Shows
Meeting People#25 David Cornell: The Greatest Survival Story Ever Told | Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic JourneyIn May 1916 three men caked in blood, dirt, blisters, and sweat arrived at the Stromness Whaling Station on South Georgia Island in the Atlantic Ocean suffering from severe exhaustion. They had endured a journey both by boat and on foot from Antarctica that was harrowing and miraculous in equal measure. In charge of the three men was Sir Ernest Shackleton, one of history’s most famous explorers and leaders. In my latest conversation I discuss what is known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration with David Cornell. In 2009 David went to the South Pole a hu...
2025-12-171h 05Meeting People#24: Dr Eamonn Butler: Rescuing a rotten Britain, schools of economic thought, a case for optimismDr Eamonn Butler is the co-founder of the Adam Smith Institute and has dedicated decades of service in spreading economic freedom. He is the author of several books including 'Foundations of a Free Society', 'The Condensed Wealth of Nations', and 'The Best Book on the Market'. Our conversation includes his latest book "An Introduction to Schools of Economic Thought". We also coverhis return to Britain to advise the Thatcher administration on market reforms having done so in 1970s for the US House of Representatives.If you've been unsure of how to distinguish between your Adam...
2025-09-251h 19Meeting People#23 Rosina Dorelli: Make Education Great Again through Leonardo da VinciRosina Dorelli is Making Education Great Again. Why? Because schools are failing our children by crushing their sense of wonder through standardised testing and mindless clerical work. “Teaching to the exam” won’t cut it in the 21st Century. As a mother, artist, entrepreneur, and teacher Rosina describes Creativity as a human right. To champion this she is the founder of the Biophilic Education Alliance and creator of a new schools curriculum inspired by Leonardo da Vinci. In my most important conversation to date, we discussed her take on what’s wrong with the education system, bo...
2025-09-091h 46Meeting People#22 James Baxter-Derrington: The Bitcoin debate, legacy media, AI and prosperity in the ArtsJames Baxter-Derrington is a writer, journalist, cricket fan and Investment Editor at The Telegraph. Our discussion began with his notorious article arguing that Bitcoin is worthless before evolving into a broader conversation on Value. We also talked about the role of legacy media in the face of online platforms, podcasts and citizen journalism. I asked James how to get Britain and the West out if its current malaise and on topic after topic his thoughtful responses made this one of my favourite conversations to date.You can find James's articles at the Telegraph here or on X...
2025-08-121h 56Meeting People#21 Shoaib Akhtar: The Battle for Britain's Financial SoulIt took the humiliation of enemy ships raiding the Medway River in Kent to shake the political establishment into urgency in June 1667. During the Second Anglo-Dutch War, Britain* realised that in order stand a chance against its enemy it had to replicate the Dutch ability to source low cost financing. Ship building was expensive and time consuming after all. Thus the City of London was born.Do we need another Medway humiliation to shake us out of our stupor or can that be avoided? For my latest episode, I sat down with Shoaib Ak...
2025-07-1753 minMeeting People#20 Revd Prebendary Dr Isabelle Hamley - Spirituality, meaning, justice, and the Church of EnglandIsabelle was previously chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury and now serves as Principal at Ridley Hall a theological college in Cambridge. We discuss the meaning of justice and mercy, the pursuit of purpose for mental health, and what can be learned from old stories such as the Book of Judges and the Book of Ruth.We also touch on some of the potential failings of the Anglican church but also a tentative Gen-Z revival in Sunday attendance.Isabelle has worked as a probation officer and is an ambassador for Sanctuary Mental Health U...
2025-06-161h 18Meeting People#19 Kristian Niemitz: Free markets, NIMBYs, British stagnation, colonialism and the NHSDr Kristian Niemitz is Head of Political Economy at the Institute of Economic Affairs. Our conversation covered his many works including "Socialism: the failed idea that never dies", "Imperial Measurement: a cost-benefit analysis of western colonialism" and "Universal Healthcare without the NHS". We discussed his journey from "teenage Commie" to classical liberal, why Britain is stagnating and what to do about it, the battle of ideas more broadly, religious influences on economics, socialism's cultural dominance, the failure of politicians to implement good policy, and whether Javier Milei is an exception to this.Like many good G...
2025-05-092h 00Meeting People#18 Health Beyond Medicine: Professor Paul Crawford's Interdisciplinary RevolutionPaul Crawford is the pioneer and world's first professor of Health Humanities. Our conversation covered his years of work on how creative practices can enhance well-being in and out of the clinic. Alongside his academic work, he's also an entertaining fiction writer. His second novel, The Wonders of Doctor Bent is out this week. Without wishing to sound dramatic, I was inspired to learn about his writing practices and was moved by the impact this field has made in the health and wellbeing of patients in recent years. The scope for further impact is great an...
