Adam Stoner

I'm wearing a blue Atari hoodie. I've got some kind of purple t-shirt on underneath. The sky is overcast. It's a typical British day. The camera's sort-of top down, I'm looking up ever so slightly into it. My sister's stood next to me, she's looking square on at the camera, grey hoodie. My parents – probably my Dad – is taking the pictures. Apple Photos says it's a Panasonic camera. The date's July 31st 2009, 10.30am and 26 seconds. Behind me is Stonehenge. Something about Stonehenge has always fascinated me. What's it for? Who used it and why does it have what feels like an almost magical alignment with the stars? I visited it again for the first time in 14 years last week – took the same photo. Stonehenge is behind. In front of me is Sue. Stonehenge is a World Heritage Site, probably the most sophisticated stone circle in the world. I remember as a kid watching tons of documentaries on Stonehenge, I actually wanted – for a brief fleeting moment – to become an archaeologist. We have no idea what their original thinking was and their purpose might have changed because it took about 500 years to finish it off so during that time people's ideas might have changed. What I love about Stonehenge is that people have lived here, they've used the site, and they've been interested in it for thousands of years. People have also laid their own stories down, their own interpretations. Some of them more historically sound than others, some interpretations more based on facts than fiction, but I think all of them are valid. They didn't write and they didn't leave us any pictures so it's anybody's guess really what they were up to. The stones reminds me of cycles within cycles. The turning of the seasons, the rising and setting of the sun, the tide, high and low. There's quite literally circles within circles at the site. The first evidence that we have of humans in this exact location is some Mesolithic post holes. They're the remains of holes that would have held some very big timber posts. They date back to about 8000 BC. Following that you have the cursus, which is a very very long earthwork which runs all the way along the back of the Stonehenge landscape. That dates to about 3300 BC. And then you have around about 3000 BC the henge monument itself was constructed. The henge is the ditch and bank that goes all the way around the outside of the monument. And then about 500 years later they brought the big stones and started to construct the monument as we see it today. Both times I visited I couldn't help but feel a deep connection with the past, with the recurring patterns that define humankind. Civilisations have risen and fallen, countries formed and forgotten, wars have been fought, won and lost. We've explored the stars! We've come so far as a species and this monument, this magical mysterious monument has been a passive witness to the whole thing. It's unique, it tells us a story about the sophistication of the people which I think when we look back at 5,000 years we may think the people were very primitive but they weren't. They were fabulous mathematicians, they were as clever as we are and how inspired they must have been to have thought of doing something like this. There's a sense of wonder in knowing that this monument has stood for thousands of years and my two photos, 14 years apart, just a very small blip on what hopefully is a very, very long standing future…

I'd be lying if I said that this affected me in quite the same way as this makes it sound but also it must have affected me in some way because I'm making an entire podcast about it. A few months ago, you might remember that I went on morning walks and whilst I was on these morning walks, I saw some deer. The story basically was that the deer, whenever I looked for them, weren't there. When I stopped looking, they sort of appeared every time. I've just come back from a walk… I saw one of the deer on the side of the road this morning. It's eyes, eyes that had once sniped me from ferns on the hillside, were glazed over. It's autumn now and those ferns are dying too. I guess the deer is a symbol. It's fragility. It's us encroaching on their home. We continue to push the limits. This estate continues to grow. We continue to force creatures like these into ever shrinking habitats where encounters with humans, with me, with cars, become increasingly perilous. There's a second deer. As I walked, the remaining deer watched me from the woods. It was a silent exchange. The deer didn't move. Startled, maybe… Used to me, maybe. Am I to blame? Am I the reason the other one got so close to a car? Bit of a weird one for you. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

It's August 31st 8023 – six thousand years in the future – and you are in a mountain in Nevada. It has taken you several days to get here. You've had to hike, you've had to endure the harsh heat – the thorns – and you've stumbled upon a set of metal doors. This is what you've been looking for. The doors are a kind of crude airlock, keeping out dust and animals. You head into the darkness of a long tunnel. There's the mildest hint of light ahead that you slowly find your way to. You look up. A faint light filtering down now through giant gears, illuminating the beginning of a spiral staircase. You start climbing. It winds up the outer rim of the tunnel, rising towards the gears and faint light overhead. The stairs are carved out of the rock. After climbing about 100 feet you encounter a large bronze egg filled with concrete. It's about the size of a small car and weighs 5,000 kilograms. After you pass the weights you keep climbing, pass more giant gears, some over 8 feet in diameter – and then you find it. The world's slowest computer. And it plays a chime for you. Simple bells, but a unique combination nobody in living memory has ever heard, nor will ever hear again. This is a clock. I started just thinking about, just as a project for myself, the idea of building a very slow clock that would last for 10,000 years. Sometime in the 1990s, I started noticing the year 2000 was kind of a mental barrier for people. It was hard for them to think past it. And so I started just thinking about, just as a project for myself, the idea of building a very slow clock. And 10,000 years being a kind of nice number because our history is kind of 10,000 years old. So we ought to have a future that's as big as our history. It's not a work of science fiction. It's real. Danny wanted to design a symbol of the future in the same way the Pyramids of Giza are a symbol of the past. If you go to the pyramids in Egypt and you touch those stones, I mean those are stones that human hands touched thousands of years ago. Is there anything we can put into the world where you would be touching this thing and this thing would endure and you would know that people in the year 7000 or something might also touch that same thing and think about you and does that build some kind of a connection across time? The 10,000 Year Clock, or the Clock of the Long Now, is the work of the Long Now Foundation. The Long Now Foundation is a nonprofit here in San Francisco that's trying to help people think about the next 10,000 years. And the way we want to do that is by also helping them think about the last 10,000 years. When we're thinking about the future, there's so many organisations or cultural narratives that want to convince people or talk about how we're at the end of the civilisational narrative. That's the idea is that you're really looking out at a multi-thousand year time horizon. You're thinking about how the decisions that you're making today affect people in 400 human generations. You're going to do things a little bit differently. And that might actually be really important. This clock really encapsulates everything that I love. It's oddly obsessive about something that's impossible to predict. It's incredibly philosophical and I think it's really important. It's all about fostering long-term thinking. It's all about projecting further into the future than the financial year or your five-year plan or dare I say it – you. It's all about hope and about the possibility that that there might be a future and that's so refreshing in a world where we're constantly told that the clock is ticking…

