We are individuals, each our own person in various ways. We perceive pain differently. What may be agony to one person is, for another, a tolerable discomfort to be conquered.

While I do some cycling for exercise, I look at what the riders on each year’s version of the Tour de France endure (2,000+ miles over 23 days; sprints at 50-60 MPH mixed with endless rides up the mountains of the Alps and the Pyrenees) and I simply don’t see how they do it.

We have different tolerances for alcohol, noise, crowds, disorder. This is all part of what makes us a species with remarkably varied levels of tolerance.

Today, when checking the news wires, I was struck by another area in which we seemingly have vast differences in taste and tolerance – the level at which we judge someone to be a stark-raving lunatic.