archive
Below is an alphabetical list of all the articles ever posted in the blog section. Some were posted with lower case and others with upper case first letters which rather inconveniently makes the alphabet start twice- so scroll right down to see the full gamut on offer...
Entries by Title
Click on an entry title below to view the full text of that entry.
- 10 rivers
- 10 things sci-fi films get wrong
- 10 ways to improve your judgement
- 11 things about the future I am contemplating
- 3 art thoughts
- 3 options
- 3 sayings recently recollected
- 50 years of The Sufis
- A New Route Across Egypt's Sahara
- A few thoughts on publishing
- A new kind of thinking is required.
- A new way to divide up the world
- A trip back in time
- Adam Smith's impartial spectator
- Adventurers who want to be looked after
- Against the Current
- An early journey
- Appearing at Edinburgh book festival
- Arabeye Media Monitoring
- Are unlucky people simply stupid?
- Are you a dog or a human being?
- Article on Dordogne canoe trip in the FT
- Autodidacticism
- Back to walking in the rain
- Be Extraordinary
- Be an ARTVENTOR
- Be an optimiser
- Be redundant
- Becoming not Being #1
- Becoming not Being #2
- Becoming not Being #3
- Beginner's Mind- a course for writers
- Beginner's mind for writing
- Bikewalking
- Build your own skunk works
- Burton on soul
- Buy! Buy! Buy!
- Buying in Egypt
- C.A.S.E. or C.L.A.S.P?
- Canoeing and Rivers
- Car seen in Kohima, Nagaland
- Catastrophe theory of feeling really rather good
- Celebrating Strangeness
- Chalke Valley festival
- Common Sense
- Confluence Hunting
- Course! Micromaster Street Photography
- Creativity
- Daunt books 24th June Monday 7pm
- Daunt books event Monday 24th June
- Day FOUR of three day fast
- Day ONE of three day fast
- Day THREE of my three day fast
- Day TWO of my three day fast
- De-skilling society
- Don't drop the Clangers
- Edinburgh Micromastery Photography Course
- Egypt needs the water
- Enlightenment is not a career option.
- Ethiopian proverb
- Exploring
- Failure is rare
- Fame!
- Fear and expeditions
- First Law of Confidence
- First the Omo river then the Blue Nile
- Five day course thoughts
- Four ways to be yourself
- Freedom, anger and violence
- Gatekeepers and Lineworkers
- Get Tough #2
- Get Tough #3
- Get Tough!
- Give yourself a task ladder
- Go on an Oman desert journey of a lifetime
- Going higher: altitude, breathing and success
- Great new editing service
- Half way to enlightenment
- Happiness
- Haughty and Generous
- Henry Miller speaks!
- Hero or victim?
- Higher Intelligence and the Decisive Point
- How I write by John-Paul Flintoff
- How not to go mad in modern life
- How to be Just
- How to be a Digital Parasite
- How to be charismatic
- How to find your process when writing
- How to judge things a little better
- How to quit smoking
- How to succeed with an allotment
- I don't have enough time
- I love London
- In conversation with Tahir Shah
- Inner Freaks and the Conformal World
- Interview with Alias Johnny Stiletto
- Introduction to lifeshifting
- Introduction to timeshifting
- Invite the universe
- Ironing shirts
- Is friendmaking a good strategy?
- Ken Ilgunas on adventure
- King of the Headhunters
- Larkin Says
- Lending Books
- Liars get work
- Lifeshifting #6 - what is your alienation level?
- Lifeshifting #7- beyond Meaning Mountain
- Lightness versus heaviness
- Listening to the two inner voices
- Living in transition times
- Long distance walking as a success template
- Look closer, don't try harder
- Lucky Ludwig
- Make everything you do enjoyable
- Meryl Streep quotation
- Micro versus macro adventures
- Micromaster the bacon sandwich- or is it roll?
- Micromastering basic life skills
- Micromastery and learning ‘the correct way’.
- Micromastery and living in a Left Brain World
- Mistakes lie in assumptions not process
- Money is no longer (so) important
- More on Spiral Thinking
- More on judgement
- Most things are easy or impossible, not difficult
- NEW ISSUE OUT NOW!
- Nat Geo article
- New Statestman review of Prank book
- Nice FT Review of Red Nile
- Nine Ways to Be Extraordinary
- Nomads are greedy
- Nora says
- Notes on Walks of Art
- Notes on a TV Show
- Nutty folk…and the invisible world
- Objection
- Observations on worldly success
- Omelettes, Micromastery and line sensitivity.
