I had a much-needed day off recently and decided to visit a few places in London – like the London Library (wonderful) and Westminster Abbey (claustrophobic in its conservativism). I ended up at the Westfield shopping centre at Shepherd’s Bush to meet a friend for dinner before going to a gig, and I had to
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My dislike of advertising grows stronger by the day – partly because of the corrosive and limiting effect it can have on people’s lives, worldviews and aspirations, but also partly because of the insulting, manipulative rubbish that the industry continues to pump out. Take this new McDonald’s ad for example – peddling the idea that
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I’m now a couple of weeks into my new time management regime (as are one or two others who are trying it out) and I’m quite pleased with how it’s going! A few caveats have occurred to me over the last few days on the advice in the previous post though: It’s all about discipline
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One of the most challenging things to deal with in my work life is the number of things there are to do – from the mundane but important stuff to the meaty, interesting and fulfilling stuff. It can be a real challenge to make sure that I’m getting to do a bit of the interesting
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I’ve just been to see AC Grayling talk about Humanism at the Lewes Speakers Festival. It’s reminded me of a point I’ve been thinking about for a while. As religion becomes less of a central force in people’s lives (in the UK at least) there is, for many people, a ‘religion-shaped hole’ in their lives.
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I’m in the process of writing a booklet for our forthcoming ‘Story of Energy’ project at Life Squared, and my suspicions are proving correct – it’s almost impossible to find a simple description of what a real 1 planet lifestyle would look like for the ordinary individual. Fill in a footprint calculator (like Bioregional’s) and
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Good to see this interesting post by Matthew Taylor, Director of the RSA, outlining the value of reflection in our rational decision making processes. One paragraph in particular caught my eye: Instead of ‘nudging’, which seeks to change choice architecture (for example, putting healthier food more easily in reach than unhealthy in canteens), the RSA’s
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It’s bad form I’m sure to put a second consecutive post from the same person but Charlie Brooker does know how to skewer the shallowness and depressing nature of advertising with some humour – certainly better than me ranting angrily about it for several lines! Here is his article about the glut of ’emotional’ xmas
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Great article by Charlie Brooker in today’s Guardian about the repugnant practice of advertising to kids, and how consumerism is finding new ways to enter our lives.
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This interesting article in the New York Times got me thinking again about something I’d been working on a few years ago – the question of how to we can gain the level of change needed to tackle big global issues like global warming and just what role we as individuals can play in this.
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