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/

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.

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/.

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

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

"Actions speak louder than words" is a hackneyed phrase but nowhere is it more applicable than with Alice Rackley and the plastics problem. I really enjoyed to speaking to the CEO of Polytag; a circular economy focused company looking to tackle waste in the realm of packaging. Not only is she a friend, mentor and all-round inspiration but also a force of nature. Beyond plastic packaging we cover modern working, leadership, management, the power of networking, gsd*, and the challenges of being a mother/CEO in 2024. Spoiler alert - Environmental virtue signalling from companies isn't matched by tangible action.

*getting s*%£ done

Richard Feynman once said "If you can't explain something in simple terms, you don't understand it." Simon not only explains challenging topics with simplicity but also throws in a healthy dose of entertainment. I was gripped from start to finish during this conversation and learned a lot. We covered the tyranny of experts, the shortcomings of scientism in complexity and systems thinking, the reduction of education to exam-taking, forthcoming societal challenges, the Dunning-Kruger effect and more. Strap-in at 1x speed to get the most out of this discussion.

Books mentioned:
Thinking in Systems: A Primer - Donella Meadows
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few - James Surowiecki
Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense - Rory Sutherland

Amul Pandya converses with independent, adventurous and sometimes courteous free spirits. Creativity is an act of rebellion. Whether they are entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, investors, chefs, or corporate antagonists, Amul's guests all share a common disposition of not just pushing boundaries but re-drawing landscapes.