- On Lending Books
- On acquiring a Rotring Isograph Pen
- One definition of micromastery
- Poem
- Polymath: creativity teaching is the symptom, not the cure.
- Polymathic Quotation
- Polymathic Synergy
- Polymathic Synergy #2
- Polymathics #1
- Polymaths rare in the middle
- Predicting the Future
- Publishing micromastery has been different...
- Ramsay Wood's new novel
- Read this book
- Reading
- Red Nile
- Red Nile out May 23
- Relinquish the Boss Position
- Renan and Truth
- Right and Left brain meshing methods crucial
- Rod or net: the big question
- Rohlfs Expedition 2009-10
- Salisbury and the Great War
- Serfs
- Short Story- Snow Monkeys
- Shutters in Cairo
- Sincerity, anti-fragility, resilience.
- Slave?
- Slow-venturing
- Some info on the Dalai Lama
- Some notes on the poet Edward Thomas
- Some thoughts on Original Thinkers
- Somehow it gets passed on
- Spectator says
- Stop putting yourself out of the way of wisdom
- Striving and achieving as a polymathic person
- Stupid is as stupid does
- Stupidity is a form of dishonesty
- TEDx Micromastery talk
- TGO Chris Townsend praise
- Tahir's Shah's Timbuctoo
- Taleb's black swan theory known to Bismarck
- The Book of the Book
- The Border Guard effect
- The Desert and the Future
- The Fifth Law of Adventure
- The First Law of Adventure...
- The Fourth Law of Adventure
- The H word: humility
- The Lady approves
- The Open Source Walking Project and the TAZ
- The Phenomenology of Wild
- The Polymathic Economy
- The Polymathic Principle
- The Power of Less
- The Power of Oomph
- The Sahara by Eamonn Gearon
- The Seagulls
- The Second Law of Adventure
- The Seven Laws of Adventure
- The Third Law of Adventure
- The decisionometer
- The difference between a wise and foolish man.
- The indoor world versus the outdoor world
- The melted cup
- The power of oomph revisited
- The real deal
- The shortest distance between two points is never a straight line
- The sixth law of adventure
- Theoretical Polymathics
- Thinking in patterns
- Third Law of Confidence
- Tibetan monks raise body temperature
- Timbuctoo by Tahir Shah
- Timeshifting #1
- Timeshifting #2
- Travels with Epicurus
- Trimtabs, Great Men and the Collapse of Society as we know it....
- Tweak your way to Success
- Twigger on Today Prog R4
- Twigger's rule for predicting the future
- Twiggerland News
- Uchideshi- Walking with the Master- book review
- Value spot-check
- Walking the Great North line- Pre-Order Now!
- What gets better as you get older
- What gets better as you get older #2: being a connoisseur
- What is organic efficiency?
- What is your Q.I.Q?
- What level of job can you assign yourself?
- What path are you on?
- What robot wars can teach us about design
- What's the use of specialising?
- When left brain tries to imitate an absent right brain
- Where I got the idea from
- White Rabbit gets a shave
- Why smart kids increasingly don't study science
- Wind, Sand and Stars
- You have to be sly with the river
- Zenslacker- 101 things to bear in mind when you're doing nothing
- Zenventuring
- Zeroth Living
- a cure for horsefly bites
- a definition of art
- a few interesting things
- a few sayings
- a few small mysteries
- a few uplifting thoughts on extinction
- a footnote on quantum computing
- a new book by TWIGGER
- a new variety of experience
- a picture held us captive
- a real japanese micro-adventure
- a strange prophecy
- aardvark information
- absorbing and entertaining say the Observer
- adventure my ally
- advice on boots
- agile minds not factfarting number jugglers
- agility not speed
- all this and heaven too
- all wars are wars of attrition
- allergies and caesarian sections
- altitude
- an end of year message from our founder
- an odd message from the underground
- andy warhol's advice
- anger management
- angry emails
- another ancestor who strangely also ran a writing school...
- anxiety is an identity issue...up to a point
- are there stupid cultures?
- are you stuck for ideas?
- art
- art
- art and adventure
- art walks
- ask others to say yes with you
- axe talk
- balance in cairo
- be a grafter
- be a hare not a tortoise
- be a scientist not a manager
- be a swarm worker
- be a travel genius
- be an average dad
- be average
- be persistent- but when?