2025-03-261h 38Meeting People#17 Robert Tombs: Learning from history, greatness, academic inertia and moreProfessor Robert Tombs is one of the world’s most accomplished historians. Our conversation covered questions not just relevant to today but of concern to prior and future generations. Winston Churchill’s advice is to “Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft” but can we truly learn from history? What is the role of academia and professional historians in informing policy makers and voters? Does greatness play a role or are we all a product of our environment, geography, ideology and culture?From Marxism to the French Revolution and the Ph...
2025-03-051h 57Meeting People#16 Margaret Evison: Rising to challenges, coping with death, empowering adolescentsIn 2009 Mark Evison was shot whilst leading a patrol in Helmand Province. Having been flown back to England, his mother Margaret was faced with no choice but to turn off his life support machine. She now runs the Mark Evison Foundation which enables adolescents from state schools to undertake challenges. In one of my most difficult conversations yet, we talk about Mark’s life, coping with the grief of losing a child, and the example he continues to set. The Foundation, named in his honour empowers hundreds of children to take on the spirit of adventure.A...
2025-02-121h 17Meeting People#15 Ben Kumar: London walks, taking risks, financial freedom, human strengths and foiblesBen is a smart and thoughtful investor who frequently gives thousands of people valuable insights on financial markets through his social media channels and radio appearances. The conversation started with a walking tour of Ben’s favourite spots in London (to avoid sitting in meeting rooms) and then opened out to a range of topics. We discussed his take on the experience economy, VR headsets, corporate authenticity, Amazon’s decline and much more. I questioned him on multiple unconnected topics and he always had something interesting to say in response. I hope you enjoy listening as much as we did i...
2025-01-211h 49Meeting People#14 Eugene Malthouse: Wellbeing, ham sandwiches and the Evolved NestMy latest guest Eugene Malthouse has done cutting edge work in behavioural science for the likes of Nobel prize winner Richard Thaler. MOUTHFUL ALERT: He is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics. Eugene also founded the Collective Decision-Making and Culture Lab (CDMCL) – an interdisciplinary group of 71 researchers based in 38 countries worldwide – which aims to bring global perspectives to the study of global collective action problems.We discuss many things from the ham sandwich fallacy, to GDP vs happiness and his PHD thesis on the Tragedy of the Commo...
2024-12-051h 37Meeting People#13 Akhil Patel: The Secret Wealth AdvantageI confess coming to this conversation as a sceptic. An 18.6 year property cycle feels too deterministic and over-reliant on backfitting data to support a fallacious narrative. Even if it’s true, how actionable is it? However, having sat down with Akhil Patel to discuss his book “The Secret Wealth Advantage: How you can Profit from the Economy’s Hidden Cycle”, I left more open-minded. He explained, through first principles how Land behaves differently to Capital as a factor of production as per Ricardo’s Law of Rent. Perhaps it’s not exuberant credit expansion leading to excess leverage that...
2024-11-131h 21Meeting People#12 Nigel McGilchrist: Living with the ancients, the importance of beauty, and the birth of the modern worldAs 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 hol...
2024-10-171h 28Meeting People#11 Fred Harrison: Georgism, rent-seeking, avoiding anarchy and unleashing our economic potentialWhat 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...
2024-08-211h 10Meeting People#10 Sasha Papadin: A Renaissance ManIt'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 o...
2024-06-261h 25Meeting People#9 Sophie Beeley: autism, parenting, Raising Daisy, and the waggle dance.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...
2024-06-051h 17Meeting People#8 Peter Botting: political campaigning, storytelling, career building - from Malawi to WestminsterPeter 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...
2024-05-221h 38Meeting People#7 Medha Wilson: Giving hope not handouts to female entrepreneurs in Southern AfricaIn 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 w...
2024-04-3056 minMeeting People#6 Alex Martin: Crime fiction, decadence, Monty Python, Shakespeare, The Bible and creativityFrom 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 un...
2024-03-251h 29Meeting People#5 Franklin Shillingford: Role models, youthwork, gentrification, Hackney's futureIn 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...
2024-03-111h 41Meeting People#4 Matt Cooper: Imagination and creativity through film making, writing, people and adventure.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 w...
2024-02-261h 39Meeting People#3 Chris Snowdon: public health nemesis, timezone activist, epidemiologist, military strategist, energy analyst, and more...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...
2024-02-121h 26Meeting People#2 Alice Rackley on Revolutionising Recycling"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.
2024-01-2940 min
The ImaginingThe gift of creators and the call to get off the conveyorbelt: A Conversation with Amul PandyaEver think about how creativity, mental health, and our human spirit are connected? Let's explore that together! We'll talk about personal stories, like the joy of being a parent and how tough times can actually make us stronger.We'll also dive into how our minds work and how the way we think can shape our view of the world. I'll share a story from my job, dealing with tricky situations where money and personal values clashed. And we'll talk about the human side of big business, like layoffs and how people bounce back from tough times.
2024-01-291h 16Meeting People#1 Simon Evan-Cook - the Winston Wolf of investingRichard 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...
2024-01-151h 28Meeting PeopleMeeting People TrailerAmul 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.
2024-01-0900 min