Favourite children's book

"I would love to be able to say that, as a precocious child, I fell in love with the works of Marcel Proust. In fact, the book I remember reading again and again was Bears in the Night by Stan and Jan Berenstain. It has 32 pages of illustrations and about the same number of words, mainly prepositions such as "through", "between", "up", "over" and "down". The gripping plot involves bears who hear a spooky sound, get out of bed to find out what it is and then go home again, none the wiser. Still, I was only five."

In today's Herald.

Home improvement corner

"In your space, your rules apply."

I was asked by the Guardian to say how I thought we could fall in love with our homes again, or something like that. Here's what I said.

Keep I.T. simple, stupid

"The days of offering as many options as possible are over. The future belongs to those who can offer us the best quality, not quantity, of choices."

Tuesday's Herald column.

Nightwaves - BBC Radio 3

I was on Tuesday's programme (January 20) talking about short and long-term thinking. It's the second item, and you can listen again here until January 27.

Can I have a word? It's thriftifarian

"At last, some good news about manufacturing. Rapidly changing times mean that lexical production is sharply up, with neologisms being minted at their fastest rate since, ironically enough, the boom of the late 80s, with its yuppies, dinkies and Sloane Rangers."

Latest blog at Comment is Free, following up on this.

Thriftifarian, anyone?

Asked by a journalist at The Scotsman about whether credit crunch buzz-words that put a positive spin on tough times actually help us to face up to them and feel better about the future, I said:

"For many, it will be either business as usual or simply more stress... Using positive words to frame a situation makes people view it more favourably, but many of these neologisms sound too contrived to really catch on. Everyone is trying to come up with one that will stick. Thriftifarian, anyone?"

Well now I'm wondering how far "Thriftifarian" could actually spread. If I really worked at it, maybe I could pollute cyberspace with it. On the other hand, perhaps I have better things to do!
(We have a benchmark: Before The Scotsman piece was published, Google returned no search results for Thriftifarian or Thriftafarian.)

On sleep

"Sleep debt is easy to build up and hard to pay off; slumber credits received at dawn have to be redeemed by the day's end. When, on waking, a profound satisfaction washes over us after a good night's sleep, it is as though our bodies are showing us they just cannot keep the goodness in."

This week's Herald column.

World Have Your Say - BBC World Service

Taking part in a discussion on when language is racist. (I first talk about 20 minutes in.) You can listen again here or download a podcast here.

A few other radio updates. I was on BBC Radio 5 Live's Richard Bacon show last week (although I don't think it was actually Bacon presenting.) In an hour I spoke about three times, so you didn't miss much.

I also gave a BBC Radio Bristol Thought for the Day last Thursday. Here's the text:

We Brits like to talk about the weather, but there are only so many times you can say "Isn't it cold?" before you sound like a broken record. Temperatures have fallen to below zero every night in Bristol since Boxing Day, and my walk into the studio this morning was bracing, to say the least.
To be honest though, I've been rather enjoying this cold snap. Over the last decade or so, the differences between the seasons have often been rather blurred. A "proper winter" feels right, in a nostalgic kind of way.
It's also been dry, and often bright. In the gentle winter light, almost everywhere looks its best. Over recent weeks, I've walked in Churchill and Rowberrow in Somerset, and on the Downs here in Bristol, and each time I've been cheered by the sheer beauty.
But I also feel a bit guilty for these sunny thoughts. This cold isn't good for the homeless people I pass regularly; or the poor and elderly, who can't afford to keep the heating on all day. Consider how there were around twice as many of what statisticians call "excess winter deaths" in the colder last years of the nineties than there were in the milder ones of the decade that followed.
Unfortunately, the very things we take pleasure in often turn out to be not such good news for someone, somewhere. Knowing and dealing with this, without either callousness or denial, is part of what it means to be adult. Life is the pure sweetness of milk chocolate only for children. Grown ups must learn to appreciate the darker varieties, where a hint of bitterness is ever present.

A crunch time for relationships

"Staring the reality of our lives straight in the face can be uncomfortable at the best of times. It's easy to avoid doing so when you're busy and flush with cash, hard to ignore when a downturn bites."

Somewhat cut-down version of my contribution to the Sunday Telegraph's "New Rules" feature (third down), which also transforms the name of our magazine to New Philosopher.

Amsterdam - 27 January

Giving the keynote address on ethical expertise to the Dutch Bioethics Association (van de Nederlandse Vereniging voor Bio-ethiek) in Amsterdam. Details here.