There is a very sober, serious show on the BBC called "Panorama". It covers studious subjects, in great depth and head-nodding sincerity. On April 1st, 1957, Panorama ran a segment calmly informing the British public that spaghetti grew on trees. Literally. It showed a group of Swiss farmers (you might think that would have been a red flag..) harvesting strands of air-dried spaghetti from the low hanging branches of, well...a Spaghetti Tree. The BBC, certainly then and I thin

The word "Status" is probably still synonymous with a centuries-old meaning around something that can be physically seen . Things like rank, title, land, or visible wealth. It comes from the Latin verb "Stare" - to Stand. It is where we much more than figuratively stood. Status was a marker of position - worn outwardly and instantly understood by all. The trappings of status were the Bentleys, the Castles and the cash.. ..Our status symbols. It's a bit quieter these day

Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions. ~Eckhart Tolle The world is testing our mental soundness. Fueled by the dramatic and life-changing weather patterns, coupled with disinformation and misinformation propagated by mass media, the collective atmosphere has thrown many off-kilter and left many feeling out of sorts. Yet, the quest for Equilibrium is always present, and a quiet call

Have you ever been told you weren’t listening… when you absolutely were? It’s a strangely frustrating accusation. You were there. You heard every word. You could probably replay the conversation back if asked. And yet, somehow, the conclusion is the same — you weren’t listening .The difficulty, of course, is that you don’t get to decide if that is true, or not. Listening is one of those curious things that feels entirely internal, but is judged almost exclusively from the ou

There was a time, and I might be showing my age here, when butter became the subject of a deliberate, fatty witch-hunt. It seemed to be a hearing behind closed doors, for us butter lovers. It was accused and found guilty of shortening our lives and making us fat. The Western world fell under a wave of nutritional anxiety. Butter, which had been besties with bread for such a long time, was suddenly recast as the insidious villain of the kitchen. Into its golden yellow slippers

I have always admired strong women. The ones who hold things together. The ones who don’t panic. The ones who say, “It’s fine, I’ve got it,” and somehow do. The women who show up, not just as a statement of bravado, but as proof of real life. I have also been one. At times. I am clearly not talking about lifting weights here - at least not physical weights. I am leaning into character strength. Core values. That kind of strength, in its healthiest form, is a thing of beauty.

March 15th sits in that peculiar place in the French culinary calendar where winter has not quite finished and spring has not quite sprung. The markets still have a bit of an Irish feel to them - with much space still given over to leeks and potatoes. But you can sense that local market aficionados are sensing an arrival of sorts. The first crop of bright, green asparagus. The French love their asparagus. They have been cultivating them since the 15th century and their popu

In the late 1940s, on Long Island, just east of New York City, a new kind of American landscape was being built. It was called "Levittown" - one of a few that would appear in the 40's and 50's, designed originally for returning WWII veterans, with affordable homes, solid construction, picket fences and identical facades. But along with the mortgages came something else: lawn obligations written into property deeds. The owners needed to agree to maintain their grass to a le

Guest Writer - Dr. Stephanie Burchell Take a second to look at everything in front of you right now. If you’re like me, you’ve got at least a few browser windows open (each one loaded with tabs you “ need ”). Your email inbox is steadily filling up in the background. Teams keeps popping up messages from different teammates. And of course, your phone… In other words, you’re multi-tasking. The problem is, there’s no such thing as multi-tasking! As multiple studies have confirm

I think we are all sufficiently familiar with the concept of 'conservational re-wilding', for the subject not to require a lengthy intro. In an eco-nutshell, it's designed to help prevent species extinction and restore balance to our ecosystems that have suffered as a result of human activity.

If January is all trumpets and resolutions, asking too much, too soon, and February is the long, quiet endurance in the middle, what does March mean? It certainly doesn't feel like a total beginning, but it definitely seems like a bit of a hinge month. A calendar-page threshold, finally reached. Maybe March presents more like a menu - to the return of a subtle, un-named appetite for life. The first of this month arrived - at least it did on Platform 13 - with the same reali

We say “thank you” a lot. Often with great sincerity, sometimes as a polite acknowledgement of a door held open or receiving a handful of change. Silence would just feel rude. It's a nice thing to hear and a good thing to say. We also, on occasions, use a clippy catch-all in the form of a neat little phrase: "Thanks for everything."

January was the month my Mum used to come home with holiday brochures. Not just two or three, but one of each. They were free, you see, and that gave them an edge. They were acknowldged as intrinsically trustworthy. As reliable as the North star or Greenwich Mean Time. Smiles were real - not a cloud in sight. There were no reviews, no marks-out-of-ten. All the parents seemed to get on and Kids appeared to exist in a permanently airborne state. The entire 109 pages of fun and