As people who have been kind enough to follow the pod know, I seek to converse with adventurous, rebellious (and sometimes courteous) free spirits. Not only does my latest guest, Nigel McGilchrist fit this endeavour, but so does the subject of his new book – a biography of ancient Greek polymath Pythagoras*. 

Nigel has dedicated his life to understanding and teaching the ancient world having lived in Italy for over thirty years before moving to Greece in 2008. His twenty-volume travel, art and history guide to seventy Greek islands has morphed my visits from what would have been pleasant holidays into Indiana Jones style adventures (buy a volume, go to the island and see for yourself). 

His book When the Dog Speaks, the Philosopher Listens opened my eyes to how Ionia – a patchwork of landmass in modern day Western Turkey was a melting pot of knowledge in the ancient world from the near and far East to Egypt. To quote Nigel “This is a book not of philosophy, but about how philosophy was born; about what it was like to explore the earliest, and most universal, scientific concepts.”

Not only is it a beautiful book (a word I don’t use lightly) but also one that has given me a fresh perspective on the challenges of modernity. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

*Many of you would have got nervous twitches from suppressed memories of  GCSE maths. Those classes would have been much more interesting if our teachers had read Nigel’s book.

Find out more about Nigel and his work here: https://www.nigelmcgilchrist.com/

This podcast was produced by Matt Cooper with music composed by Loverman.

What do The Queen's Gambit, L.A. Confidential, The Wire, and Chinatown have in common? The baddies are attempting to free ride on other people's hard work through buying land.

For my latest episode, I interviewed Fred Harrison who is an economist of the Georgist School. On a long journey to understanding why living standards are falling in the developed world, to date I've misidentified symptoms as root causes. Such symptoms include overregulation, too much tax and spend, monetary incontinence, and a cultural attitude shifting from frontier-spirited risk taking to declinism.

In my conversation with Fred, he outlines how our malaise was predicted and explained by Henry George in 1879 when his book Progress and Poverty was published. What followed was a global movement of progressivism that horrified the landed classes but was smothered by the scorched-earth approach of Karl Marx's socialism.

Today, landowners are taking an ever growing cut of economic growth leaving only scraps for wage earners and investors. Fred explains how all taxes on wages and capital should be replaced by a land value tax. This would remove distortions and unleash economic activity whilst raising enough revenue and more for our spending needs. I'm looking for someone to convince me otherwise so please listen and get in touch if you have a better idea.

Fred Harrison is a prolific writer (Amazon link) and you can find his latest views on X: https://x.com/geophilos

New intro music courtesy of Loverman (Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6mH930VvONxn76Kqpnixjy)

This podcast was produced by https://www.thisismattcooper.com/

This podcast was produced by Matt Cooper with music composed by Loverman.

It's not often one gets to sit down with a bona fide Renaissance Man. When not restoring vintage furniture in Northern California, Sasha Papadin is a singer, songwriter, DJ, producer, and instrumentalist. He also is one of the most erudite people I know. 

We start our conversation with Sasha's origins, recounting how his father, a poet, evaded national service in the Soviet Union during the 1960's by studying and emulating Schizophrenia. This was followed by learning about Sasha's musical journey (it started by writing a song for a film he produced as a teenager) and a discussion on the broader topic of creativity. We touch on artificial intelligence, spirituality, heroes (Nick Cave and Tom Waits to name two), and the current state of his adopted homeland - California.

What's amazing about speaking to people like Sasha is that you learn something about yourself in the process. I hope our conversation can do something similar for you. You can find Sasha's music on Spotify under the name Loverman:

 https://open.spotify.com/artist/6mH930VvONxn76Kqpnixjy?si=_zHqNnNFTY6fWQyAUyX7Sg.

This podcast was produced by Matt Cooper with music composed by Loverman.

The more reductive amongst us have bucketed autism as a disability and drag on resources. The reality is that it is much more. In one of the most challenging but fulfilling conversations I’ve had since starting the podcast I sat down with Sophie Beeley, author of Raising Daisy, a Substack that draws on her experience as mother to a wonderful girl that was diagnosed with “autism spectrum disorder” at the age of five.

We discussed the numerous battles that the family faced with their local government and educational establishment as well as the broader stigma and perceptions around autism. A one-size-fit all approach to learning at one end and an overdiagnosis of trendy neurodivergence at the other leaves many children and adults unable to access the conditions necessary for them to learn and thrive. 

Perhaps autism is a necessary state of being from an evolutionary standpoint, as demonstrated by the explore-exploit trade-off that bee populations employ. Time will tell but I hope this conversation helps to demystify a topic that affects all of us from at least one degree of separation.

You can find Sophie’s substack, Raising Daisy here: https://raisingdaisy.substack.com/ and watch the full episode on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3eWvDuhxvc.

This podcast was produced by Matt Cooper with music composed by Loverman.

Peter Botting has been an indispensable ally of politicians, c-suite executives, and founders over many years. As the CEO of a FTSE 250 company put it "When it's a big gig. When it really matters, you call for Peter." It was great that he answered my call to come on the podcast as I learned a lot from a career that informed a fascinating discussion on how to make change in the world possible. Whether it's for your next job interview, a fundraising campaign for your charity, for a speech to Parliament, or to win colleagues around to a new initiative, I hope this conversation proves a useful starting point. You can find out more on Peter here: https://peterbotting.co.uk/. Please enjoy the episode.

This podcast was produced by Matt Cooper with music composed by Loverman.

In 2012, Mrs Mkonde borrowed £13 from the MicroLoan Foundation to expand her business (a single tomato stall) to help feed her eight children and pay for their education. She received training and business skills. Today she is an employer with a maize mill and ambitions to fulfil larger orders through warehousing and transportation.

