Understanding and challenging the attention economy In a letter to Joë Bousquet, the French philosopher Simone Weil wrote, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity”. At the time, April 1942, there was no such thing as an ‘attention economy’. In the grip of war, attentions and economies were focused on the fulfilment of…
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Would you rather…?
Another day, another climate talk – Part 2 It’s 3.45 in the morning and I’m awake. Outside I can hear the rain, the incessant rain. Was it the rain that woke me? Yesterday, on my way home I saw the river had broken its banks again. I’d been visiting a friend who was about to…
Musings on a soufflé dish or Why Capitalism has no space for love
This Christmas holiday I plan to make a soufflé. Not just any old soufflé, but what is probably the best pudding I have ever eaten, which was made by my dear friend Cya at the last dinner party I had a week before the first lockdown in March. (Recipe at the end of this post)…
No more business as usual – Rethinking economic value for a post-Covid world
“No economic interest, under no circumstance, can be above the reverence of life.” – Manfred Max-Neef, Chilean economist, 1932 -2019 A national conversation has begun which is alarming, yet also familiar. It talks about costs and trade-offs, losses and accounts. It is a conversation about human lives framed in the language of economics. A recent…
A licence to print money
“As people we have a right to make credit and loan money. We mustn’t forget that. We mustn’t leave that to corporations and the state.” Duncan McCann, New Economics Foundation These last few weeks I have been deeply moved by the outpouring of kindness and generosity in my local community and in communities around the…
Playing for our lives
One sunny afternoon a few years ago, my then 9-year-old son uttered those words every parent or carer will be familiar with: “Mum, I am bored.” I gave him my usual response: “Go outside and find someone to play with.” He went out and returned five minutes later: “There is nobody out there.” I looked…
Six Steps back to the Land
In Britain, over 20% of us are now considered obese, 40 % of our food is imported (with serious implications for food security and sovereignty), youth unemployment is at 14.4% and social isolation is on the increase. What bright idea might offer a solution to these seemingly unrelated issues? The answer according to Colin Tudge,…
To never be forgotten
“He could reconstruct all his dreams, all his fancies. Two or three times he had reconstructed an entire day. He told me: I have more memories in myself alone than all men have had since the world was a world.” Funes the Memorious – Jorge Luis Borges 1942 ~~~ I am holding a photograph of…
Some Small Holding 