Sea Monkeys are brine shrimp. They're tiny – about half a centimetre wide and about the same length as your small fingernail – but the magic comes from a state of suspended animation known as cryptobiosis. The inventor, a chap named Harold von Braunhut. He was trying to come up with some sort of pet that he could sell through the mail and he was at a pet store and he saw some brine shrimp that were in an aquarium or a bucket or something. But he thought that that might be the perfect pet because their eggs or cysts are dry and they don't become activated, they don't hatch until they're wet. This is bonkers, right? You can hatch a living animal from a packet that's been sat on the shelf for months… Harold packaged these eggs into kits. You get a plastic tank and several different packets. Packet one is labeled as water purifier and it's mostly salts. So you're supposed to put that in, wait 24 hours, then you put in packet number two and packet number two is labeled instant live eggs and through the science you see Sea Monkeys hatch instantly before your eyes. There's a little more happening here than you might realise and it's a bit of a sleight of hand. Part of the marketing genius behind this is there's actually a lot of eggs in packet number one as well they're in both packets so by waiting that 24 hours after you put in packet number one the eggs it's giving the eggs time to hatch and the little babies time to grow a tiny bit. You think package one is just salt. It's not. When you add packet two, which contains dye, you see what's already hatched from packet one, giving the illusion of instant life. It's genius. It's also what's now called cognitive priming, that is the deep cerebral desire we all have to see what we expect to see. There was this huge lawsuit about licensing; Harold's widow, supposedly held the Sea Monkey secret formula in a vault in Manhattan, there was an argument over who owned the company, and values in the tens of millions being thrown around Harold von Braunhut was an entrepreneur but he was also a con artist. His previous inventions include Invisible Goldfish and X-Ray Specs. He also had associations with white supremacy. And this is really uncomfortable. The marketing is genius. It's also based on lies. The product has entertained millions of people over the world for nearly 70 years. It's also made by a man who supplied firearms to the Ku Klux Klan. I'm not sure how to reconcile those things, I don't think you can. But they're also kind of what the story is about: a dark history that you might not associate with a children's toy. Sea Monkeys pretty much went the same way that most crazes do, they fidget-spun out of the limelight. But these creatures, the animals themselves, are fascinating (and entirely oblivious to the drama surrounding them). Dried to this day, in packets on shelves across the world, waiting for some curious kid to return them to life. And that, I think, is the real magic.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support Do you remember last week when one war criminal tried to march to Moscow to kill – or chat to, I don't really know – the other war criminal? What a bonkers Saturday that was! I spent the whole day, a beautiful summer's day, in front of the telly – and BBC were bloody brilliant, delivering half hourly updates of how far down the road the Wagner forces were… And then, by 7pm here in the UK, the entire thing was over. The events of last weekend just left me with this horrid, empty feeling… The most important stories in the world are non-stories because they happen over a period of time that most of us can't comprehend. They're slow, powerful movements. The real news isn't that somebody decided to bum rush the Russian capital one day in June. It's a tale of private military companies like Wagner and their dramatic rise all over world right after the Cold War. It's a tale of mercenary groups, of guns for hire and renegade soldiers. It's the story of secret government funding, of switching allegiances and of the tensions that brings to foreign policy. Sure, it might have bubbled to the surface for 24 hours last weekend, but it's a story that's 30 years in the making. The real stories take decades or more to be told. The world and what happens in it is not just a series of attention-grabbing headlines. It's a huge tapestry of things that are deeply interconnected. These long-term stories are the ones that truly shape our world. They're the threads that create the fabric of society. But by focusing solely on the immediate, rolling news headlines, we miss the bigger picture. We fail to see underlying patterns and deep-rooted issues that shape our world. It's like watching the two minute highlights of a football match without understanding the tens of thousands of hours of coaching, training and history that led up to those few goals or even the other 88 minutes where both teams try and fail time and time again to score. And it leaves me feeling empty. In a recent study with over 600 respondents, only 8% of people thought that following the news had no impact on their mental health. Most thought the effect was negative and I think this is the crux of why last weekend felt so bad. I was caught in a vicious cycle, perpetually chasing the latest updates without ever gaining a true understanding of what was actually happening and why. It's a situation I find myself in time and time again, this relentless focus on the immediate, an inability to see the bigger picture and the disregard for those deeper threads leaves me regretting – regretting the loss of my time, regretting the nice summer day I wasted in front of the telly watching BBC News. Over four-fifths of respondents to that study that I mentioned just now had actively switched off from the news in order to protect their headspace. And I'm one of them. I've not read or watched the news all week. I have no idea what's going on. And I like that! It's not ignorance or apathy. It's seeking a more considered approach. It's hunting the long-term narratives and appreciating the gradual transformations that shape our society. See news is to the brain what sugar is to the body. You can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes, tidbits like jelly beans, but these jelly beans don't nourish you. They don't give you understanding. Events, news events are just things happening flickering on the world surface. But to make better decisions you want to understand what drives these events, what generates these events. And news stories don't tell you that. News give you the illusion of understanding and that illusion is dangerous. I came to realise, the more news you consume, the less you understand the world.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support I turn 28 today. I always get really weird around my birthday. I think it's because I am acutely aware of time passing in a very personal way. Like, New Years and Christmas and all of that, they're all shared holidays – a birthday is quite isolating, isn't it? I've been going for morning walks every day. They're about 5k. They start just around the corner from where I live, in a little forest and when I exit that forest, I end up in a clearing, on the side of a hill… The very first day I did this walk, there were two little deer on the side of the hill. I wandered out the next day and there they were again! I started calling them my ‘deer friends' – I don't know if that's weird or not – but on day three, they didn't show up. I turn 28 today. Every year I do one of these little introspective calling cards; this is my third. The first was at 26 – I basically retreated back into myself. The second, at 27, was all about getting out there and experiencing this wonderful world we live in – I feel like I've certainly made good strides in that direction; every day I'm filled with awe. Now, at 28; it's to stop looking. The second I stopped looking for the deer and stopped expecting them to be there was the same second they showed up again. It's not just my deer friends. There are so many things in life like this. We embark on journeys and traverse paths and delve into the realms of possibility, all in search of that which we seek but – like deer darting through the forest the second they hear me – our aspirations can elude us the more we chase them. When we settle down, when we cease the hunt, in a weird way the world around us takes notice – I guess it's a kind of surrender – and with a gentle gesture, it unveils its hidden treasures. Opportunities that once evaded our grasp now find their way to us. Every year I think about what I've learned the last and what I yearn for the next… I want serendipity. I want to feel like the universe conspires in my favour. It sounds so woo-woo – and I've said it before, I'll say it again: I am not a religious or spiritual person. But I do love when the daunting labyrinth reveals a path illuminated by surprise. I turn 28 today.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support A story that I have been working on for years has finally come to an end. In 2021, I came up with the idea of sending a radio programme to space. In 2022, we did it. It was called Mission Transmission. Two nights ago, in 2023, at what is known as the ‘Oscars of the radio industry' – the ARIAS awards – I picked up not just one but two awards for it… One was Silver for ‘Moment of The Year' making Mission Transmission the second best radio moment last year –– and the other was Gold for ‘Creative Innovation'. And with that, this beautiful project I spent months developing and years talking about is complete. The story is over. There are more people to say thank you to – KIDZ BOP and the team at Universal Music, DevaWeb – specifically Chris Stevens, the team at Carver PR, astronaut Tim Peake, Jon Lomberg, Peter Beery, everyone at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in London but specifically Victoria, the very talented people at Create Productions, the tens and tens of people that came onto the radio and podcasts to talk about the project, the lovely people at The Week Junior and Science and Nature magazine for talking about it so much, and obviously my close personal circle of partners and family and friends too. You and I will never know the destiny of that radio programme – we'll never know whether it manages to reach alien life or whether it's defined forever to float between the stars – but I think it says a huge amount about humankind that we dared to send it in the first place. And you – whether you were here from the start or are only just finding out about it – thank you for being a part of it too.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support I have a coin on my desk… It's a Roman denarius, about the size of a five pence piece (or about a dime in the US) and it's 1,800 years old. Holding this coin leaves me filled with a sense of awe. It's a feeling I've been searching for for as long as I can remember and only so often do I get to glimpse it. I guess I can only really describe it as a feeling of historical connectedness. I keep the Roman denarius on my desk and whenever I feel a bit bummed out about the state of the world I pick it up and I think about the person on it – stoic Emperor Marcus Aurelius – and I think about the stories this coin has and the other people, just like me, that have held it these past 1800 or so years… I feel like it's a bit of a faux pas to tell people on the internet where you live but you and I are friends and so – Graven Hill is this amazing self-development community. You can basically buy a plot of land and then build your own home on it. It's also the site of Alchester. Alchester, which is now completely abandoned, was the largest town in Roman Oxford here. But what's perhaps even more exciting is that it started off as a fairly major military base… I live in modern-day Alchester. On my desk is that Roman coin. In all likelihood not, but perhaps the very same Roman coin that someone that once lived here once held. It's possible – there were people making their homes right here at the same time that these coins were in circulation. Yes there certainly would have been coins of Marcus Aurelius in circulation in the later town. We do have coins right to the late 4th century. Marcus Aurelius obviously was emperor from 161 to 180. And silver denarii tend to have a fairly long circulation. So in Alchester we have silver denarii going back to roughly 150 BC, which was around 200 years before the Romans arrived at Alchester. They circulate for much longer than the base metal coins. What we do in life echoes through eternity… Okay, that's a quote from Gladiator – but I do feel the ripples of time echoes from the past reverberating into the present. Everyone I show this coin to is kind of amazed by it. Most people have never touched anything this old about 1,800 years as I say and it seems an almost impossibly large amount of time, doesn't it? I still don't know what that feeling is. That feeling of historical oneness, of connectedness, of feeling somehow personally addressed by the coincidences of history. This coin was a gift. Somehow, potentially, back where it belongs. I suppose it's a sense of sublimity. I'm still searching for the right word. But I do know that this tiny coin, a passive witness to almost two millennia of history, suddenly feels a whole lot heavier.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support There's a lot of AI stuff out there at the moment – a lot of gushing about whether AI is a good or a bad thing – a lot of amazement, and a lot of fear too. In amongst all of that noise, there's a whole world of quirky, fun uses for artificial intelligence – ones that perhaps leave us feeling slightly less threatened than ChatGPT. And so, since everyone's talking about AI, meet Endel… Endel is a company that creates an app and a technology that allows for people to experience functional, scientifically proven soundscapes. They're working on generative music; on music for functional means – music for relaxation, music for sleep, music for focus – but also using the power of sound as a medium. I've been using Endel for a few months and I love it. Endel is a good example of the ways in which artificial intelligence can help flesh something out. It's not entirely powered by AI, but AI fills in the gaps. “It's a very interesting topic because we use kind of a hybrid approach and we're not afraid of saying that. I know it's a buzzword to say that ‘everything is powered by AI', but both the tech and the sound, we found that the best results come from being a bit more mindful about what tools we are using. We implement AI in crucial places. For example, we cannot create enough melodies, so we use AI in creation of some layers, for example melodies, for example chords, and some harmonic parts which are always evolving, which are always unpredictable, but still they are placed in a set of rules.” Artificial intelligence feels relatively new. I understand the hype. It's fun, it's mysterious, and I think that's also what makes it somewhat frightening; it feels uncanny. AI is a black box that most of us don't understand and that's scary. It is scary when your intelligence is threatened by something you can't quite comprehend. AI's unknown is the moral panic of the moment. Are the robots coming for my job? It's too radical to say big words about AI will replace everything,” says Dmitry from Endel. “All those talks about singularity… let's put them aside.” Humankind has been here before. People have always feared new developments in technology. Last century, technophobia somewhat weirdly manifested as a fear of free time. We're perpetually obsessed with our own obsolescence. Maybe it's a survival instinct – I don't know – but the prediction that the robots are coming is at least 60 years in the making. We keep making the same prediction – and sure, we're closer to that than ever before, but also pretty far away. “The more you work with AI, the more you understand that it's very stupid in a sense. It doesn't really understand what you're saying. And those linguistic models, which are a booming thing right now, it doesn't understand what you're saying to it, what you're typing to it. It understands a succession of symbols and it works according to those succession of symbols. We are very, very far away from actually replacing us human beings and the future of AI music is still further away because music is much much more than visual data.” In all of this excitement and panic, we all seem to have forgotten that AI stands for artificial intelligence: artificially intelligent. A lot of the exports of AI that you and I are seeing today are kind of like magic tricks. They're a sleight of hand, an amusement ride, an oddity, and a brand new digital commodity.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support This is a story about how one of the US's most iconic writers created a recipe for one of the most iconic US meals. My quest for this recipe has all the hallmarks of a Hemingway novel packed full of mystery and is set against the backdrop of war. And it all began with a single question. What's the best burger ever? I emailed Hemingway Home and Alexa got in touch with me… So as we know, Ernest Hemingway is a well-known American author. But beyond that, he was an adventure seeker. He was a war correspondent. He tried every type of sport, fishing, boxing, checked out bullfighting, traveled all over. He really lived life to the fullest. I'd found this burger recipe online, supposedly one from Ernest Hemingway. Atlantic Constitution. 12th February 2014. Boston. Associated Press: Materials from the Nobel Prize winning author Ernest Hemingway's Cuban home were available to researchers for the first time at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. The collection includes car insurance for a 1941 Plymouth station wagon, a license to carry arms in Cuba, bullfighting tickets, and even a recipe from his fourth wife, Mary Hemingway, for Papa's favourite hamburger. The recipe is in the archive of the JFK Presidential Library and one of the archivists, Stacey, was kind enough to answer my questions: You know, Hemingway spent a lot of his life divided between different homes. He lived in Cuba at this home, La Finca Vigia, from about 1939 to 1960. Hemingway shot himself in 1961. Relations between the US and Cuba weren't too great at that time and his wife, Mary, needed help getting back into Cuba to reclaim some documents, some papers, some memorabilia. - (Alexa) Yeah, so like the story I've also heard to piggyback on that was she had to make a deal with the Cuban government, like give me the contents of our safe and I will give you the house. (Stacey) Hemingway's widow, Mary Hemingway, needed to get back to Cuba to get all of Hemingway's stuff out. He'd left his manuscripts, his correspondence, his book collection, a lot of his material was there. And the Kennedy administration actually helped her get a special visa to get into Cuba. She was able to kind of strike a deal where she would take as much as she could from the Finca, their home there, in exchange for donating the house and what was left in it to the Cuban people. This recipe was among the documents left behind. I was searching for something in their voice, in the voice of Ernest or Mary Hemingway, something that told me that this was their recipe rather than just something that they owned and used. And then I found it. Mary, his wife, wrote that they ate the hamburgers to fortify them for tramping through the sage-bush after pheasant, partridge or ducks in Idaho or Wyoming which they visited every autumn. She typed this recipe out for the Women's Day encyclopaedia of cookery whilst Hemingway was still alive. It's a long and complex process, as you might imagine, featuring red wine and piccalilli, capers, and a bit of chemistry to mix up some discontinued ingredients. But it's not hard to imagine, tucked away in his Cuban home and sheltered from the harsh sun, Hemingway and his wife and his young staff, all of whom called him Papa – that's where the name of the recipe comes from – tucking into these burgers. (Stacey) It's kind of a unique recipe, but also it's just such a way to humanise this person who can seem really sort of untouchable and how much the legend and myth has sort of overshadowed the man. And like, here's, you know, he ate hamburgers like everybody else. So I think people find that really interesting and the recipe itself kind of makes you want to try it. These are the best thing I've ever eaten. And I am not kidding. This recipe, this burger, captures his journeys around the world, his ritzy personality, and the context in which it came to be, abandoned in the middle of a war-torn country, is incredibly Hemingway. So whilst Stacey is right, Whilst these burgers humanise a man who's become a legend, even the most mundane aspects of his life, like what he ate for dinner, have helped turn Hemingway into an icon. He was a master storyteller. And this unassuming sheet of yellowing paper is, in some weird way, yet another of his stories… THE RECIPE From experimenting. Papa's Favorite Hamburger There is no reason why a fried hamburger has to turn out gray, greasy, paper-thin and tasteless. You can add all sorts of goodies and flavors to the ground beef — minced mushrooms, cocktail sauce, minced garlic and onion, chopped almonds, a big dollop of Piccalilli, or whatever your eye lights on. Papa prefers this combination. Ingredients 1 lb. ground lean beef 2 cloves, minced garlic 2 little green onions (spring onions) finely chopped 1 heaping teaspoon, India relish (piccalilli) 2 tablespoons, capers 1 heaping teaspoon, Spice Islands Sage Spice Islands Beau Monde Seasoning — ½ teaspoon Spice Islands Mei Yen Powder — ½ teaspoon 1 egg, beaten in a cup with a fork About one-third cup dry red or white wine 1 tablespoon cooking oil Some of these ingredients have been discontinued, so… I swapped Beau Monde Seasoning for ½ teaspoon celery salt I swapped Mei Yen Powder for ½ teaspoon soy sauce What to do Break up the meat with a fork and scatter the garlic, onion, and dry seasonings over it, then mix them into the meat with a fork or your fingers. Let the bowl of meat sit out of the icebox for ten or fifteen minutes while you set the table and make the salad. Add the relish, capers, everything else including wine and let the meat sit, quietly marinating, for another ten minutes if possible. Now make four fat, juicy patties with your hands. The patties should be an inch thick, and soft in texture but not runny. Have the oil in your frying-pan hot but not smoking when you drop in the patties and then turn the heat down and fry the burgers about four minutes. Take the pan off the burner and turn the heat high again. Flip the burgers over, put the pan back on the hot fire, then after one minute, turn the heat down again and cook another three minutes. Both sides of the burgers should be crispy brown and the middle pink and juicy. Serve in a brioche bun with salad, pickles, and sauce.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support I have Andy Warhol: Polaroids on my shelf. Andy was obsessed with celebrity, he used to take photos of people all the time. As I was flicking through this the other day, I stumbled across a photo of Pelé, the footballer, who died at the end of last year. I don't really know why but I thought that they lived in entirely different time periods. Maybe it was because Andy died younger than most or that Pelé simply lived into my own time period – or that I wasn't expecting the world of an American artist and Brazilian footballer to collide on the pages in front of me. Warhol would take these pictures and later turn them into portraits. He said of Pelé that instead of having 15 minutes of fame, he'd ‘have 15 centuries' of it. When he was 7, Pelé purchased a radio and it was on that radio in 1950 that he heard the World Cup final. Brazil lost to Uruguay. Pelé's father cried and Pelé promised him that he would win a World Cup. Eight years later, Pelé scores in the ninetieth minute. Brazil win the World Cup. Pelé's love for the beautiful game inspired his legacy which lives on in the form of statues, documentaries, and in museums. You can see that radio set – perhaps the very thing that set him on his journey to becoming ‘The King' – in Museu Pelé in Santos, São Paulo. ‘Polaroids' is a time capsule, these photographs half of an incredible diary that Andy Warhol kept. The other, phoned in to his assistant every day for just over a decade. For over a decade, I've kept an audio diary – a journal – in the Voice Memos app on my iPhone. I've captured the voices of friends and family, of relationships past and present, of people no longer alive, of places that no longer exist, moments of frustration and genuine joy too. Keeping a journal is an amazing form of delayed gratification. You get very little from the process as you actually create entires – in fact, I probably look like an absolute nutcase, blabbing some thought into the record as I stroll down the street or waving my phone in front of people's faces – but the magic comes from the legacy you leave yourself. This past month, I've been moving all of my journal entries from Voice Memos into Day One. They now carry the weather and their location, paired with photos and videos too. Now I've got a multimedia diary – audio at its core – spanning the past ten years; a map of my life over the last decade. As much of an achievement as diarising a decade is, I know the contents of those entries are probably of very little relevance to you. Pelé's got a museum to commemorate him, Warhol's got the same. This is a museum of the self – a personal time capsule – and listening back to these entries, there's a theme. Diversity. Action. Adventure. Growth. Perhaps the most important theme is love. I can hear where I was years ago and experience again pure, innocent love for the life I lead and the incredible things I get to do… Like this month, I've been on private tours of the Musical Museum in London, the Oxford Castle and Prison, and the Story Museum too. I've been to a football game, I saw the latest Avatar film, and gone climbing in Bicester as well. On October 1st 1977, Pelé retired from football. Andy Warhol was at that game. Towards the end of that diary entry, he says this: Pelé played on one side, then on the other. When it started to rain, they passed out raincoats to the VIPs. And it was nice in the rain, it made it more exciting. 75,000 people there. Minutes after the final whistle, Pelé stood up in the Giants Stadium in New Jersey and gave his farewell speech: Ladies and gentlemen, I am very happy to be here with you in this greatest moment of my life. I want to thank you all, every single one of you. Love is more important than what we can take in life. Everything pass. Please say with me, three times — Love! Love! Love!

