A few years ago, I made an annoying discovery in my Spotify ‘year in review’ email: I’d listened to just two albums. Even worse, I already owned both of them on CD. That meant I’d paid £120 to rent them. Possibly the artists (Skunk Anansie and Queensrÿche) got
A couple of years ago, I started writing an essay on how to avoid outliving your money. Being the sort of weirdo who enjoys researching pensions, I rated my chances of making some sensible suggestions. But the more I dug, the murkier it became. I quickly concluded that for most
Like many authors, Mason Currey created a newsletter on Substack, back in 2022 when it was an idealistic startup. Like many authors, Currey also felt uncomfortable about essentially asking for money, especially from people who’d already bought his books. A post explaining his rationale landed well with fellow creatives
I was reminded recently of a friend's experience in the local bakery. Friend: I'd like two Belgian buns, please. Assistant (screwing up her face with incomprehension): Eh? What are they? Friend: Those buns with the icing and the cherry on top. Assistant: Why didn't
"Humans, I sense, just don't have the capacity for so much foresight," (p.1) writes Sarah Wilson in I Eat the Stars. That lack of foresight is why we find ourselves in this pickle. By "pickle," I mean climate collapse. Wilson's debut
In the depths of yet another a mid-life crisis, I’m experimenting with a financial planning app. Having rummaged for pension statements and tangled with the government website, I’m rewarded with a prediction: my life expectancy is 87. At first, I am pleased — that’s almost four decades
You need to look hard these days for a politician whose campaign doesn’t rely on infinite growth, or a tech CEO who doesn’t claim to have invented a perpetual motion machine. Physics – specifically the laws of thermodynamics – rarely enters the debate. Yet entropy represents an uncomfortable truth: many