Beyond the basement

After a funny couple of weeks, Chris clambours into a ditch to cheer himself up - in search of a disused mine. No coal to report, but irreverent insight abounds in this episode all about how every challenge is relative, and just as valid as any other. And if anyone who ever tells you to 'pull yourself together' or 'it could be worse', tell them to get lost - ideally down an long dark hole.

Ever notice things seem to happen in cycles - moods, motivation, action, rest and rumination? It's almost as if humans are part of some vast, natural, seasonal system where everything is influenced by everything else around it. Or am I talking complete tosh again. And is this just another aimless rant about the time my neighbour slaughtered a wildflower patch to store some bins? Listen to find out. For more about what inspired this episode, read Jen Carrington's excellent article about intentional

Join me, on a voyage into unchartered territory - pushing the boundaries of technology and communication, on a quest to add a text box and a button to my website. Bear witness as this human being, like many others before him, takes the problem way too seriously, overcomplicates things, and loses all perspective on the situation. Time for a bit of space, maybe?

Two little urchins at an inner city college are about to tear strips out of each other, until a wise, kindly, yet grossly under-trained classroom assistant steps in and does very little. Crisis averted? Let's find out. Maybe we can squeeze something insightful out of this...

The last thing we need from lockdown is more podcasts by middle-aged white men; said some plonker on the Twitters I've never met, yet whose opinion I decided to heed. Isn't it funny how we let off-hand remarks like this (regardless of who made them) influence the course of our lives? That's the story behind this short public rebuttal. Yes, they're probably correct, but why do we, and should we ever pay attention to naysayers? I didn't, that's why you're listening to another podcast by a middle-aged

An old man speaks on BBC Radio 6Music. He sounds wrought, his cockney tones lacerated with vocal fry and weariness. He sounds familiar yet distant. A voice speaking of and from my past. I recognise it, and all at once, Phil Collins becomes the harbinger of death. This jovial, pinball-headed drummer assumes the form of the human condition — mortality itself, squaring up to me, eyeball-to-eyeball, toe-to-toe, sizing me up for the fight of my

Welcome to the epicentre of creativity and self-destruction in West Yorkshire. A sheltered spot for private human indlugence, just a stone's throw from civilisation.