January: I launch Mission Transmission – a project to send a radio programme to space. The UK KIDZ BOP Kids cover Coldplay's My Universe – which has since been streamed 1.2 million times. Tim Peake lends his support to the project. I'm interviewed by countless journalists across the nation as they cover it and thousands of children head to the Fun Kids website to send us their hopes, dreams, and aspirations for the future. The 1975 and Greta Thunberg give us permission to use their song in the project which we intertwine with children's voices… February: I write a piece for The Week Junior's Science+Nature magazine all about multiverses and whether this universe might be one of many. In an event at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, six kids, KIDZ BOP, a host of Fun Kids presenters and astronaut Tim Peake slams a big red button and we send that radio programme to space. That same night, Russia goes to war in Ukraine. March: The US and UK announce a ban on Russian oil, while the EU announces a two-thirds reduction in its demand for Russian gas. April: Podcast Mysteries of Science wins Best Science & Medical Podcast and Best Launch at the Publisher Podcast Awards. May: I head to Copenhagen with Paul and Meg and spend three days in Malmo in Sweden for Radiodays Europe – my favourite talk from Jonas, the presenter of Songwriter. June: I move. The Queen's Platinum Jubilee takes place. I watch a Whitney Houston tribute concert. July: The British Podcast Awards swing into town and Activity Quest picks up bronze in the very grown-up sounding Arts and Culture category. The first operational image from the James Webb Space Telescope, the highest-resolution image of the early universe ever taken, was revealed to the public. It shows thousands of galaxies in a tiny sliver of the universe – an area of sky with an angular size approximately equal to a grain of sand held at arm's length. Looking at that image, we look back in time. A wave from the universe – light only just reaching Earth – from four billion years ago. August: I went to see Coldplay. I discover the work of Ryan Holiday and become engrossed in philosophy and stoicism. September: Queen Elizabeth II dies. We launch Mysteries of Science season four and kick off by chatting to an old pal, Tim Peake, and illusionist Derren Brown. Liz Truss is appointed Prime Minister of the UK. October: Rishi Sunak is appointed Prime Minister of the UK and inherits a burgeoning cost of living crisis. I got to feed giraffes. November: I got to pet a rhino! The world population reached an estimated 8 billion people. NASA launches Artemis, the most powerful rocket ever into orbit. The Orion capsule makes a close pass at the Moon, venturing further into space than any previous habitable spacecraft. James Webb looked outwards but Orion pointed home, capturing stunning photos of Earth from afar, our tiny blue planet suspended in the immensity of space. Like a grain of sand at arm's length. Nothing but us. You and me. And the largest family portrait ever taken. The World Cup kicks off… December: I go to so many Christmas lights trails that I've entirely lost count… I take the technology we used to launch our radio programme into space in February and turn it into a business: sendamessagetospace.com I write a piece on the abominable snowman and end up on the cover of The Week Junior's Science+Nature magazine. And I finish the year, right here, where I started it – home, with my parents, my family, full of gratitude (and food) and ready to go again...

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support January I launch Mission Transmission – a project to send a radio programme to space. The UK KIDZ BOP Kids cover Coldplay's My Universe – which has since been streamed 1.2 million times. Tim Peake lends his support to the project. I'm interviewed by countless journalists across the nation as they cover it and thousands of children head to the Fun Kids website to send us their hopes, dreams, and aspirations for the future. UK radio station sending our voices into space Radio programme beamed into space for first time breaking record Eastbourne pupil helps launch radio show into space – and sets a new Guinness World Record Tim Peake sends radio show to space KIDZ BOP's “My Universe” Is The Official Soundtrack For Fun Kids Radio's ‘Mission Transmission' Broadcast Into Space We spoke to @funkids producer Adam Stoner about Mission Transmission Never mind broadcasting to the nation, Adam Stoner prepares to broadcast to the Universe Adam Stoner is set to become the first person in the world to send a radio programme into deep space Adam Stoner is hoping to make history and inspire the next generation of dreamers The 1975 and Greta Thunberg give us permission to use their song in the project which we intertwine with children's voices… February I write a piece for The Week Junior's Science+Nature magazine all about multiverses and whether this universe might be one of many. In an event at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, six kids, KIDZ BOP, a host of Fun Kids presenters and astronaut Tim Peake slams a big red button and we send that radio programme to space. Right now, it's just shy of six trillion miles from from Earth; a quarter of the way towards Earth's next star. It's a programme about hope, about love, and about making a difference together. It's a programme about being united, about making a change, about taking care of one another. It's a programme about how amazing it would be if we found life somewhere else in the universe, about human accomplishment, achievement, and triumph against adversity. That same night, Russia goes to war in Ukraine. March The US and UK announce a ban on Russian oil, while the EU announces a two-thirds reduction in its demand for Russian gas. April Podcast Mysteries of Science wins Best Science & Medical Podcast and Best Launch at the Publisher Podcast Awards. May I head to Copenhagen with Paul and Meg and spend three days in Malmo in Sweden for Radiodays Europe – my favourite talk from Jonas, the presenter of Songwriter. I turn 27. June I move. The Queen's Platinum Jubilee takes place. I watch a Whitney Houston tribute concert. July The British Podcast Awards swing into town and Activity Quest picks up bronze in the very grown-up sounding Arts and Culture category. The first operational image from the James Webb Space Telescope, the highest-resolution image of the early universe ever taken, was revealed to the public. It shows thousands of galaxies in a tiny sliver of the universe – an area of sky with an angular size approximately equal to a grain of sand held at arm's length. Looking at that image, we look back in time. A wave from the universe – light only just reaching Earth – from four billion years ago. August I went to see Coldplay. I discover the work of Ryan Holiday and become engrossed in philosophy and stoicism. September Queen Elizabeth II dies. We launch Mysteries of Science season four and kick off by chatting to an old pal, Tim Peake, and illusionist Derren Brown. Liz Truss is appointed Prime Minister of the UK. October Rishi Sunak is appointed Prime Minister of the UK and inherits a burgeoning cost of living crisis. I got to feed giraffes. November I got to pet a rhino! The world population reached an estimated 8 billion people. NASA launches Artemis, the most powerful rocket ever into orbit. The Orion capsule makes a close pass at the Moon, venturing further into space than any previous habitable spacecraft. James Webb looked outwards but Orion pointed home, capturing stunning photos of Earth from afar, our tiny blue planet suspended in the immensity of space. Like a grain of sand at arm's length. Nothing but us. You and me. And the largest family portrait ever taken. The World Cup kicks off… December I go to so many Christmas lights trails that I've entirely lost count… Waddesdon Manor Westonbirt Arboretum Blenheim Palace I take the technology we used to launch our radio programme into space in February and turn it into a business: sendamessagetospace.com I write a piece on the abominable snowman and end up on the cover of The Week Junior's Science+Nature magazine. And I finish the year, right here, where I started it – home, with my parents, my family, full of gratitude (and food) and ready to go again. The thing that I found so jarring about 2022 was the huge contrast between development and destruction. But there are reasons to be cheerful too. Cooperation. I see it everywhere. By working together, we're able to create something that is much greater than the sum of its parts. By sharing scientific knowledge, we've been able to make incredible strides in our understanding of the universe, and by sharing technological knowledge, we've been able to develop advanced tools and machines that have made our lives easier and more comfortable. Cooperation is essential for our survival. We are a social species. We depend on each other for protection, for food, and shelter. By working together, we are able to accomplish incredible things and ensure our survival in the universe. Reading the works of Ryan Holiday and hearing about stoicism has taught me that perspective and discipline is important. Priorities are important. You – I – am important. Millions of years ago, the human experiment began. And here you are; a miracle. If ever the world feels awful, if ever – like me – you get stuck in your own head, think bigger. The very molecules that make up your body come from the universe – the same galaxies that James Webb snapped, the same rock that Orion soared past… You are made of those. We are all connected and together, we can achieve amazing things. That perspective is important. Remember that as we head into 2023.

