One minute your smartphone, laptop, or headphones are working as they always have. The next, bam, they start malfunctioning. Suddenly, the battery on your phone drains after a few minutes. Your laptop becomes achingly slow, the headphones stutter, and then die a quick death. It leaves you wondering, was it [insert any technology] made to break?

If you have ever had that thought, don’t worry, you’re not paranoid because the company has designed the product to malfunction. Planned obsolescence is the term used to describe how failure is built into products. …

During the war on terror, there was a time you couldn’t go a day without hearing the word terrorist. It felt like a terrorist could come knocking on your door at any moment. People lived in genuine fear that their freedoms were under threat by a pernicious, dastardly, unknown group who were beset on destroying everything we hold dear to our hearts.

The war on terror exploded into life after 9/11. That attack on the World Trade Centres (regardless of whether you believe it was an inside job or not) triggered an all-out offensive against terror. From Afghanistan to Iraq…

Travel. South America. Peru.

Lobitos, an abandoned military base in the north of Peru, is the eeriest place I’ve ever been to. As you walk through, it looks like any other town. There is a hospital, a school, a playground. But that’s where the similarities end because Lobitos is completely deserted. It feels like a town that’s been attacked by a zombie apocalypse.

Lobitos was a military base used by the Peruvian army. Long since abandoned, it’s now a ghost town, but the base sits between a desert on one side and the ocean on the other. …

The word ‘sheeple’ is used so often it’s become an official word in the Oxford dictionary. A ‘sheeple’ is docile, foolish and easily led. They are people who conform to the herd and abide without question. The thing about the word that I’ve always found a little odd is that referring to people who don’t question the world as sheeple misses the point.

Society sustains itself because the majority conform. Otherwise, a functioning society wouldn’t be possible — and it’s hard to imagine many people believing we would be better off without society.

While individualism is encouraged, the reality is…

While it may appear that the threat of a European Super League (ESL) is over, the problems that led to the announcement still exist. With the problem being alive and well, this feels like it is only the beginning of a battle between the most powerful clubs in Europe on one side, and everyone else (including their supporters) on the other.

The problem with football is that the big clubs have been spending far more than they earn and have got into lots of debt. They did so on the basis that revenue would continue to grow. The coronavirus has…

As uncouth as it may sound, the death of Prince Philip has brought home the fact that the Queen is going to die soon. As the unelected head of state of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, we need to start planning for her death because what we do when she dies will come to define British identity.

By plan, I do not mean in the sense of who is going to replace her as King (the heir to the throne being Prince Charles). What I mean is, this feels like the right time to start a debate many people want…

Charities make the world a better place. Without them, the people and causes they support would be helpless, left to suffer and without a lifeline. The UK alone has 168,000 registered charities. That number shows there are many social problems, and those problems would be all the worse without the charity sector.

The thing about the charity sector though is that charities are not designed to solve the underlying problems they support. Their focus is on relieving the symptoms of problems.

Charities are not to blame for this state of affairs. They can’t solve the underlying causes of the issues…

TRAVEL STORIES

There is an urban legend that black cats are a symbol of bad luck. You are set to face particular misfortune if a black cat crosses your path. If the legend is true, then Luke, a guy I met while travelling in South America, must have had his path crossed by multiple black cats because his experience travelling was nothing short of a nightmare.

Now, before I tell the story of Luke’s misfortune, it has to be said that travelling in South America is a joyous experience. There is an energy, a joy for life that I’ve felt nowhere else.

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