This is one example of over 450,000 female borrowers who have been empowered to reach a family base of 2.3 million people. I sat down to talk to the MicroLoan Foundation's CEO, Medha Wilson, to learn more about microfinance, its scalability and some of its challenges as well as the broader causes of poverty. There is much grandstanding in the West about female empowerment but nowhere have I seen more impact than from the efforts of organisations like the MicroLoan Foundation. I learned a lot from this conversation and hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

You can learn more here: https://www.microloanfoundation.org.uk/

This podcast was produced by Matt Cooper with music composed by Loverman.

From researching for Monty Python to writing crime fiction, Alex Martin’s life has been rich with creativity, adventure, and learning. His experiences frame our discussion which includes how to tackle Shakespeare, the importance of beauty and the soul diminishing impact of ugliness.

Creative writing is a dwindling endeavour. The tik-tokification of entertainment has distracted the focus of many would-be readers. In response or in parallel, the publishing industry has become dominated by accountants obsessed over ROI, leading to consolidation and a formula and scale driven mindset to choosing who to promote and who to ignore. We understand the world through stories and fiction is our primary avenue to discovering truth. As per Taleb:

“Fiction is a certain packaging of the truth, or higher truths. Indeed I find that there is more truth in Proust, albeit it is officially fictional, than in the babbling analyses of the New York Times that give us illusions of understanding what is going on. Newspapers have officially the right facts, but their interpretations are imaginary – and their choice of facts are arbitrary. They lie with right facts; a novelist says the truth with wrong facts.”

Publishers no longer help dedicated writers, obscure or otherwise, find their audience. Instead their focus is on celebrity tourists to the craft from whom revenues are more predictable. As such it was comforting to know that there remains a tribe of creatives, dedicated to observing the world and helping us understand it through their efforts. I especially enjoyed Alex talking about his research into the history of bad behaviour via his Decadent series in the 1990s. Indeed the Decadent CookBook that he co-wrote under the pseudonym of Medlar Lucan and Durien Gray includes delights such as Testicles on Toast. A brief correction from the episode – I incorrectly stated that William Buckland, Dean of Westminster ate the heart of Robespierre. It was of course Louis XIV’s heart that he ingested!

I highly recommend reading Code Name Xenophon, by Alex’s pseudonym Leo Kanaris available here and hope you enjoy the episode as much as we did recording it.

This podcast was produced by Matt Cooper with music composed by Loverman.

In my first episode, Simon Evan-Cook made a prediction that the effects of cuts to social services made years ago will start to manifest themselves with higher crime rates in the coming decade. This latest conversation with Franklin Shillingford gave me faith that there are people on the front line working tirelessly to address this. Frank is Club Leader at Crown & Manor which is situated in Hackney. His team provides much needed mentorship, stability, safety, and real-world skills to the borough’s youth most in need of positive role models. 

I’ve been reading Henry George of late (watch this space). He argues that economic progress brings its own type of poverty which is masked by gentrification and nowhere is this more the case than Hackney. Having grown up in Stoke Newington Frank has dedicated many years of his life in unglamorous service to youth work. Our conversation woke-me up to challenges facing society today and I heard some of the most moving stories of potential being unlocked in kids. Potential that would remain hidden were it not for the work of under-resourced leaders.

It’s rare to meet people who have soul in the game, particularly when the domain is as emotionally testing and unremunerative as youth work. For the rest-of us - out of sight – out of mind is an MO we are all guilty of employing. My conversation with Frank reminded me that we all have a responsibility to the next generation but also gave me hope through tangible case studies that if we dedicate a small amount of our bandwidth to charities such as the Crown and Manor Club life changing benefits can be reaped. I hope you enjoy the podcast as much as we did in making it. 

You can find more information on the Crown and Manor Club here: https://www.crownandmanor.org.uk/.

This podcast was produced by Matt Cooper with music composed by Loverman.

Making new friends gets harder as one ages which makes it all the more joyous when it does happen later in life. It is a privilege to count Matt Cooper as one and I was thrilled to be able to sit down with him and talk about his journey from hobbledehoy to award winning filmmaker and budding writer.

Matt puts his soul into his craft, whether it's filming in Ukraine or South American prisons, writing about creativity and mental health here at home, or as a youth worker in his local community. 

We have a wide ranging conversation including his transition from employee to entrepreneur, the role of the imagination in maintaining a healthy state of mind, and the false dichotomy between science and religion.

Please enjoy the conversation. You can see Matt's work here (https://www.thisismattcooper.com/) or find him on the following platforms:

https://www.instagram.com/mattjamescooper/
https://www.tiktok.com/@thisismattcooper

This podcast was produced by Matt Cooper with music composed by Loverman.

Puritans of old used theology as a tool to proscribe behaviour they disapproved of. Their descendents use statistics. In my latest episode I speak with Chris Snowdon who is head of Lifestyle Economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs. We discuss the law of unintended consequences when it comes to public health measures and some of the spurious justifications provided for their enforcement. Not only is Chris a very thoughtful commentator but also a funny one. Beyond dissecting long term plans to ban tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and unhealthy foods, we try to define populism without much success. We also cover lockdowns, mask mandates, social media addictivity, the Blob, ISIS's tobacco policy and the general quality of our politicians and journalists today. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and learned a lot so hope you do too.

Chris is an author of several books including Velvet Glove, Iron Fist. You can find him on X: @cjsnowdon, https://twitter.com/cjsnowdon

This podcast was produced by Matt Cooper with music composed by Loverman.