It's particularly important to keep smiling this summer. If you believe what some scaremongers say: that terrorists lurk in every corner, war is about to break out with every tin-pot dictatorship on the planet, the stock market is going to implode, house prices are going to crumble, mutant GM crops are going to take over the world and American fraudsters have spent your pension. It's all "speculation". Here's my advice: forget it. Stop worrying. It won't make a scrap of difference to the fate of nations whether you lie awake all night, but it will have a major impact on your health.

If you stay positive and keep smiling, you'll have the best chance of dealing easily with everything life - or Saddam Hussein, or Wall Street, or all the rest of them - throws at you.