- be someone else at a party
- begging for it
- being homeless is better than working for amazon...says Nicole Gracely
- best aid to creativity
- best aid to problem solving
- big
- big data con
- big yang therapy
- bikewalking #2
- bishop blougram's apology
- bookshop video
- boxing versus denial
- break free!
- breathe and the world breathes with you
- bring me the Glass Eye of Cretan Lawrence
- britain's moral collapse?
- building a homeworking shed for under £1k
- building an underground home
- building fictional characters
- building fictional characters #2
- burton's law
- cage fighters
- cairo dawn taxi ride
- cairo near death experience and the kindle reader
- cairo nights 2
- cairo nights: the cave of the motors
- caironomics
- camping in America
- can Stieg Larsson write?
- can't write dialogue?
- cars not sexy
- causation and prediction
- change the circumstances
- change the world/change the conversation
- change the world?
- change your head to write well
- changing institutions from the inside
- changing the world, again
- changing the world....again
- changing yourself
- characters of egypt
- check out wigtown's top singer
- chopping trees causes testosterone to surge
- clean energy/dirty energy
- closing the gap between knowledge and action
- composing pictures and the almighty rule of THREE
- conning people
- conversations that change your life
- core creativity v. spin off creativity
- corruption and centralisation
- courage
- course in scotland for writers
- creating versus worrying
- crossing cairo roads
- cruel people and sentimentality
- cults end badly
- curiousity
- danger
- data base problem
- death in valencia
- default settings
- defeating perfection
- definition
- definition of a nerd
- deluded? moi?
- desert poem
- desire for oblivion
- desperate for success?
- developing ideas
- different kinds of teacher
- dilemma
- dirty data and the database problem
- diversity
- do it now
- do the maths
- do you hate goals?
- do you have more money than time?
- dodge city
- doing and thinking
- don't be assertive, be more curious
- don't be suckered by narratives of success
- don't be suckered by theories
- don't manage time, manage energy
- don't take it personally
- don't think it
- donkeys of Oman
- downside of the rational approach
- dr ragab on Twitterfeed
- drama v. learning
- driverless cars
- driving through rain
- drop outs earn big money
- drugs and the path
- earthly pleasures
- eat molokia
- ego
- ego puncturing
- egyptian revolution in cairo- my story so far
- eight mindblowing secrets of lifeshifting
- emotion and climate change
- energy is liberated when something happens
- engineers and buzzards
- entrepreneurism versus big business
- escape from colditz
- excellent article by Olive Burkeman
- excuse me, is that a personal growth I see on your behind?
- exercises
- exhaustive versus iterative
- exploration algebra
- extravagant claims
- fame or money?
- fascism and communism
- fascism and communism
- fashar
- fear and the boss
- feelin' old?
- find your resonant images, places, things
- first law of self-replicating machines
- fishing with Harry
- five axioms of walking
- follow your curiousity not your passion
- following an invisible track
- food for thought
- forget looking for truth
- future belongs to optimists
- futuretweet
- games
- games on the way
- gamify or painify
- gamify self-doubt on the path to success
- gardening and fun
- generousity
- get it done for free
- get the right head on first
- get tough #4
- get tough the athletic way
- get ya money making boots on #1
- get ya money making boots on #2
- get ya money making boots on #3
- getting bogged
- getting in the right head space
- go wild in the country
- goethe on thought and action
- gold bug
- good advice if you'll take it
- great gear #1: desert boots
- guardian newspaper article
- habits and mountains
- half-truths, fibs and damned lies
- happiness is making connections
- happiness is wide angled vision
- hard core walking
- hear me on the radio
- hello darkness, my old friend
- high energy v. wrong energy
- higher emotions
- higher intelligence
- higher intelligence
- hold your breath
- honour and acknowledge your multiple selves
- how I write by Paul Johnston
- how boring was that?
- how can one person change the world?
- how do we screen out destructive people?
- how do you think positively?
- how does a writer learn?
- how much do you trust 'the system'?
- how much talent have you?
- how to REALLY learn
- how to be a parent #1
- how to be a parent #2
- how to be a polymath
- how to be happy
- how to be superhuman
- how to be zenarchist
- how to change the world
- how to cure exam nerves and interview nerves
- how to get more blog traffic
- how to get pumped
- how to learn about cars
- how to make a plan seem real
- how to make money and have fun
- how to make money from your passion
- how to stand-up paddleboard (the easy way)
- how to weigh your flight luggage at home
- how we think about the future
- identity is the very devil
- in praise of strangeness
- in praise of strangeness
- in the Footsteps of Count Laszlo
- industrial strength capitalism
- influence not power
- innovation is NOT 99% perspiration
- intelligence is over rated
- interesting or emotionally affecting
- interstitial living
- introduction to timeshifting #1
- is success quantifiable?
