Existential questions and women intersect consistently. How to be happy? How to work, or live better? How do women think? How do men think? How can we learn about the sexes? The posts on this blog are full of ideas.
I am, as those who know me will attest, no guru. But people seem to find my thoughts on happiness, how live better and gender issues, interesting. The following posts are in rough order of publication; the earliest two, on gender issues, were published in the Financial Times.
- Sex, alcohol, people: what makes you happy?
- 10 rules on how to work better: my father’s list, part 2
- Trollope on the sexes – and the “railway sandwich”
- Appreciating the Cloud Appreciation Society (you may want to join)
- Being happy: Paranoid and Bachelor Boy
- How to stay sane: never take yourself too seriously (life lessons from Deep Purple)
- “Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but…” – three quotations
- The health benefits of Martinis
Maintaining a sense of wonder is good for the spirit
- 50 Shades: 5 reasons it’s a masterpiece, 5 reasons I hate it (what “50 shades” tells us about men, women and relationships)
- W.Somerset Maugham on sex, turnips and the meaning of life (my most popular blog of 2019)
- “Prep”: is this how women think? 7/10 (a popular blog for its discussion of “how women think?”
- How to be understood: 7 tips (how native English speakers shouldn’t speak)
- Trollope vs Black Panther: life lessons
- The Simpson: Trash of the Titans (when democracy goes wrong)
- The Laughing Halibut (when relationships go wrong)
- The Overton Window and social media manipulation: how worried should we be? (are we already living in 1984?)
- The one with the links to happiness
- Central European melancholy 10/10 – sometimes it’s good to be sad
- How to increase your attention span
- How men think? Part 2: Lucky Jim
- Transience and Fat Llama – it is not always good to own things
- Wonder Woman and Wartime Moral Confusion – Hollywood doesn’t get wars
- Happiness and small victories
- Women in fiction: Atomic Blonde and Blood Summit
- Things are getting better. Not worse.
- Nine questions about the Alan Clark Diaries – can one admire a bad person?
- The Simpsons – existential, circular fantasy – “Brick Like Me”
- 11 Ways to smartphone detox
- Tuchman’s Law (or “Always look on the bright side?”) – things are better than they seem
- How to be happy: 11 simple tools
- Museum of Innocence: how men think? – “How men think” looks quite depressing, if Orhan Pamuk is right
- Museum of Innocence: a slow-burning, textured revelation – one of the best museums in the world
- How to work better: 10 rules? Or not? – my father’s rules
- James Bond’s Spectre: another reason to miss it? Women
- DON’T PANIC: a communications masterclass 10/10
- Trollope: 11 reasons to read him – all of life is here
- Red London buses and the meaning of life
- Read this now – before you waste more of your precious life
- What do Peter Pan and Steve Jobs have in common?
- Why wealth and creativity can’t mix
- 7 ways to explain the meaning of life
- Where the wall came down
- Behind every great woman… – what’s it like being the husband of a powerful woman?
- From Herr to Maternity – how men treat men who look after children
I’d welcome your thoughts. If you enjoy fresh, original writing, feel free to friend me on Facebook or sign up for e-mail updates when I publish my weekly posts (top right – the “click here” blue button). If you would prefer a monthly update, join my mailing list. You can explore the range of writing on this site via my five pleasure paths.
To finish off the page, here’s a picture of me at a happy moment. The posts above help explain why…
P.S. If you would like to have a look at my other writing, my most recent books are here.
P.P.S. If you enjoy fresh, original writing join my mailing list – I’ll be delighted to give you a free “Hotel Story” to say thanks.