I've been taking it easy in November (and will be doing the same in December) but that doesn't mean I've not been up to a lot. I've mainly been working on Send a Message to Space which uses the same technology we used to send Fun Kids' Mission Transmission programme into space in February. Get 50% off a message into space or a gift pack at sendamessagetospace.com until December 31st by using the code PODACST.

I read the opening few words of A Billion Years: My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology by Mike Rinder. I've been reading it this month. Mike's story is fascinating, charting his devotion to and escape from what has been variously described as a cult, a business, and a religious movement. A Billion Years also highlights the stories we tell ourselves about the way the world works. I could have made this month's recap about all manner of things – Westminster politics in particular. But I've kind of adopted a new modus operandi, if you like – I'm focusing on what I can control. I'm not wasting my time and energy getting angry, outraged, or even amused by what's happening in with political leaders... If it's up to me, it gets 100%; if it's not up to me, it gets 0%.  So, with that said, I've been out and about for the Activity Quest podcast, visiting a brand new hieroglyphics exhibition the British Museum, checking out an [adventure playground at Stonor Park, and I even went out on a safari too and got to feed some giraffes...  Take a listen: British MuseumStonor ParkWoburn Safari Park On Apple Podcasts, we've just turned on Plus, so you can subscribe for ad-free listening and bonus episodes. That's what I've been busy building out at work. Next month, I'm off to some Christmas lights displays for the show.  And that's when you'll next hear from me – November 30th 2022. 

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support As I rushed out the front door of […] 37 Fitzroy Street in London and stepped into a beautiful June day in 2007, the only thing I was certain of was that I had to get away before anyone realised what I was doing. I left with only a briefcase containing my passport, a few papers, a thumb drive, and two cell phones. Had I attempted to take more, or had I tried to bring my wife and children with me, I knew it would make my escape impossible. I figured I would get them out once I was in a safe place. I headed toward the nearby Warren Street Tube station, glancing over my shoulder to see if I had been followed. I knew if I ran, it might attract attention, so I resisted the urge until I rounded the first corner and ducked into a doorway to catch my breath. Although I had not physically exerted myself, my heart was racing as if I had just completed a hundred-meter sprint. I waited thirty seconds, saw no one, and stepped back onto the street, now walking faster, still acutely aware of my surroundings. I tried to maintain the appearance of a regular Londoner hurrying to the Tube, rather than a fugitive. I knew all the tricks they employed to track down someone like me—after all, I had done the tracking-down myself. I needed to get out of sight, remove the batteries from my phones, use only cash, and stay on the move. The relief began to flood my body as I descended the long escalator. I stopped at the bottom and surveyed the few people behind me. Still no familiar faces. I stood on the platform, back against the tiled wall, and waited for the train to pull in. When it did, I stayed put until all the other passengers had boarded, jumping on at the last minute while glancing down the platform to see if there were any other last-minute riders. There were none. As I sat down and the train pulled out of the station, I breathed long and hard and tried to calm myself. I had a couple of hundred dollars, but nowhere to stay, no clothes other than what I was wearing, no car or job, and no idea what I was going to do or where I was going to go. I knew only that I had to escape the madness my life had descended into. I hoped I could gather my thoughts and figure out a plan. I had no choice: my only other option was to return to the organisation and lamely turn myself in. That was unthinkable. Those, the opening few words of A Billion Years: My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology by Mike Rinder. I've been reading it this month. Mike's story is fascinating, charting his devotion to and escape from what has been variously described as a cult, a business, and a religious movement. A Billion Years also highlights the stories we tell ourselves about the way the world works. I could have made this month's recap about all manner of things – Westminster politics in particular. But I've kind of adopted a new modus operandi, if you like – I'm focusing on what I can control. I'm not wasting my time and energy getting angry, outraged, or even amused by what's happening in with political leaders or foreign wars. If it's up to me, it gets 100%; if it's not up to me, it gets 0%. So, with that said, I've been out and about for the Activity Quest podcast visiting a brand new hieroglyphics exhibition the British Museum, checking out an adventure playground at Stonor Park, and I even went out on a safari too and got to feed some giraffes… Take a listen: British Museum Stonor Park Woburn Safari Park On Apple Podcasts, we've just turned on Plus, so you can subscribe for ad-free listening and bonus episodes. That's what I've been busy building out at work. Next month, I'm off to some Christmas lights displays for the show. And that's when you'll next hear from me – November 30th 2022.

She reigned for over 70 years and earlier this month was reduced to a box on a plinth.  How humbling those images were. A figure larger than life and so ingrained into the public psyche, suddenly startlingly small; a Standard covered coffin adorned by her subjects. Adorned by the living. Make no mistake: This is the fate that befalls us all.  It doesn't matter whether you're a Queen or a King, a saint or a sinner, a celebrity or a civilian – we all die. To carry a sense of the inevitable with us in the hope that it makes us remember and cherish and encourages us to make the most of every minute bestowed upon us can surely only be healthy. Meditating on mortality is only depressing if you entirely miss the point.  You'd be forgiven for thinking – given the way the Queen worked throughout her reign, right until her final day – that death is something that suddenly happens. You're alive one day and gone the next. But that's untrue. You've been dying since birth. You die every day. You're killing time by reading to this right now. In Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver Burkeman writes that our being is totally, utterly bound up with our finite amount of time. To be a human is to exist temporally, in the stretch between birth and death, certain that the end will come but unable to know when. We speak about having (or not having) time but in reality, we _are_ time. You happen to be alive. There's no cosmic law that says you are owed that. You happen to be here and you can happen not to be here at any moment, be it through accident or a betrayal of your own body.  Your time is a non-renewable resource but it's our lack of it that is precisely what makes us human. The finite nature of our lives create meaning, purpose, priority, and urgency. I'm not religious or a monarchist but Queen Elizabeth II was, as so many commentators said the night she died, a constant – her role imposed upon her by quirk of ancient constitution – and a reminder that even the mightiest and most God-ordained, die.  Elizabeth was born April 21st 1926 and died September 8th 2022. She was 96 years old. She got 35,205 days.  Today, September 30th 2022, I am 9,995 days... 

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support She reigned for over 70 years and earlier this month was reduced to a box on a plinth. How humbling those images were. A figure larger than life and so ingrained into the public psyche, suddenly startlingly small; a Standard covered coffin adorned by her subjects. Adorned by the living. Make no mistake: This is the fate that befalls us all. It doesn't matter whether you're a Queen or a King, a saint or a sinner, a celebrity or a civilian – we all die. To carry a sense of the inevitable with us in the hope that it makes us remember and cherish and encourages us to make the most of every minute bestowed upon us can surely only be healthy. Meditating on mortality is only depressing if you entirely miss the point. You'd be forgiven for thinking – given the way the Queen worked throughout her reign, right until her final day – that death is something that suddenly happens. You're alive one day and gone the next. But that's untrue. You've been dying since birth. You die every day. You're killing time by reading to this right now. In Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver Burkeman writes that our being is totally, utterly bound up with our finite amount of time. To be a human is to exist temporally, in the stretch between birth and death, certain that the end will come but unable to know when. We speak about having (or not having) time but in reality, we are time. You happen to be alive. There's no cosmic law that says you are owed that. You happen to be here and you can happen not to be here at any moment, be it through accident or a betrayal of your own body. Your time is a non-renewable resource but it's our lack of it that is precisely what makes us human. The finite nature of our lives create meaning, purpose, priority, and urgency. I'm not religious or a monarchist but Queen Elizabeth II was, as so many commentators said the night she died, a constant – her role imposed upon her by quirk of ancient constitution – and a reminder that even the mightiest and most God-ordained, die. Elizabeth was born April 21st 1926 and died September 8th 2022. She was 96 years old. She got 35,205 days. Today, September 30th 2022, I am 9,995 days… Memento mori.

Marcus Aurelius was an Emperor – he was Emperor of Rome. His son was an asshole, destroyed most of Aurelius' work but his diary remained.  Here's one of the greatest leaders of one of the greatest Empires writing not for longevity or legacy but therapy.  Marcus Aurelius is one of the most famous stoics. He was also a lot of other things. But his Meditations – his diary – is a beautiful bit of literature that, even 2,000 years down the line, is still wonderfully modern. Nowadays, stoicism or 'to be stoic' means somebody who remains calm under pressure, or someone who doesn't swing between emotional extremes but that's really an English bastardisation.  It's a lot more than that. It's philosophy of thought that I've found hard to put into words.  Ryan Holiday seems to be the modern day thought leader in stoicism. He's not an academic – I don't think he'd describe himself that way – but he does write about stoicism and about the stoics. He runs The Daily Stoic, and there's a book by the same name. I've been reading that recently.  Stoicism isn't abstract, it isn't theoretical. It's something you actually do. It's something you apply.  Embodied within stoicism are a whole load of other really important ideas too. Those of you that know me will know I'm a fan of silly, interesting or intricate time pieces. Mr Jones Watches in London makes The Accurate; its face is mirrored metal, the second hand a bright red arrow and it's a memento mori – the hour hand says 'Remember', the minute hand says 'you will die'.  Memento mori is one of those stoic ideas. Dwell on your mortality so you can live the short existence we all have to its fullest. Amor fati – a resignation to, or love of one's fate – is another. Activity Quest, the podcast I make at the UK's children's radio station, Fun Kids, won bronze in the very adult sounding 'Arts and Culture' category at the British Podcast Awards at the end of July.  Activity Quest has also been nominated for a Heart of the City award at the Lord Mayor's Dragon Awards. The ceremony is at Mansion House on the 27th – it's a black tie affair – I'll let you know if anything comes of it. Either way – amor fati.  Earlier this month, I went to see Coldplay on their opening night at Wembley Stadium. There's a sense of unity and sanguineness to a Coldplay gig; say what you like about their music – they know how to put on a good show. 80,000 people, every song is a hit, everyone knows all the words, awesome lighting and pyrotechnics too – they've still got those wristbands. I loved it. I'd go again in a heartbeat.  Chris Martin is almost definitely a stoic. Staying on the theme of music, Panic at The Disco's new album – Viva Las Vengeance – is good but I've really been playing a lot of modernlove. this month. Their debut EP, Oh My Mind, came out at the end of July. It's sort of 80s synth pop/indie/garage, with a tinge of cheesy coming of age film.  Always surprising – The 1975. I look forward to their new album, out in October. Their single, Happiness, has been on repeat.  The stoics believed you should be involved in politics and you should give yourself to public life but they also believed that you really shouldn't spend too much time stressing over that which you cannot control.  In a few days time, we'll find ourselves with a new Prime Minister at the helm of an energy, environmental, and cost of living crisis and facing heightening domestic and international tensions. I make a poor stoic in this sense; over the past few years I've become positively anti-political but given that stoicism worked so well for one of Rome's best leaders, maybe its key rules of wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance could serve Rishi or Truss well...

