Comment 11 by Linda Ward

If only more people were like Silverman, she is a clear headed thinker.

I can't figure out if this comment is meant to be ironic or not . Either way, it's a catch-22 sort of thing: if more people were like Sarah Silverman, choosing not to reproduce for fear of passing down their type of creative though troubled personality, then there would soon be fewer people like her.

I don't know if anyone here has seen the Mike Judge satire ldiocracy. It takes place in a dystopian future society in which America has become incredibly dumbed-down because over the course of the previous few hundred years clever people stopped breeding. All the smart has been bred out of humanity, and the Hasselhoff/Hilton paradigm has come to dominate.

This does seem to be the way that all society is going. Here in the UK, the same week that saw an unelected posh bird celebrate sixty years of privilege and unimaginable, unearned wealth, also witnessed the return of an inexplicably popular television show in which a group or heroically stupid people are sent into a house where their every lavatory visit, dull-witted conversation, alcohol-fuelled argument and attempt at sexual intimacy will be recorded for posterity.

Clever, creative types must be encouraged to reproduce. Sarah Silverman, start making babies now! Stephen Fry, stop being gay at once and find a nice, fertile Irish girl to settle down with. Oh, all right, I'll volunteer if you insist. Michael McIntire, as you were - probably best if your family line ends with you.