A Riot On My Own
This week I’ve been to Paris, the scene of some continuing shocking civil unrest, much of it starting with school students with a number of grievances and quickly spreading to […]
The Storyteller And The Retailer
We are, as the award-winning novelist Elif Shafak reminded us this week at Future Forum UK, a story species: a story-telling, a story-feeling species, a story-making species. Stories shape us […]
I’m A Believer
HERDspotting in the changing room There are times when two sets of beliefs about how the world works collide. When someone says something that seems to make eminent sense yet clashes entirely with your […]
Men In Black
The last few weeks have seen two groups of British citizens don crisp new uniforms. First there are the schoolboys and schoolgirls, back from the summer break and clothed in […]
Semmelweis Syndrome
It’s that time of year when many organisations – still grappling with the vicissitudes of delivering the current plan – turn to strategising next year’s activity. It’s less the season […]
The Squiggle Lives On
We all recognise it: the international sign for “can I have the bill please?”. A mime of signing a piece of paper1], made across a noisy restaurant or bar: a […]
Everybody Dance Now
So there you are, on the last weekend of the long, long summer. Enjoying a quiet pint in the sun, outside some rural pub. And then you hear it. The […]
HERDspotting At The Turning Point
These are the inbetween days. The days between the long, hot summer, the unnaturally long, hot summer we’ve sweated through this year, and the autumn that the poetic souls long […]
Geese
Our resident columnist Mark Earls explores the rapid rise-and-rise of Brooklyn rockers, Geese: how talent and luck inevitably had their part to play and also how people follow other people […]
Dobby’s Grave (And What It Tells Us About Ourselves)
There’s a beautiful beach on the wild coast of Pembrokeshire: Freshwater West. It’s got all of what you’d want from the West Walian coast: huge skies, clean water (rated “excellent” […]