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“It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him.” I have never really understood the English class system. I’m English. Very English. I nodded to myself when Hugh Grant said we’re born one gin-and-tonic below par. And we all swim in this sea of class consciousness, whatever we might like to say about it being a relic of the past. For all we ignore it and pretend otherwise, it makes a massive difference to almost everything experienced by anyone, like me, who comes from a very obvious long-standing English background....

If you like, feel free to abandon this post and read this instead: Beyond Elon Don’t worry, the title is basically clickbait, but the essay itself is very good, and says what I’d like to say myself, very well. If you’re still here, or have come back … When I was at school, the teachers loved me. I was the kind of child they went into the career for. I came from nowhere, a family with no expectations that had nobody with a university background, and I picked up pretty much everything effortlessly....

I regularly mention, when talking about other things, that I am a great believer in “the wisdom of crowds” and democracy in the absolute. And people are regularly baffled. What, I see all the idiots around, and what they vote for, and how all around people say stupid things and are mean and terrible, and wrong … and I think that’s a good thing? I do think it’s a good thing....

Everybody knows you shouldn’t only eat what you like. Whatever it is that you like best, a varied diet is better for you than just that thing, however healthy it may be. Some of the necessary things seem pointless or borderline harmful. Roughage, for example, goes right through you and you get nothing from it. There is strong evidence that some things that are mildly toxic prime your body in useful ways, not to mention that some elements that would be poisonous in large doses are vital in trace quantities....

We’re all tired of takes on working from home, back to the office, and remote working, aren’t we? So now seems a good time to bore everybody even more with my thoughts after four years of exclusively remote working. Remote working works Here I am. I’ve worked from home for four years, and business has been good. Satisfaction levels have been high all round, mine and the clients’. I’ve also worked for long stretches from different time zones far afield....

Right now feels like an excellent time for any British citizen who cares about the direction of the UK to join the Conservative Party. Wait, don’t go, I know how that sounds, considering “right now” is April 2024, and everybody in the UK hates Tories and wishes they’d go away. And yes, it feels very important to spell out that this is April 2024, because this take will date very fast and won’t apply in a year’s time at most....

We are shaped by our experiences more than most of us like to think. And I grew up religious. For all of my formative years, and quite a way into adulthood, religion was the dominant force in my life. So a very big part of how I look at the world has been formed by that. I see religion everywhere. It’s all religion. Especially the parts full of people who would look at me strangely for insisting on this, because religion is alien to them and they don’t understand it at all....

We get the leaders we deserve. Partly because we accept as unstated fact that we need leaders. The people who think it’s important that someone is in charge, are, oddly enough, the ones in charge. The rest of us aren’t so bothered, so we aren’t. And consequently we don’t get to push the point that maybe it’s OK to have less leadership, because we aren’t responsible for the conversation. For some years now, I’ve been quite visible online....