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support Secondary school. Some time during secondary school. I don't know when, exactly, but it's a year group school assembly. I'm sat on one of those green, uncomfortable plastic chairs. The ones that lock together on the side, with a hole in the back. Joe is on my left, Tom on my right. Mr Thompson's the Head of Year and talking, as one does in an assembly. I'm pubescent, it's early, I'm not paying that much attention – and, I'm sorry, I don't remember every school assembly I ever had. But one word from this one assembly somehow manages to lodge itself so deeply into my brain that I can recall it well over a decade later. Perhaps it's because this is the first time I've ever heard this word or because, somehow, my brain knows that at some point in the future, I'll need it. Stoicism. Marcus Aurelius was an Emperor – he was Emperor of Rome. His son was an asshole, destroyed most of Aurelius' work but his diary remained. Here's one of the greatest leaders of one of the greatest Empires writing not for longevity or legacy but therapy. Marcus Aurelius is one of the most famous stoics. He was also a lot of other things. But his Meditations – his diary – is a beautiful bit of literature that, even 2,000 years down the line, is still wonderfully modern. I recommend the Gregory Hays translation. Nowadays, stoicism or ‘to be stoic' means somebody who remains calm under pressure, or someone who doesn't swing between emotional extremes but that's really an English bastardisation. It's a lot more than that. It's philosophy of thought that I've found hard to put into words. Ryan Holiday seems to be the modern day thought leader in stoicism. He's not an academic – I don't think he'd describe himself that way – but he does write about stoicism and about the stoics. He runs The Daily Stoic, and there's a book by the same name. I've been reading that recently. Stoicism isn't abstract, it isn't theoretical. It's something you actually do. It's something you apply. Embodied within stoicism are a whole load of other really important ideas too. Those of you that know me will know I'm a fan of silly, interesting or intricate time pieces. Mr Jones Watches in London makes The Accurate; its face is mirrored metal, the second hand a bright red arrow and it's a memento mori – the hour hand says ‘Remember', the minute hand says ‘you will die'. Memento mori is one of those stoic ideas. Dwell on your mortality so you can live the short existence we all have to its fullest. Amor fati – a resignation to, or love of one's fate – is another. Activity Quest, the podcast I make at the UK's children's radio station, Fun Kids, won bronze in the very adult sounding ‘Arts and Culture' category at the British Podcast Awards at the end of July. Activity Quest has also been nominated for a Heart of the City award at the Lord Mayor's Dragon Awards. The ceremony is at Mansion House on the 27th – it's a black tie affair – I'll let you know if anything comes of it. Either way – amor fati. Earlier this month, I went to see Coldplay on their opening night at Wembley Stadium. There's a sense of unity and sanguineness to a Coldplay gig; say what you like about their music – they know how to put on a good show. 80,000 people, every song is a hit, everyone knows all the words, awesome lighting and pyrotechnics too – they've still got those wristbands. I loved it. I'd go again in a heartbeat. Chris Martin is almost definitely a stoic. Staying on the theme of music, Panic at The Disco's new album – Viva Las Vengeance – is good but I've really been playing a lot of modernlove. this month. Their debut EP, Oh My Mind, came out at the end of July. It's sort of 80s synth pop/indie/garage, with a tinge of cheesy coming of age film. Always surprising – The 1975. I look forward to their new album, out in October. Their single, Happiness, has been on repeat. I don't doubt for a second that Matty Healy knows what stoicism is. The Sound – The 1975 – has this lyric: It's not about reciprocation it's just all about me / A sycophantic, prophetic, Socratic junkie wannabe / And there's so much skin to see / A simple Epicurean Philosophy Epictetus famously said ‘some things are within our power, while others are not' and Seneca said it is ‘ruinous for the soul to be anxious about the future'. The stoics believed you should be involved in politics and you should give yourself to public life but they also believed that you really shouldn't spend too much time stressing over that which you cannot control. In a few days time, we'll find ourselves with a new Prime Minister at the helm of an energy, environmental, and cost of living crisis and facing heightening domestic and international tensions. I make a poor stoic in this sense; over the past few years I've become positively anti-political but given that stoicism worked so well for one of Rome's best leaders, maybe its key rules of wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance could serve Rishi or Truss well…

Here's the Met Office's Chef of Science, Professor Steven Belcher: "I wasn't expecting to see this in my career, but the UK has just exceeded 40 degrees Celsius for the first time. In some ways, of course, 40 degrees is an arbitrary figure because we see the impact of heat waves at lower temperatures. But for me, it's a real reminder that the climate has changed and it will continue to change. Research conducted here at the Met Office has demonstrated that it's virtually impossible for the UK to experience 40ºC in an undisrupted climate. But climate change driven by greenhouse gases have made these extreme temperatures possible and we're actually seeing that possibility now." The role of humankind in climate change is clear. The consensus is settled. Greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels like coal, gas and oil are making extreme weather events like heat waves hotter, longer and more frequent. This is not about one or two uncomfortable 'suck it up and get on with it' British stiff upper lip summer days.  This is not 'just summer'. This is the start of fundamental ecological breakdown. The Earth's climate is changing faster than scientists predicted and our inaction will only worsen the consequences. A 40 degree UK summer is indicative of a planet globally warmed by 1.5º. Impossible, if not for human caused climate change. One expert commission predicted that if we don't change course, there would be up to 1 billion climate refugees in the balance of this century. – Al Gore  We have now gained enough information and knowledge to be able to begin safeguarding our living conditions and our wellbeing. – Greta Thunberg  This is the very last moment we have in which we can actually hope to stem some of these disasters. – David Attenborough  We're facing the greatest existential crisis that humanity has ever faced. We're facing the potential collapse of our life support systems, a domino effect as one Earth system pulls down the others until basically, the habitable space and the planet collapses into a completely different equilibrium state for which we did not evolve. – George Monbiot  So here's a message to the future, a form of accountability that the people leading us seem to severely lack:  We know what is happening. We know what needs to be done. Our survival as a species depends on us acting on the knowledge we have with the tools we have. We still have everything in our own hands and we can still fix this.  But only you, whoever you are, wherever you are, and whenever you are, will know if we have done so.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support Here's the Met Office's Chef of Science, Professor Steven Belcher: I wasn't expecting to see this in my career, but the UK has just exceeded 40 degrees Celsius for the first time. In some ways, of course, 40 degrees is an arbitrary figure because we see the impact of heat waves at lower temperatures. But for me, it's a real reminder that the climate has changed and it will continue to change. Research conducted here at the Met Office has demonstrated that it's virtually impossible for the UK to experience 40ºC in an undisrupted climate. But climate change driven by greenhouse gases have made these extreme temperatures possible and we're actually seeing that possibility now. The role of humankind in climate change is clear. The consensus is settled. Greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels like coal, gas and oil are making extreme weather events like heat waves hotter, longer and more frequent. This is not about one or two uncomfortable ‘suck it up and get on with it' British stiff upper lip summer days. This is not ‘just summer'. This is the start of fundamental ecological breakdown. The Earth's climate is changing faster than scientists predicted and our inaction will only worsen the consequences. A 40 degree UK summer is indicative of a planet globally warmed by 1.5º. Impossible, if not for human caused climate change. One expert commission predicted that if we don't change course, there would be up to 1 billion climate refugees in the balance of this century. – Al Gore We have now gained enough information and knowledge to be able to begin safeguarding our living conditions and our wellbeing. – Greta Thunberg This is the very last moment we have in which we can actually hope to stem some of these disasters. – David Attenborough We're facing the greatest existential crisis that humanity has ever faced. We're facing the potential collapse of our life support systems, a domino effect as one Earth system pulls down the others until basically, the habitable space and the planet collapses into a completely different equilibrium state for which we did not evolve. – George Monbiot So here's a message to the future, a form of accountability that the people leading us seem to severely lack: We know what is happening. We know what needs to be done. Our survival as a species depends on us acting on the knowledge we have with the tools we have. We still have everything in our own hands and we can still fix this. But only you, whoever you are, wherever you are, and whenever you are, will know if we have done so.

Home isn't just a place.  Home is more than the city you were born in, or the town you grew up in, or the street where your school was. It's more than the place where your bed is, or your stuff is, or your clothes are. Home is subjective.  Home is a bright spring morning in 2014, walking past the daffodils on Grafton Road in Cheltenham.  Home is the taste of the local Indian takeaway or the smell of childhood holidays. Home's the second after laughter in pub conversations with friends.  Home's the way mid-winter sunset pierces through train windows as it dances between hills and middle-of-nowhere countryside villages. Home is a feeling. I'm now living in a new place. It's a new layout of walls and doors and appliances and it's very nice but it's not home. I didn't 'move home'; home moved with me.  There's a moment in every house move where all of your belongings are in the back of a lorry – everything you own; a lifetime of things stuffed neatly into boxes – and you haven't yet gained access to the property on the other side.  It would be easy to say that 'your life is in that van' but that's not true either...  Your life is not the cast iron pot you were given for Christmas or the penknife you got for your birthday.  Your life is not the collection of magazines or books or records or shoes or bags or tea towels you have. Home, for me, is the pauses between moments – that intense sense of quiet contentment – and life, for me, is most lived in those moments.  Moving was the biggest thing I did this month but I also had time for a few extras too... I saw Queen of The Night, a Whitney Houston tribute act in Aylesbury last week. There was a full live band and backing singers with Elesha Moses singing as Whitney. It was great!  The village where I lived prior to my move also hosted the International Pig Racing Festival at the start of the month. It's something they do every year but it happened to clash with the jubilee which meant more merriment than normal. Kevin Bacon won which is a crying shame because the name seems somewhat obvious. In previous years, Rasher Sunak has been a participant as has Albert Einswine.  That event was hosted by Helen Browning, resident and organic farmer. They're hosting lots of other events too including wildlife photowalks, foraging expeditions, and gin safaris – they've just launched their own organic gin and it tastes great. In other news, Activity Quest, the podcast I make at Fun Kids was nominated at the British Podcast Awards in a very grown-up category: Best Arts and Culture. Also, The Santa Daily, King Frank and the Knights of the Eco Quest, The Week Junior Show, and a commercial campaign we put together for Ed Sheeran's Mathematics Tour were nominated too. Results come on the 23rd. You'll next hear from me on July 31st 2022.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support Home isn't just a place. Home is more than the city you were born in, or the town you grew up in, or the street where your school was. It's more than the place where your bed is, or your stuff is, or your clothes are. Home is subjective. Home is a bright spring morning in 2014, walking past the daffodils on Grafton Road in Cheltenham. Home is the taste of the local Indian takeaway or the smell of childhood holidays. Home's the second after laughter in pub conversations with friends. Home's the way mid-winter sunset pierces through train windows as it dances between hills and middle-of-nowhere countryside villages. Home is a feeling. I'm now living in a new place. It's a new layout of walls and doors and appliances and it's very nice but it's not home. I didn't ‘move home'; home moved with me. There's a moment in every house move where all of your belongings are in the back of a lorry – everything you own; a lifetime of things stuffed neatly into boxes – and you haven't yet gained access to the property on the other side. It would be easy to say that ‘your life is in that van' but that's not true either… Your life is not the cast iron pot you were given for Christmas or the penknife you got for your birthday. Your life is not the collection of magazines or books or records or shoes or bags or tea towels you have. Home, for me, is the pauses between moments – that intense sense of quiet contentment – and life, for me, is most lived in those moments. Moving was the biggest thing I did this month but I also had time for a few extras too… I saw Queen of The Night, a Whitney Houston tribute act in Aylesbury last week. There was a full live band and backing singers with Elesha Moses singing as Whitney. It was great! The village where I lived prior to my move also hosted the International Pig Racing Festival at the start of the month. It's something they do every year but it happened to clash with the jubilee which meant more merriment than normal. Kevin Bacon won which is a crying shame because the name seems somewhat obvious. In previous years, Rasher Sunak has been a participant as has Albert Einswine. That event was hosted by Helen Browning, resident and organic farmer. They're hosting lots of other events too including wildlife photowalks, foraging expeditions, and gin safaris – they've just launched their own organic gin and it tastes great. In other news, Activity Quest, the podcast I make at Fun Kids was nominated at the British Podcast Awards in a very grown-up category: Best Arts and Culture. Also, The Santa Daily, King Frank and the Knights of the Eco Quest, The Week Junior Show, and a commercial campaign we put together for Ed Sheeran's Mathematics Tour were nominated too. Results come on the 23rd. You'll next hear from me on July 31st 2022.

