Seasonal memories of Charles Dickens' London lifted from A Christmas Carol somehow let us feel better about ourselves. We look back on less enlightened times and see how far we’ve come. We know the redemptive moral journey to be taken by Ebeneezer Scrooge and how it...
Why is everyone so angry these days, I was asked recently, by an employee of a major high street chemist. I have a theory about this. If a sense of reciprocity is central to our lives as human beings, as the evidence suggests, then the promises made to us by so many...
Gather round for an everyday story of contemporary capitalism. Like the greatest Grimms’ stories, this one covers all the bases of the world it is examining. In this case, our story covers global equity companies, takeovers, possible IPOs , difficulties of getting...
After the general election, I found myself sharing platforms with people who wanted to talk about cross-party co-operation, notably a fascinating debate with Caroline Lucas in Hay-on-Way. More on this another day, I hope. Most of these have been debates about...
One of the best architectural commissions in the world is now on view in a small mountainous region of Austria called the Bregenzerwald. The project involves seven bus stops on the bus routes round the small village of Krumbach (1,000 souls) including stops built by...
“Dinner was announced soon after our arrival, which consisted of the following things,” writes the Rev James Woodforde describing his meal on 20 April 1796, in a diary which – in a very English way – lists the food in great detail but barely mentions God at all. Then...
This pamphlet looks at how the UK is unprepared for a new era of crises and disasters. To illuminate the national predicament we look at lessons from recent history, and what we can learn, often from countries in the Global South, about the kind of local planning required and resources needed to be ready for when storms and other disasters strike near where we live.
