There are many wonderful things about growing older, but one key aspect is following the happiness mantra of only doing what you love (waking up with the sun, enjoying plenty of coffee, devouring newspapers) and doing less (or none) of the things you dislike (setting the alarm, catching the tube, corporate politics). When I left…

Ironic after last week’s post to now be writing from the Sentient Futures Conference at UCL in London. Sitting on a sunny, warm bench after the first two talks of the day, I already feel I am witnessing a phenomenal shift in our world. I’m in academic heaven. Feeling part of something that is intellectually…

“You should watch this documentary if you want to understand, but I won’t be watching it with you”. These were the words from one of my closest friends who with inexplicable pain lost his daughter to suicide five years ago. I watched the film on Channel 4, and now write about it, because it is…

Languages fascinate me. Probably because I can only speak one fluently (and a smattering of two others) when there are, amazingly, 6500 different languages in the world. Linguistics is another specialist field for the Anthropologist, studying how they are formed, how we use them in our everyday lives, and how they shape us. Think “brummy”…

Yes, I also want to congratulate David Attenborough on his special birthday today and personally thank him, along with all the teams supporting him, for the hundreds of hours of stunning footage of the natural world. I’m thick into reading about the ‘Natural World’ at the moment in preparation for my Master’s dissertation. I am…

Today is EARTH DAY. This year’s Earth Day Theme is “Our Power Our Planet”. Emphasising that it is people power, not only Government power, that can save our planet from the effects of climate change. This feels like a ‘big ask’ at the moment. When people and their communities, all over the world, feel ravaged…

This is a question I asked myself today, after opening my blog for the first time in 11 months. I would love to report that I have been on a world tour or something similar, but the truth is far less glamorous. For the last 7 months, bar a spot of Camel Wrestling (which itself…

I remember a long time ago. I was living in Istanbul at the time, asking my friend, the fabulous Robert, whether I looked any slimmer after losing a few kilos in weight. It only takes Robert a fleeting look to catch: what you are wearing, the source of each item and tuck away mental notes…

Writers on the subject of friendship say that there are three types of friends: reason, season and 4am friends, and those friendships are critical to both our mental and physical wellbeing. Friendship is another thing that you can ponder, when you have a breathing space from: work strategies, constant meetings and the email overload. They…