Radio professionals from around the world gather at RadioDays Europe each year, a three-day conference all about the future of the industry. The risk with any conference is that you spend your time in a culturally-devoid alien bubble of city-limits conference centres and don't get see any of the country that hosts it. Luckily, that didn't happen here! I spent Saturday 14th in Copenhagen with Paul and Meg from Fun Kids and Sunday in Malmö, Sweden before two busy days writing for RadioDays. You can read some of those posts on the RadioDays Europe website. One of my favourite talks was from Denmark's P3 about their show, Songwriter. Together and against the clock, a group of stars write a song inspired by a listener. Jonas, Songwriter's host, jokingly said that the great thing about the programme is that all roles disappear as they try to create against the clock – ‘I'm no longer the host. You're no longer the guest. We're both fucked!' This was my first trip abroad in two years and my second time at RDE. Destination and cultural experiences aside, I've missed getting on a plane! The wonder of seeing countries below you is always so profound. It's a mini-overview effect I love to meditate on after a trip. Probably triggered by bit of airplane window-gazing, I wrote a piece on my 27th birthday all about the importance of perspective and getting an ultra-wide view of what's going on in the world. Call it a ‘new birth year resolution' if you like. I've been packing up my home these past few weeks ready for a move and in doing so have rediscovered The Minimalists podcast and have been moving to make all things digital. I purchased a bunch of digital books (I use Apple Books) this month including a Matt Haig book I've been meaning to read for a while. Here's a stand-out quote from that: If you truly feel part of a bigger picture, if you can see yourself in other people and nature, if this you becomes something bigger than the individual you, then you never truly depart the world when you die. You exist as long as life exists. Because the life you feel inside you is part of the same life force that exists in every living thing. Queued up to read this month, The Journey of Humanity, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art and You're Not Listening. I'm thrilled that Netflix hit Heartstopper has been renewed for seasons two and three. It's vital that people see themselves represented on screen and this is a perfect example of Netflix getting it right. I've also been oddly fascinated by the Johnny Depp v Amber Heard trial. On YouTube, it's become something of a sport with countless YouTube channels streaming testimony with live, expert commentary. We can argue whether cameras in courtrooms are good or bad for justice but I'm left with a greater respect for the legal system as a whole because of this case. Watching it has opened my eyes to the inner workings of a courtroom, to how arguments are won and lost, and to how justice – the corner stone of modern democracies – is served. If you'll excuse me, I've got lots more to pack... You'll next hear from me on June 30th 2022.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support Radio professionals from around the world gather at RadioDays Europe each year, a three-day conference all about the future of the industry. The risk with any conference is that you spend your time in a culturally-devoid alien bubble of city-limits conference centres and don't get see any of the country that hosts it. Luckily, that didn't happen here! I spent Saturday 14th in Copenhagen with Paul and Meg from Fun Kids and Sunday in Malmö, Sweden before two busy days writing for RadioDays. You can read some of those posts on the RadioDays Europe website. One of my favourite talks was from Denmark's P3 about their show, Songwriter. Together and against the clock, a group of stars write a song inspired by a listener. Jonas, Songwriter's host, jokingly said that the great thing about the programme is that all roles disappear as they try to create against the clock – ‘I'm no longer the host. You're no longer the guest. We're both fucked!' Listen to my podcast to hear some of the song they created live on stage. This was my first trip abroad in two years and my second time at RDE. Destination and cultural experiences aside, I've missed getting on a plane! The wonder of seeing countries below you is always so profound. It's a mini-overview effect I love to meditate on after a trip. Probably triggered by bit of airplane window-gazing, I wrote a piece on my 27th birthday all about the importance of perspective and getting an ultra-wide view of what's going on in the world. Call it a ‘new birth year resolution' if you like. I've been packing up my home these past few weeks ready for a move and in doing so have rediscovered The Minimalists podcast and have been moving to make all things digital. I purchased a bunch of digital books (I use Apple Books) this month including a Matt Haig book I've been meaning to read for a while. Here's a stand-out quote from that: If you truly feel part of a bigger picture, if you can see yourself in other people and nature, if this you becomes something bigger than the individual you, then you never truly depart the world when you die. You exist as long as life exists. Because the life you feel inside you is part of the same life force that exists in every living thing. Queued up to read this month, The Journey of Humanity, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art and You're Not Listening. I'm thrilled that Netflix hit Heartstopper has been renewed for seasons two and three. It's vital that people see themselves represented on screen and this is a perfect example of Netflix getting it right. I've also been oddly fascinated by the Johnny Depp v Amber Heard trial. On YouTube, it's become something of a sport with countless YouTube channels streaming testimony with live, expert commentary. We can argue whether cameras in courtrooms are good or bad for justice but I'm left with a greater respect for the legal system as a whole because of this case. Watching it has opened my eyes to the inner workings of a courtroom, to how arguments are won and lost, and to how justice – the corner stone of modern democracies – is served. If you'll excuse me, I've got lots more to pack. You'll next hear from me on June 30th 2022.

I've always had this strange fascination with time and how the clock runs our lives. When I was younger, years would feel like forever and now they don't feel like they happen at all. You've had this experience too. Why does two minutes waiting for the next tube feel like an eternity but two minutes waiting in line for coffee seems totally reasonable? I used to get really anxious about time and wasting it. Professor Brian Cox once said that there's a cruelty to a human lifespan. That in a seemingly vast and expansive universe – a place that's existed for 13.7 billion years and will until the last star dies in 100 trillion years and life becomes impossible – a human life is so impossibly short. I turn 27 today. I still feel like I have a dizzying number of tomorrows but I'm also increasingly aware that the clock is ticking and also on the precipice of the epiphany that'll finally reveal that my inbox will never be empty, my bookshelf will never be read, my work will never be finished, and in the same way the universe will only get to experience a minute proportion of me, I get to experience an even minuter proportion of it. I'm incredibly fortunate to have travelled an awful lot as a child. I've visited countless countries and experienced a tremendous wealth of world culture… When I was at university and stressed about the very few life responsibilities I had at the time, I had a little motto: Everything in perspective. I might've needed to hand my dissertation in pretty pronto and that might've be a bit of a pain but I had food and shelter and that was a lot more than most I had seen. In other words, whatever was going on in my life wasn't the be-all and end-all of all life. That filled me with a tremendous sense of wellbeing. I graduated over half a decade ago and in that time I've forgotten how important that motto was to me. The clock has been running my life; I've been getting faster and faster, doing more and more, but achieving less and less. With your nose to the grindstone, it's impossible to see the horizon, impossible to get a birds-eye view on what's going on, and therefore impossible to see everything in perspective. It's not just me; this has been happening for decades. We demand more and more. Faster and faster. Same day delivery. 10 second videos. 30 minutes or it's free. We're inertly racing to an imaginary finish line, dragged down with day-to-day minutiae only to realise that when we get there, it's cripplingly disappointing. What makes travel so rewarding? What makes university so fun? It's not the plane ride home, nor the sheet of paper that says you've done it; it's the experience you have along the way and how that experience connects you to a grander story. Something more than your finite existence. Something bigger. At 27, it's time to remind myself of that motto and rekindle that sense of empathy and wonder that shrank my world, that reminded me that we have more in common than we have differences, and that made me fall in love with a wonderfully finite existence.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support I've always had this strange fascination with time and how the clock runs our lives. When I was younger, years would feel like forever and now they don't feel like they happen at all. You've had this experience too. Why does two minutes waiting for the next tube feel like an eternity but two minutes waiting in line for coffee seems totally reasonable? I used to get really anxious about time and wasting it. Professor Brian Cox once said that there's a cruelty to a human lifespan. That in a seemingly vast and expansive universe – a place that's existed for 13.7 billion years and will until the last star dies in 100 trillion years and life becomes impossible – a human life is so impossibly short. I turn 27 today. I still feel like I have a dizzying number of tomorrows but I'm also increasingly aware that the clock is ticking and also on the precipice of the epiphany that'll finally reveal that my inbox will never be empty, my bookshelf will never be read, my work will never be finished, and in the same way the universe will only get to experience a minute proportion of me, I get to experience an even minuter proportion of it. I'm incredibly fortunate to have travelled an awful lot as a child. I've visited countless countries and experienced a tremendous wealth of world culture… When I was at university and stressed about the very few life responsibilities I had at the time, I had a little motto: Everything in perspective. I might've needed to hand my dissertation in pretty pronto and that might've be a bit of a pain but I had food and shelter and that was a lot more than most I had seen. In other words, whatever was going on in my life wasn't the be-all and end-all of all life. That filled me with a tremendous sense of wellbeing. I graduated over half a decade ago and in that time I've forgotten how important that motto was to me. The clock has been running my life; I've been getting faster and faster, doing more and more, but achieving less and less. With your nose to the grindstone, it's impossible to see the horizon, impossible to get a birds-eye view on what's going on, and therefore impossible to see everything in perspective. It's not just me; this has been happening for decades. We demand more and more. Faster and faster. Same day delivery. 10 second videos. 30 minutes or it's free. We're inertly racing to an imaginary finish line, dragged down with day-to-day minutiae only to realise that when we get there, it's cripplingly disappointing. What makes travel so rewarding? What makes university so fun? It's not the plane ride home, nor the sheet of paper that says you've done it; it's the experience you have along the way and how that experience connects you to a grander story. Something more than your finite existence. Something bigger. At 27, it's time to remind myself of that motto and rekindle that sense of empathy and wonder that shrank my world, that reminded me that we have more in common than we have differences, and that made me fall in love with a wonderfully finite existence.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support Mysteries of Science was nominated several times at the Publisher Podcast Awards earlier in the year. The ceremony was just a few days ago and Mysteries of Science walked away with two wins! One for Best Science & Medical Podcast and another for Best Launch. To celebrate, would you like some more episodes? The latest looks at the stuff of sailor's nightmares, an enormous creature so aggressive that it drags ships to their watery graves: the Kraken. I even wrote the piece for their magazine which is on newsstands right now. Entering awards always makes me feel odd. I tell myself that it's just a form of ego masturbation and ultimately pointless – and there's some truth to that – but really I'm just afraid of failure… Juggling the threat of failure with a greater need to progress is the theme of Return to Space, the story of Elon Musk's SpaceX. I didn't know much about him before last month. I knew he was the CEO of a car company and a space thing but not much more than that. Watching Return to Space, Inspiraition4 and hearing Elon interviewed on TED; all of that has really opened my mind. He's clearly very intelligent and I have a wide sense of confidence in his vision. Elon Musk is The Current Thing and one of the weirdest things has been watching the throng of shrill voices complain about his takeover as if anything's really going to change and as if billionaires don't already own huge swathes of the media landscape… I've also been glued to WeCrashed on Apple TV+, a fable of startups gone sour about the rise and fall of co-working empire WeWork. Starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway, it a thrilling watch. You can see the entire series now. In the world of music, Bloc Party's Alpha Games is a return to their familiar sound and I'm excited for Florence and The Machine's new album, Dance Fever too. Josh Ramsay's written some of the biggest pop songs of the past decade including Call Me Maybe and hits for 5 Seconds of Summer. The Josh Ramsay Show is his debut and one of the best albums I've heard so far this year with each track being a different genre. Miles and Miles is one of my favourites. I've got a busy month ahead. In a few weeks I'll be in Malmo at RadioDays Europe. If you're going to be there, let me know. I'm also moving house towards the end of the month too. More on those things next time. You'll next hear from me on May 21st 2022 – my 27th birthday.

