Unlike more recent geniuses, the old masters of painting did not work alone. They had plenty of staff working in their studios to help prepare paints and do menial tasks and learn while watching. Leonardo da Vinci's studio was set up this way.

The Prado Museum in Madrid has rediscovered what it believes to be a copy of Leonardo's Mona Lisa painted at roughly the same time as Leonardo was creating his iconic masterpiece.

As Britain prepares to mark Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee in June there will be many comparative studies to mark the changes to the country over the last 60 years but none is likely to match the power of the survey published today by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. The CIPD is an international association for HR professionals and compiles statistics for its members.

In stark and unsentimental numbers it looks at British work life early in the Queen's reign and today.

The total number of Britons in work has risen from 23 million in 1959 to 29 million today. Sounds good. But breaking the numbers down further things aren't quite so rosy.

In 1959, 96 percent of working age men were employed. Only 4 percent worked part-time. Today, 75 percent of working age men are employed, 26 percent of them part-time.

The 30th anniversary of the start of the Falkland war is just two and a bit months away. Most of the time this sort of anniversary sees old foes extending the hand of - if not friendship - at least respect and honor for the dead.

But not this time. As I blogged two weeks ago, the leaders of the two countries, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Argentine President Christina Kerchner were involved in some nasty rhetoric.

Now, the nastiness is escalating. Kerchner has arranged with neighbor Mercosur countries in South America to impose a ban on all Falklands flagged boats landing on the continent.

David Lammy is a young star in the Labour Party. He served as higher education minister in Gordon Brown's cabinet.

He did not come to prominence the easy way. Of Afro-Caribbean heritage, he was brought up by a single mother on a council estate (housing project) in one of London's poorest neighborhoods: Tottenham. He gained scholarships from secondary school through his Master's at Harvard before getting into politics and being elected to represent Tottenham in Parliament at the age of 27.

Lammy returned to prominence this summer when his constituency went up in flames during the first days of rioting that engulfed London and other cities around the UK. He was credited for bringing the temperature down.

Now he has created a stir by saying that a breakdown of parental discipline because of laws passed on how physical parents can be in disciplining children may have had something to do with the riots. The 2004 "Children's Act" specifically states that parents can smack their children - but without "reddening of the skin."