Ten years ago, American teenager Oliver Horovitz decided to spend his gap year studying at the University of St Andrews before starting his degree course at Harvard.
Yuval Adler could have been many things. He studied philosophy after army service and went on to study for a PhD at Columbia University. He was also an artist who was good enough to have his work - a mixture of sculpture, installation and video - exhibited in galleries in New York.
As you read this, Andy Jacobs will be in Rio de Janeiro, a stone's throw from the Copacabana beach, trying desperately to appear as though he is not having too good a time. It will be tricky.
David Schneider has tried plenty of things in his career, most with success. He has acted in TV comedy, directed, written for film, stage and radio, performed stand-up and appeared in movies.
There is something mildly thrilling about sitting in the consulting room of a famous psychoanalyst and asking him a few searching questions about how he feels about the success of his recent book and his motivations for writing it.
The most surprising thing about Francesca Segal was that she was in her 30s before she published a novel. Aged three, her imaginary friend was the secretary who would take dictation for her. When she was six, Segal would hand stories she had written over to her father — Erich Segal, the author of Love Story — to take to his publishers.
Felix Posen is passionate about secular Jewish culture. If it is not a contradiction, he is positively evangelical about it. And he has also been prepared to invest more than just time into his interest.
If you believe Richard Young’s account of his own career, he is one of the luckiest photographers around. He tells of how he was working in a bookshop, dabbling in photography, when he obtained a world exclusive by accident.
If you were looking for someone qualified to lead an initiative to improve the standard of education for under-privileged children, Brett Wigdortz would not be that man. At least, 10 years ago he was not that man — he did not have any relevant skills or experience and he was only 28.
