It's award season in the book world and Will has one he would like to give out to a book reviewer.

This episode, thoughts turn towards political correctness and context. Who are the guardians of morality? When is the right time to discuss tough subjects? How can we use comedy to make a serious point? And why is there not a wanky writers' association?

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On the publication day of Will's new novel, Kill Them With Kindness, he talks about tolerance and intolerance. How a specific tomato can change its sex and how Pope Francis was right about the world.

Lot's of topics are covered in this episode after having a short break: The 1995 Rugby World Cup, the Suffragette movement, civil rights and the joys of attending an all-boys school.

Take a trip through time as we discover why the first picture of lightning tells us just how grateful we all should be and why we should try to do a little more than we do.

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An accidental cross-country running champion and pre-school iPad screen time lead Will on a voyage to California where he is watching Joni Mitchell in concert, meeting with film executives and finding out how he can get himself a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. All while asking the simple question: are we getting what we deserve?

It's time to talk about nothing important.

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Will inadvertently plugs his new book, Kill Them With Kindness, while discussing the pandemic, his fear of death, and love for Warren Zeavon and Nick Cave.

He also shares the opening chapter to a half-novel he wrote years ago about a boy who dies for one day every year on his birthday.

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Will celebrates the birthdays of Burt Bacharach, Homer Simpson and Dorothy Hodgkin, while examining our growing need for external validation.

Add in some Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King and the John Birch Society, and you get the usual mess of topics that eventually come around to the simple fact that what the world needs, now, is love, sweet love.

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Another bonus episode. This time, Will talks about his time working in a cinema before reading his short story, Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Hellbound, Flesh-Eating Sub-humanoid Zombified Living Dead 

Part 2 - in Shocking 2-D.

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In part two of this episode, Will delves a little deeper into those buzzwords mentioned in part one. How they are misused. How they are there to help us understand things rather than make them our identity.

There's talk of mental health and art and resilience and adapting ourselves to the world.

If you find certain subjects triggering, this isn't the podcast for you.

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Privilege. Talent. Mistaking feelings for facts. This is the first in a two-part episode.

A'ja Wilson - basketball superstar - was caught on video saying that one of her opponents made it as a professional due to her privilege. Will dives into the different ways in which human beings can consider their privileges and the privileges of others. How hard work and luck can play a part in success. And how A'ja should not have said what she said but that she probably had no choice but to think it.

This episode lays the groundwork for the subject of mental fragility that will be explored in the second part.

Get this in first. As always, the discussion is not going to go where you think it will.....

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What is wealth? Is it how much money you have in the bank or how many stocks you own, or is it the time you give towards your family or your passion?

This started as an episode about money and ended as an episode about patience and the true meaning of wealth.

(Some of these ideas were inspired by The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel, which is highly recommended, and not just for those interested in investing.)

There's also some talk of Vonnegut, Heller and the usual dash of publishing hell. (All with a tongue firmly in the cheek.)

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