Category: City Life
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Turning down the heat
As the temperature rises, how do we step down from hotheaded aggression? I’ve been thinking about the time I spent in the mountains at the end of July, and the connected problems we are experiencing with rising temperatures. You may have seen the photograph that did the rounds a couple of weeks ago where a…
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American Psycho x Middle Class
A very interesting piece the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago. Rachel Monroe documents the story of a wealthy neighbourhood in Arizona that has been terrorised by the ‘Goons’ gang of rampaging, uber-privileged kids… ending with a murder, and seven boys on trial. In south Gilbert, the Goons looked like J. Crew models. “Some…
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AI, limiting complexity and the social contract – some emerging thoughts
Has social media led to a rise in anti-social behaviour? And, if so, does the widespread adoption of AI risk making this worse? Or is a highly-networked society one that will see community capacity deepened? Life has a habit of circling around. The first book I wrote – many, many years ago – was an…
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‘We are beyond crisis; we are in a state of distress’
It’s exactly a year since I finally left teaching. It’s coming up for two years since my debut novel – MIDDLE CLASS – was published (get a copy here). And it’s no surprise to see the headlines about the mental health crisis in schools. This is where the novel takes you: inside a London school,…
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AI vs Car Culture – Fasten your Seatbelts?
Just a typical Friday night in San-Fran. A Waymo driverless taxi stops in the street. A guy jumps on the bonnet and smashes the windscreen. A crowd forms, and cover the car in spray paint, break its windows, and set it on fire. I’ve been thinking a lot about cars as I’ve written God-like my…
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Burning Questions and Political Facades
Against the ravenous tiger of fire, we give the rich a rifle and the poor a feather. In 1971, an engineer at Ford motors called Lou Tubben invited all of his fellow company engineers to a presentation he’d put together about gas-tanks. Driving around with a whole lot of highly flammable liquid is, when you…