Six of the Best 409

"As the gap between Americans widens, the bonds that hold society together weaken. So, too, as more and more people lose faith in a system that seems inexorably stacked against them, and the 1 percent ascend to ever more distant heights, this vital element of our institutions and our way of life is eroding." Joseph Stiglitz, in the New York Times, looks at the importance of trust to society and economy and at how it is declining in modern-day America.

George Campbell Gosling looks at the extraordinary career of the pioneering woman doctor Cicely Williams.

Cllr Fraser Macpherson attends the unveiling of a memorial to the 59 victims of the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879.

"What no one now remembers is that ITV's Christmas programmes in 1977 were so unappetising that, when the schedules had been announced a few weeks earlier, several advertising agencies complained that they would have no audience for their commercials." Joe Moran discusses the heyday of the BBC's Morecambe and Wise.

Mental Floss introduces us to 12 old words that have survived as fossils in idiomatic expressions.

Piers Morgan was not brave to take on Brett Lee: he was idiotic and he was lucky that he did not get seriously hurt, says Peter Miller on Cricket Stats.