Making things better and making better things

I first heard Mike Garry on his beautiful ode to Anthony H Wilson. You know the one - Saint Anthony. It made Number 1 in the charts. It featured Manchester's finest, it features strings, it was beautiful. At that point I didn't know Mike. I met him a year or two later at one of the best festivals I've been to, The Good Life Experience. I stood and watched as Mike wove emotions and images with words. He started a poem about his son and the tears started with me. I won't tell you why, suffice to say that I missed my son who was off to University. Over the next few years I got to know Mike. He is a lyrical genius. He comes from Manchester and we share a youth. we share a love of the same bands. We share an era. We share a decade-defining movement. we are also both open and vulnerable, but not weak. This podcast is exactly that: open and vulnerable. We talk about Mike's youth in Manchester, caring for his dad, and the chaos of a beautiful big family. I absolutely loved recording it. Mike is a great man and this is a great conversation

Alex Lawrence is a bartender, a drinks brand owner, a rebel, a funny and inspiring man, and he shines so brightly. This conversation swings from his time in a band, rebelling in private school, living in Aberdeen and being a young "trash-bag", moving to work in the World's best bar, mental health and bartending, and ultimately becoming the World's best bartender. He was born in Scotland, raised in Scotland and is totally from London. He talks so beautifully about anger, art and music, his parents and authenticity. Leaving Aberdeen for an initially lonely London. His career began at Dandelyan and it continues there. I'll type no-more. This is a great listen.

This is a belter of a podcast. Sadly marred by poor sound: acoustics, differential volumes of interviewer and interviewee, and some weird distortion. But the conversation is too good not to go out. Lucy is a truly great artist and one of the kindest people i've spent time with. We cover some creative ground and we cover some crunchy ground. Her strength shines through and what she sees in others is beyond the ordinary.

Trigger warning: in the middle of the conversation Lucy mentions something that may trigger some of you. She does so in passing with no detail at all. It floored me and i just about held it together. But if you have experienced sexual violence then maybe this isn't the one for you.

The second part of my conversation with the visionary Jonathan Smales. We pick-up as he left Greenpeace and hatched a plan to build the Earth Centre on an old coalfield in South Yorkshire. Not too far from where Jonathan grew-up.

Jonathon is a leader in sustainability and always has been. One of the heavyweights of sustainability and was there from the start. We met nearly three decades ago and he continues to inspire me and everyone he has contact with. we talk music, fashion, sustainability and so much more. We travel from coal to an old open-cast coal mine in South Yorkshire. Part one of a two-parter.

I love that Gil Scott Heron track “Running”. The one that says “I always feel like running, never away because there’s no such place”. All the way through this talk with Matt of Seven feet apart that track was running through my head. This is a lovely conversation about shoes, making stuff to last, and the benefits of running. Never away, but towards enoughness.

Mills set up Ustwo with his best mate. It's boomed. Mills is a beautiful man. The way he expresses himself, the way he talks, the love that shines from him is unique. This conversation oscillates from weight-loss and strength, to hyperactivity, to yoga, to dyslexia, to shame, to identity, to extremes.

This is a lovely conversation that ebbs and flows from subject to subject. It is very honest, from both of us.

I hope you enjoy it.

Any comments please get in touch.

Sophie Thomas is a designer with a business brain or a business person with a designer's brain - i'm not sure which but it really doesn't matter. She pioneered thinking on circular economy and how designers are the solution to so many things. We also talked about what defines us, how school can lift us or bury us, and how good will always float to the top.

I met Jonathon 20 years ago this year. At about this time. At an incredible building in Austria where the Sound of Music was filmed. Jonathon has lead on sustainability from the beginning. From when the first roots of the "green" movement began to poke through. This shows extraordinary foresight and bravery. He has both. This bravery was supremely evident when he went on anachronistic buffoon Jeremy Clarkson's TV chat show and not only held his own but destroyed Clarkson's arguments. A joy to watch.

We talk about many things including what it feels like now that the world has caught-up with his thinking.

This conversation covers the first part of his career and as we were in danger of a) Having too much of a good time and b) Going on too long; we have arranged to do a second part.

There are some lovely gems in here and Jonathon's warmth radiates through.

I went to school with Graham (or Wiggy as we called him). He was two years younger than me but we usually played in the same rugby team. We both played county rugby and both got trials for Leicester Tigers youth team. One of us got in and the other is me.

12 years on from those trials I played a game of Rugby League for Yorkshire Water against Yorkshire Electricity. My opposite number was the Featherstone Rovers first team centre. I got marmalised. I split my lip in a friendly "cuffing" incident, damaged my hand in a retaliatory incident, and took a kick to the knee. I hobbled home and turned the TV on only to see Wiggy playing for England and shaking hands with my hero Nelson Mandela.

We didn't play in the same team anymore.

I sat and wondered at how far he'd come. I shouldn't have wondered. He was dedicated to this. There was no way he wasn't going to succeed in Rugby. He spanned the professional and amateur eras, he played for Tigers 398 times, played for England 54 times and played for the British and Irish Lions 3 times. He was forwards coach for Tigers, England, the British and Irish Lions and now Georgia. Fierce on the pitch, funny in the changing room, and one of the most humble people I know. I'm proud to have played with him, and to call him my mate. This is a long one, well it would be - it's two old school mates having a chat 32 years after they last played together.