This year's results were the best in the borough's history. Most recently, Diane Abbott, the Left-wing Labour MP, caused a furore when she rejected comprehensives in her Hackney constituency, opting instead to send her son to the £10,000-a-year City of London boys' school.