Today in 1919, Benito Mussolini founded the Fascist Movement. In this diary rambling, I unpack the meaning and history of Fascism, partly to clear up the appalling misuse of the term "fascist" in today's political discourse, and partly because it's just bloody interesting!

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Is our life constant change? The great Roman poet Ovid, author of the Metamorphoses, seems to think so.

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Thinking aloud about the firing of Rex Tillerson, Putin's rising influence in Western affairs, and what might be my mother's last birthday.

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It's the anniversary of the birth of the philosopher George Berkeley (1685 – 1753), whose central thesis is that there is no such thing as matter and that all we interact with are 'ideas' in the mind of perceivers. This notion is best expressed in his famous maxim "esse est percepi" ("to be is to be perceived").

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Thinking aloud about one of the Great crossroads in our history, the Punic Wars.

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It’s Vivaldi’s birthday! Here’s a brief intro to his most beloved masterpiece, a violin concerto most reminiscent of spring.

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Our lives are made up of decisions, both small, and at times life-altering. In all of these situations, we should be striving to “do the right thing”. In this episode, I share some big decisions I’ve had to make since I found out my mother has brain cancer, and how I managed to work my way through each of these to (hopefully) do the right thing.

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I share a segment from Alain de Botton's School of Life about the problem with smartphones. Not everyone likes it

Patrick and caller Jack discuss the ad hominem fallacy and whether Trump's comments regarding Charlottesville were the right message but from the wrong messenger.

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Today's show - more ruminations on diversity, thoughts on Henry Thoreau's 'Walden' and 'What would it be like to be in a nuclear explosion'?

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