- jason webster
- johnny factotum
- joke from a young twigger
- joke from another young twigger
- judgement
- just keep typing
- justice, fairness, rights
- kalila and dimna
- keith johnstone quotes
- key to practical polymathy
- kiteout day
- koans
- laziness...
- lazy workaholic
- liars
- life begins when you say I am a...
- life gets drained out of things
- lifeshifting #1 - meaning mountain
- lifeshifting #2 - grow your passion into a money making venture
- lifeshifting #3 - you are a multiple self
- lifeshifting #4 - smoking self
- lifeshifting #5 - niche world
- lifeshifting #8 - growing your own committment
- lifeshifting interview with CD Baby's Derek Sivers
- living in the future
- living in the moment
- living in the moment #2
- look for an abundant world
- looking for things
- luck and determination
- luxuries you cannot afford
- making a nest
- man is a track following creature
- manufacturing microadventures
- marx, opium, cocaine and attention
- mastery
- meaning based life
- mental capacity v. mental attitude
- metro and The Week
- michael phelps is transparent
- micro-capitalism
- micromaster a pop song
- micromastery
- micromastery and confidence
- micromastery buddy club
- mind control
- modern life is boring
- money and meaning and being on a mission
- more exploration algebra
- more from Cairo revolution
- more on Kiteout day
- more on driverless cars
- more on happiness
- more on horseflies and other nasties
- more on optimism
- more on precision
- more on resonance
- more on the corporate life
- more on the cult
- more thoughts on AI
- more thoughts on tickling
- most of philosophy
- multi-dimensional living
- my Flight into Egypt
- my fave one star review on amazon
- my plan to reread Idries Shah
- nano adventures
- new years resolutions
- new york times review of red nile
- no does not exist
- no free lunch
- no idea what to do?
- no mad alternative
- no worries
- not zen and the art of rebuilding a motorcycle
- note on baksheesh
- nutty folk, nuttiness and the future
- odditiy of history
- ole lazybones
- on the natural tendency of things to reverse their initial intent
- on the verge of being lost?
- one minute tai chi
- one source of material
- one way to predict the future
- one way to progress
- opportunity
- opportunity and difficulty
- opposites to consider
- outsider art handbook
- outsider art handbook #2
- outsider art handbook #3
- paddleboarding D-Day beaches
- paddleboarding marsa alam
- paranoid
- parking fable
- passion or money? Take a cross-over path
- patience and intuition
- people think in categories
- perpetual motion in life
- personal tactical innovation: a key element to success
- pirate efficiency v. robot efficiency
- playful energy v. obsessional energy
- please help fund my kickstarter campaign!
- podcast about RED NILE
- poem about Egyptian Dogs
- poem by Ramsay Wood
- poker and life
- polymath or monopath?
- polymathy and motivation
- positive thinking v. retaining the critical faculties of a smart person
- practical wisdom link worth reading
- precision and simplicity
- predicting the future etc
- prisons we make for ourselves
- problems of the practical polymath
- progress and freedom
- propaganda for progress
- provoked
- quit or do what you like right now
- quote of the day
- rabbit talk
- rafting the mighty zambezi
- random thoughts on tickling
- reading the news
- reading the news with your own filter on
- real teaching
- reconfigure success as process
- refined versus complex information
- rename
- rename, reframe
- resisting makes you tired
- rewire the brain
- richard feynman's pick-up technique
- riverman
- rock art expedition to the gilf kebir
- rules or discipline?
- saltmines #2
- sands of death
- saying yes is not easy
- second law of confidence
- second wind in writing
- secrets of the Persian carpet seller #1
- secrets of the Persian carpet seller #2
- secrets of the Persian carpet seller #3
- self
- selling using the lego principle
- setting
- shove your 10000 hours!
- silence is the best medicine
- simple but not simplistic
- sitting stones
- six day working year
- smart people and wise people
- snobs and yobs
- sole destroyer
- something in the air
- something someone said
- space and time luxury
- spanish dream farm for sale
- spiral thinking and walking
- squeezing the excluded middle
- static and dynamic images of perfection
- status and attention
- steve pavlina, homer simpson and sanity.