Mysteries of Science was nominated several times at the Publisher Podcast Awards earlier in the year. The ceremony was just a few days ago and Mysteries of Science walked away with two wins! One for Best Science & Medical Podcast and another for Best Launch. To celebrate, would you like some more episodes? The latest looks at the stuff of sailor's nightmares, an enormous creature so aggressive that it drags ships to their watery graves: the Kraken. I even wrote the piece for their magazine which is on newsstands right now. Entering awards always makes me feel odd. I tell myself that it's just a form of ego masturbation and ultimately pointless– and there's some truth to that – but really I'm just afraid of failure... Juggling the threat of failure with a greater need to progress is the theme of Return to Space, the story of Elon Musk's SpaceX. I didn't know much about him before last month. I knew he was the CEO of a car company and a space thing but not much more than that. Watching Return to Space, Inspiraition4 and hearing Elon interviewed on TED; all of that has really opened my mind. He's clearly very intelligent and I have a wide sense of confidence in his vision. Elon Musk is The Current Thing and one of the weirdest things has been watching the throng of shrill voices complain about his takeover as if anything's really going to change and as if billionaires don't already own huge swathes of the media landscape... I've also been glued to WeCrashed on Apple TV+, a fable of startups gone sour about the rise and fall of co-working empire WeWork. Starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway, it a thrilling watch. You can see the entire series now. In the world of music, Bloc Party's Alpha Games is a return to their familiar sound and I'm excited for Florence and The Machine's new album, Dance Fever too. Josh Ramsay's written some of the biggest pop songs of the past decade including Call Me Maybe and hits for 5 Seconds of Summer. The Josh Ramsay Show is his debut and one of the best albums I've heard so far this year with each track being a different genre. Miles and Miles is one of my favourites. I've got a busy month ahead. In a few weeks I'll be in Malmo at RadioDays Europe. If you're going to be there, let me know. I'm also moving house towards the end of the month too. More on those things next time. You'll next hear from me on May 21st 2022 – my 27th birthday.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support Tumblr taught me HTML and CSS. Ghost taught me so much more. I've been using Ghost since pre-V1. It's an amazing, open-source Content Management System that taught me oodles about not just the languages it's written in but also CLI, server management, and how to deploy things online. After several months of running Ghost solo on DigitalOcean, I moved to Ghost(Pro) where team that makes Ghost runs your Ghost site for you; they handle SSL, CDN, they'll deal with upgrades, and, as the product developed, they also dealt with the introduction of newsletters, payment gateways, and more. I've watched Ghost grow over the past five years (they're now on V4.4) but a few days ago, I said goodbye. I downloaded my self-coded theme and re-wrote the entire thing in Liquid and am now using Jekyll. I still love Ghost and I'll continue to sing its praises long into the future but there are two key reasons I departed… It's cheaper. I use Cloudflare Pages to host this website. It's free! It's simpler. Jekyll is so easy. I write posts in Markdown in any text editor (I like Nova), commit changes to a private Github repository, and Cloudflare Pages builds the thing automatically. Ghost is slowly departing from a simple blogging platform to a fully-fledged creator studio complete with memberships, newsletters, and other community tools. I admire that goal and I think Ghost is going to have a very successful future; it could radically shake-up the way that creators make money online by separating them from platforms like Patreon and Substack. But it's not what I'm looking for. I don't need those things… When you make a new Ghost blog, the description of your site is autofilled: Thoughts, stories and ideas. In binning Ghost, I hope to get back to what blogging is to me: diary entries on the internet. Sure, there will be accompanying audio narration (I am an audio producer after-all) but I'm not looking to be an influencer. I'm just me. And these are just my thoughts, stories, and ideas.

Countless horrors have been inflicted on the citizens of one country by another this month. There are no answers here, just thoughts on the consequences of war. The rainbows of 2020's pandemic have become Ukrainian flags – I've seen them on cars, painted on rocks, atop poles, affixed to bridges, in window displays, on churches, and in the favourite tool of armchair activists: Twitter handles.  To forget that there are victims on both sides of conflict is to think in binaries and further fuel an us-versus-them environment that got us into this mess to begin with. People from different countries often have different positions. We come from different doctrines, with different histories, have had different experiences, heard different media, and hold different prejudices, and yet we all have the same basic human needs; shelter, safety, and sense of connection.  War is anathema to these things. War is an obliteration of individuality, an eradication of reason, a genocide of culture and, in a world where superpowers have means to launch world-ending weapons on hair-trigger notices, any war is one against all of humankind. Countdown to Zero is a great documentary from the makers of An Inconvenient Truth all about why we must abolish nuclear weapons. Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator is also very good. Filmed during World War II, Charlie plays both a persecuted Jewish barber and a ruthless dictator. I've been thinking a lot about his closing speech this month. I think one of the most interesting things this month has been Facebook's take on the whole invasion. They suspended quality controls in the region allowing Ukrainians to call for violence against its aggressor, turning against the very country that used their platforms to destabilise elections in the West just a handful of years ago. Although a correct decision, it further cements the company in my mind as entirely lacking in any kind of integrity. The Perfect Weapon by David E. Sanger is a great read and shines more light on warfare in the internet age. There's plenty about nuclear weapons, cyber sabotage and the usual bad actors in there. Meanwhile, LikeWar is all about the weaponisation of social media. It was published in 2018 but there's plenty about Ukraine's conflict in the context of Crimea's annexation. The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough – Ralph Waldo Emerson When news broke 36 days ago that the next prolonged bad news story was finally here, it perhaps wasn't surprising I felt bummed out – a small, personal consequence of war.  When we look out into the world, we can see the horizon. It's where each day begins and ends but it's also in the headlines we consume and the stories we tell ourselves of the way the world works.  Our horizon has shrunk. For the past two years, we've never been able to see much beyond the next lockdown. I've found the news distressing and appalling and I've found myself doing what I did when the COVID 19 crisis first hit and scheduling breaks away from rolling news coverage. The link between doom-scrolling and poor mental health is both scientific and anecdotal fact; it's in these moments that news organisations like Delayed Gratification, Tortoise, and Positive News come in handy. There's also hope in the horizon; we can only see so far ahead but we know there is so much more that lies beyond it. There's so much more to be seen, to be enjoyed, and accomplish, so much more to give, and so much more to live. That's the hope I'm taking into next month.  You'll next hear from me on April 30th 2022.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support Countless horrors have been inflicted on the citizens of one country by another this month. There are no answers here, just thoughts on the consequences of war. The rainbows of 2020's pandemic have become Ukrainian flags – I've seen them on cars, painted on rocks, atop poles, affixed to bridges, in window displays, on churches, and in the favourite tool of armchair activists: Twitter handles. To forget that there are victims on both sides of conflict is to think in binaries and further fuel an us-versus-them environment that got us into this mess to begin with. People from different countries often have different positions. We come from different doctrines, with different histories, have had different experiences, heard different media, and hold different prejudices, and yet we all have the same basic human needs; shelter, safety, and sense of connection. War is anathema to these things. War is an obliteration of individuality, an eradication of reason, a genocide of culture and, in a world where superpowers have means to launch world-ending weapons on hair-trigger notices, any war is one against all of humankind. Countdown to Zero is a great documentary from the makers of An Inconvenient Truth all about why we must abolish nuclear weapons. Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator is also very good. Filmed during World War II, Charlie plays both a persecuted Jewish barber and a ruthless dictator. I've been thinking a lot about his closing speech this month… The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die and the power they took from the people will return to the people. Unplugging not just from news bulletins but from just about everything else too, I squirrelled myself away for some rest and relaxation last week. It was my first real break in almost six months and was very welcome. Elsewhere, I've moved all of my freelance, personal, and work stuff over to the ever awesome Basecamp (I already use their email service, HEY) and ditched Tresorit for Backblaze B2 where I'm storing a decade worth of data for less than £2 a month. In the world of Netflix, Snowpiercer is over but Bridgerton is back. The former's a perfect example of what's at stake when you gamble with the future of mankind. The latter I binge-watched last weekend – it's as good as season one. I think one of the most interesting things this month has been Facebook's take on the whole invasion. They suspended quality controls in the region allowing Ukrainians to call for violence against its aggressor, turning against the very country that used their platforms to destabilise elections in the West just a handful of years ago. Although a correct decision, it further cements the company in my mind as entirely lacking in any kind of integrity. The Perfect Weapon by David E. Sanger is a great read and shines more light on warfare in the internet age. There's plenty about nuclear weapons, cyber sabotage and the usual bad actors in there. Meanwhile, LikeWar is all about the weaponisation of social media. It was published in 2018 but there's plenty about Ukraine's conflict in the context of Crimea's annexation. In my podcast, I read an extract from the book. The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough – Ralph Waldo Emerson When news broke 36 days ago that the next prolonged bad news story was finally here, it perhaps wasn't surprising I felt bummed out – a small, personal consequence of war. I've found the news distressing and appalling and I've found myself doing what I did when the COVID 19 crisis first hit and scheduling breaks away from rolling news coverage. The link between doom-scrolling and poor mental health is both scientific and anecdotal fact; it's in these moments that news organisations like Delayed Gratification, Tortoise, and Positive News come in handy. When we look out into the world, we can see the horizon. It's where each day begins and ends but it's also in the headlines we consume and the stories we tell ourselves of the way the world works. Over the past few years, our horizon has shrunk; we've never been able to see much beyond the next lockdown. There's also hope in the horizon. We can only see so far ahead but we know there is so much more that lies beyond it. There's so much more to be seen, to be enjoyed, and accomplish, so much more to give, and so much more to live. That's what I'm taking with me into this coming month. You'll next hear from me on April 30th 2022.

