Sometimes we can agree to disagree Do you believe the Earth is flat? Do you believe the world is run by a powerful and malevolent cabal? Do you believe the creation as described in the Bible is literally true? I know people who believe these things. I don’t agree with…

And just because their story is different from yours, it doesn’t make them stupid or evil Earlier this week I was writing an endorsement for Martin Grunburg’s upcoming book, Everything is a F*ing Story, and it had me reflecting, once again, on the importance of the stories we tell ourselves…

Fun with numbers, or something more? A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the human body, and suggested that we get over being embarrassed about our wobbly bits and instead appreciate it for the miracle of bio-engineering that it is. This week I’m diving into what I think is rather misleadingly labelled sacred geometry. Personally…

or Too Few? Elon Musk, Shanna Swan and Jordan Peterson have been talking about population, saying not just that humans can continue to grow in numbers, but that we have to. Musk says that plummeting birth rates are “the single greatest threat to civilisation”, and that we could have twice as many humans…

What might happen if we were projecting love rather than shame into the world? A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a film I’d seen, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, starring Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack. In this press conference at the Berlin Film Festival, Emma Thompson talks about…

Thoughts on the US Abortion Ruling While women (and many men) across the world are reacting to the US Supreme Court’s decision to end the constitutional right to abortion, I’m confused as to what is going on here, and why. Is this decision political? Ideological? Eugenic? Technocratic? I share some thoughts and further questions here, and…

A smorgasbord of literary and other delights Switching gears this week — rather than an in-depth review and musings around a book I’ve read recently, I’m going to let you know which books I’m currently reading so you can read along too, if you so wish. …

Is lowering people’s expectations really the way to go? Apparently the UK has a “social mobility tsar”, and she seems to think that people at the bottom of the ladder should lower their expectations. This seems rather defeatist to me. It’s true that disappointment lies in the gap between reality…

Dystopian Fiction or Dystopian Fact? Even though Stephen Fry reads every audiobook like it’s a bedtime story, even his mellifluous tones can’t conceal what an utterly depressing book George Orwell’s 1984 is. I last read it in, well, 1984. …