- sticky genes and the baby's bathwater
- still surfing D Day beaches
- stories
- straight lines again
- straightforward and liking balance
- strange bedfellows
- street versus frame
- structure versus buzz
- students get changing your identity to be more creative
- success and the polymathic perspective
- success is synergetic
- success reformulated
- sunday times review of Red Nile
- surfing D Day beaches
- surviving or thriving?
- tactics and strategy
- talent
- teaching flexibility to egyptian teams
- teaching your own kids
- teaching yourself
- technology and war
- temptations of the trickster
- the 120 film I bought on ebay
- the 7 addictions of highly successful people
- the Amundsen factor
- the Amundsen factor #2
- the Amundsen factor #3
- the Amundsen factor #4
- the age of ageism
- the anarch
- the assumption now is: start complicated
- the database problem revisited
- the death of the Segway
- the essence of adventure
- the genius curve
- the good news...
- the happy beaver
- the keys to the kingdom
- the kind of review that tells me OTHERS are going to get it even if he didn't
- the man who sold the eiffel tower
- the new currencies
- the notion of perfection
- the outsiders
- the oxbow lake effect
- the paradox of paths
- the path
- the pearl
- the polymathic principle #2
- the price of a zine
- the problem with problems
- the problematique
- the real secret
- the return of the cheapskate adventurer
- the road
- the simple and the subtle
- the simple fact is...
- the single easiest way to boost creativity
- the smartpoint versus the tipping point
- the state we want to be in
- the terrible truth about boredom and money
- the thief
- the time paradox
- the tube and the singularity
- the way of love
- the way of the fool
- the white rabbit on success- white rabbit 3
- the will is overrated
- the world is to vast to conceptualise
- thick and thin
- thinking about thinking
- this dam will end the 'Red Nile'
- this is spiral thinking
- this simple life update
- three life rules
- three rules of happiness
- three ways to become time rich
- time
- timeshifting #2
- tipping point for games
- to act or not to act
- tomorrow is kiteout day
- tomorrow's thoughts
- too arrogant to learn?
- traditional parenting
- transition awareness
- transparency
- tricky
- tristan jones
- trust and polymathy
- trust yourself, trust others
- trying and doing
- twelve angry men
- twigger on twitter
- two approaches
- two types of creativity
- two ways you can go
- unfortunate spiders
- update on homemade books
- use less imagination
- utterly English self-help- what get's you up in the morning?
- view from Portland
- vodka corrupts
- von mises on politics
- walk your way to happiness and success
- walking Camino Real in winter
- walking in Wadi Digla, Cairo.
- walking in a high wind
- walking in boots
- walking man #1
- walking outside increases creativity
- was bruce lee any good
- wash your deck shoes
- we ritualise the wrong things
- weaponising technology
- weird beards#1 Herman Kahn
- welcome to the temporary autonomous zone
- what car design tells us
- what do you do if you are unlucky?
- what do you take from a burning house?
- what does reasonable mean?
- what form should school take?
- what head do you put on to read the news?
- what if I don't give a damn?
- what if I'm just coasting?
- what if you had $10 million?
- what is a stupid person?
- what is photographic composition?
- what is right for you
- what makes an idea stick
- what world do you live in?
- what you need to know about new technology
- what's the point of jealousy?
- what's your A level?
- what's your currency?
- where do you put your seriousness?
- where is home for you?
- where's home?
- where's the box?
- where's the mystical
- which 'I' am I?
- which would you rather be?
- white rabbit no. 2
- who benefits from complexity?
- who do you want to look after you?
- whose reality are we talking about here?
- why go on an expedition?
- why has control freakery increased?
- why lifeshifting?
- why poetry is essential
- why sceptics always fail to convince...in the end
- why science as we know it has come to an end
- why the Jonglei canal is a bad idea
- why things remain as they are
- why we walk
- wigging out at wigtown
- wigtown festival
- wigtown film festival
- wisdom
- working hard and success
- worth bearing in mind
- yang bandits
- yang is the thang
- yet more on exploration
- you can't buy a lifestyle
- you can't take it with you
- you want to be an entrepreneur?
- young and old
- zenslacker #1
- zenslacker #2
- zenslacker #3
- zenslacker #4
- zenslacker #5
- zenslacker #6
- zenslacker #7
- zenslacker #8
- zenslacker #9
- zooms make you lazy
- £20 Sevylor packraft