Six of the Best 903

"Take the train that derailed at Hatfield on 17 October 2000, a tragedy in which four people died. That led to huge media interest, massive upheaval on the railways, and, ultimately, as the renationalisation of Railtrack, whose failings had caused the crash. Yet more than twice as many people will have died on the roads that day. Nothing was written about those deaths." Chris Sharp asks why the government has accepted that it’s OK to kill or be killed on our roads.

Patrick Kidd experiences Christmas.in prison and meets the Revd Jonathan Aitken's in his new career as a chaplain.

"The reason some people got their collective knickers in a twist about Stormzy, and the BBC’s A Christmas Carol and Worzel Gummidge is because they are either ignorant or prejudiced, or both." Drew Gray on race and Christmas TV.

"Perhaps, for you, it was way back on the first day of the Premier League season that the doubts set in, when Raheem Sterling’s armpit was deemed offside in Manchester City’s game against West Ham." Rory Smith dissects the VAR system.

Bob Fischer celebrates the reissue of Usborne's book on ghosts.

Nicholas Whyte reminds us that the mother of Captain von Trapp's children was English. (Lord Bonkers adds: If she had lived they would have gone to boarding school and not been cavortin' round the Alps dressed in old curtains.)