Yesterday, I sent a message to space. By the time you hear this, the transmission will be 12 billion miles from Earth, 7 times farther away than Neptune. Photons from the broadcast will continue to move at light speed through the universe until the universe itself dies, trillions of trillions of years from now. The broadcast was sent into space from an array of transmitters all over the world and the UK's children's radio station Fun Kids simulcast the transmission, setting a world-first Guinness World Record in the process: the first radio programme beamed to deep space. We called the project Mission Transmission. The result was almost thirty minutes of audio featuring children's hopes, aspirations and questions to extraterrestrial life. Thousands of children from all around the world entered and hundreds made it into our programme. Tens of thousands of people visited the Fun Kids website during the six weeks submissions were open and hundreds from press and PR to astronomers and astrophysicists were involved in bringing this thing to life. Yesterday morning, Mission Transmission was on BBC Radio Sussex, BBC CWR, BBC Radio Gloucestershire, BBC Radio 2, and BBC Radio 4's Today programme. In the evening I was on BBC Points West. Tonight, you'll see some of the event on The One Show. Tomorrow, an interview I did with the Radio Academy has a rundown of exactly what happened too.  At 7pm last night, astronaut Tim Peake, KIDZ BOP and a bunch of children who're featured in our programme all hit a big red button at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. At that moment, transmitters across the world streamed our radio programme to the stars and started it on a journey that will never end. It was a literal love letter to the universe and has been a personal labour of love for so much longer. In fact, this entire project has given me an incredible sense of wellbeing, reminding me that the things that unite us far outnumber things that divide us.  So, the next time you gaze up at the stars and picture the wonders of the universe or life on some far-flung and as-of-yet undiscovered planet, remember that among all those twinking stars exists a tiny token from home, and that wrapped up in that signal are some of the things that make us, us: our sounds, our people, our science, and music. You'll next hear from me on March 31st 2022. If you're a journalist or influencer and you'd like to cover the first radio programme sent to deep space or chat about anything else, you can email me@adamstoner.com. If you submitted audio to Fun Kids Mission Transmission, you can find out if it was included in the broadcast by heading to FunKidsLive.com.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support Yesterday, I sent a message to space. By the time you read this, the transmission will be 12 billion miles from Earth, 7 times farther away than Neptune. Photons from the broadcast will continue to move at light speed through the universe until the universe itself dies, trillions of trillions of years from now. The broadcast was sent into space from an array of transmitters all over the world and the UK's children's radio station Fun Kids simulcast the transmission, setting a world-first Guinness World Record in the process: the first radio programme beamed to deep space. We called the project Mission Transmission. The result was almost thirty minutes of audio featuring children's hopes, aspirations and questions to extraterrestrial life. Thousands of children from all around the world entered and hundreds made it into our programme. Tens of thousands of people visited the Fun Kids website during the six weeks submissions were open and hundreds from press and PR to astronomers and astrophysicists were involved in bringing this thing to life. Yesterday morning, Mission Transmission was on BBC Radio Sussex, BBC CWR, BBC Radio Gloucestershire, BBC Radio 2, and BBC Radio 4's Today programme. In the evening I was on BBC Points West. Tonight, you'll see some of the event on The One Show. Tomorrow, an interview I did with the Radio Academy has a rundown of exactly what happened too. At 7pm last night, astronaut Tim Peake, KIDZ BOP and a bunch of children who're featured in our programme all hit a big red button at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. At that moment, transmitters across the world streamed our radio programme to the stars and started it on a journey that will never end. It was a literal love letter to the universe and has been a personal labour of love for so much longer. In fact, this entire project has given me an incredible sense of wellbeing, reminding me that the things that unite us far outnumber things that divide us. So, the next time you gaze up at the stars and picture the wonders of the universe or life on some far-flung and as-of-yet undiscovered planet, remember that among all those twinkling stars exists a tiny token from home, and that wrapped up in that signal are some of the things that make us, us: our sounds, our people, our science, and music. You'll next hear from me on March 31st 2022.

2022 started in the best possible way. Four days into the new year, I launched Mission Transmission on the UK's children's radio station, Fun Kids; our record-breaking, history-making project to send the voices of our listeners to deep space. Mission Transmission got some nice tweets, was on the front page of Express.co.uk, on RadioToday, in the Week Junior magazine, First News, and Science+Nature too. There's an entire episode of Mysteries of Science dedicated to it – that one's called How to Talk to Aliens. The Radio Academy interviewed me – that's forming part of a new podcast they've got coming out this coming month – and I was on BBC Radio Gloucestershire. My university also spoke to me about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into something like this.  By far the most rewarding thing this month has been hearing literally hundreds of voices sent in around-the-clock from kids across the world who want to be a part of our broadcast. I feel so grateful to share this experience with them and know that if I were twenty years younger, I'd be submitting my own voice too. This is the biggest thing I've ever done. It's filled with prestigious people and places; the Royal Observatory Greenwich, Guinness World Records, KIDZ BOP creating a song for us, covering two of the biggest bands in the world, BTS and Coldplay. The 1975 are letting us use their song featuring Greta Thunberg and there's loads more up our sleeve.  214 email chains (some 40 messages deep), 24 hours of submitted audio, 12 interviews with space experts around the world including Jon Lomberg, creator of the Voyager Golden Record, and over 120 other people have been involved in making this thing a reality. Soon, we'll reach a point where the radio programme is finished. All it takes is the click of a button to stream it to 10,000 of Earth's closest stars and start it on a journey that will last forever.  There's still time to get your voice into space at FunKidsLive.com 

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support 2022 started in the best possible way. Four days into the new year, I launched Mission Transmission on the UK's children's radio station, Fun Kids; our record-breaking, history-making project to send the voices of our listeners to deep space. Mission Transmission got some nice tweets, was on the front page of Express.co.uk, on RadioToday, in the Week Junior magazine, First News, and Science+Nature too. There's an entire episode of Mysteries of Science dedicated to it – that one's called How to Talk to Aliens. The Radio Academy interviewed me – that's forming part of a new podcast they've got coming out this coming month – and I was on BBC Radio Gloucestershire. My university also spoke to me about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into something like this. By far the most rewarding thing this month has been hearing literally hundreds of voices sent in around-the-clock from kids across the world who want to be a part of our broadcast. I feel so grateful to share this experience with them and know that if I were twenty years younger, I'd be submitting my own voice too. This is the biggest thing I've ever done. It's filled with prestigious people and places; the Royal Observatory Greenwich, Guinness World Records, KIDZ BOP creating a song for us, covering two of the biggest bands in the world, BTS and Coldplay. The 1975 are letting us use their song featuring Greta Thunberg and there's loads more up our sleeve. 214 email chains (some 40 messages deep), 24 hours of submitted audio, 12 interviews with space experts around the world including Jon Lomberg, creator of the Voyager Golden Record, and over 120 other people have been involved in making this thing a reality. Soon, we'll reach a point where the radio programme is finished. All it takes is the click of a button to stream it to 10,000 of Earth's closest stars and start it on a journey that will last forever. Honestly, most of my time this month has been spent between audio editing software and in conversation with those who are making this thing a reality. That said, here's a quick list of what else I've been up to… The path of the sun over six months is what you see in the image above, a result of a long-term analogue photography experiment with Sam from Solarcan. Hear Sam in my podcast and more in Activity Quest. My article on the mystery of the megalodon shark – a prehistoric beast, the largest fish to ever exist – is within the pages of Science+Nature on newsstands right now. It's right alongside Mission Transmission. I've been reading The Vinyl Frontier: The Story of NASA's Interstellar Mixtape. I've also been reading A Walk From The Wild Edge too. Speaking of wild, I got a bunch of plants from Patch and my home now looks like a jungle. The 1.5 meter high Fidel (a Fiddel Leaf tree) and 1 meter high Sarah (a Laurel Fig) are stand-out purchases. Alongside loads of kids audio, in terms of what I've been listening to, The Wombat's new album – Fix Yourself, Not The World – is great as is HRVY's new EP, Views from the 23rd Floor. I think there's a valuable lesson to be learned around the #cancelspotify drama. I'm not a Spotify user and I don't like Joe Rogan's podcast but if you're going to take on the world's top streaming platform hosting the world's top podcaster, you really need to come with more in your arsenal than ‘I don't like what they're saying'. Every public failure harms your chance of future success. On TV, Ant and Dec's new gameshow Limitless Win is fun. On Netflix, Snowpiercer is back. Designated Survivor is a bingeable watch, as is trash telly US sitcom Superstore. There's still time to get your voice into space at FunKidsLive.com

Over the past six months, I've been working on something rather special and at 07:30 this morning, all was revealed on the national children's radio station, Fun Kids. We're sending a message to space. The project is called Mission Transmission and has been a personal labour of love for the past half-year. Earlier today, KIDZ BOP – who have recorded a version of Coldplay and BTS's song My Universe which we're dubbing the official anthem of the project – and Dr. Emily Drabek-Maunder from the Royal Observatory Greenwich launched it with Sean on the Fun Kids breakfast show. Head to FunKidsLive.com to answer a few questions and submit the voice of yourself or a loved one.  We're then editing those submissions into a thirty-minute 'love letter from Earth' that'll be beamed to the starts from the Royal Observatory Greenwich at 7pm on February 14th 2022 – Valentine's Day – where it'll travel until the end of the universe.  Submissions close on February 10th 2022. Fun Kids is the UK's children's radio station. You can listen to Fun Kids on DAB Digital Radio, online, on the free Fun Kids mobile app and on your smart speaker – just say 'play Fun Kids'.  You'll next hear from me on January 31st 2022.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support Over the past six months, I've been working on something rather special and at 07:30 this morning all was revealed on the national children's radio station, Fun Kids. We're sending a message to space. The project is called Mission Transmission and has been a personal labour of love for the past half-year. Earlier today, KIDZ BOP – who have recorded a version of Coldplay and BTS's song My Universe which we're dubbing the official anthem of the project – and Dr. Emily Drabek-Maunder from the Royal Observatory Greenwich launched it with Sean on the Fun Kids breakfast show. Head to FunKidsLive.com to answer a few questions and submit the voice of yourself or a loved one. We're then editing those submissions into a thirty-minute ‘love letter from Earth' that'll be beamed to the starts from the Royal Observatory Greenwich at 7pm on February 14th 2022 – Valentine's Day – where it'll travel until the end of the universe. Submissions close on February 10th 2022. Fun Kids is the UK's children's radio station. You can listen to Fun Kids on DAB Digital Radio, online, on the free Fun Kids mobile app and on your smart speaker – just say ‘play Fun Kids'. You'll next hear from me on January 31st 2022.

World leaders have an uncanny knack for making even the most exciting of things thoroughly depressing. Given their rhetoric, you'd be forgiven for thinking that humankind is in no better position at the end of this year than we were last, but that's not the case at all. Our collective human story has always been marred with setbacks and challenges but 2021 is proof that the wheels of human progress will restlessly turn.  It was also a reminder that it's up to us to steer the vehicle.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support World leaders have an uncanny knack for making even the most exciting of things thoroughly depressing. Given their rhetoric, you'd be forgiven for thinking that humankind is in no better position at the end of this year than we were last, but that's not the case at all. Here's a reminder of what happened: JANUARY: A riot at the US Capitol, a new President of the United States. I pledge to learn more about space, planets, and the movement of the stars and then quickly forgot about it. 86 countries sign a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. The coronavirus vaccine programme begins in earnest in the UK. FEBRUARY: NASA's Perseverance and Ingenuity rovers land on Mars. I sign up to HEY, the email service from Basecamp, and it totally revolutionises the way I work and communicate. I kit the home out with Philips Hue lightbulbs, Eve cameras, and more smart-tech. MARCH: Ever Given jackknifes itself in the Suez Canal. The remains of a woman butchered at the hands of an off-duty police officer causes outrage across the country, reigniting conversation around violence against women. I get vaccinated; a syringe symbolising the slow-at-first-then-all-at-once return to some kind of normal. With the team behind The Week Junior's Science+Nature magazine, we make Mysteries of Science. APRIL: I play croquet. I take up a bunch more freelance work. The number of confirmed COVID cases passes 150 million; the number of vaccinations surpass 1 billion. Prince Philip dies. MAY : Netherlands orders Shell to align its carbon emissions with the Paris Climate accord. The Eurovision Song contest reunites nations around the continent; it's the first since the UK exited the EU. We come last. I visit Adam Henson's Cotswold Farm Park, SEA LIFE, do an at-home escape room, take on an assault course, do archery, ride a heritage railway, and walk in a forest used as a set for some of the biggest movies in the world. I turn 26 and take some time offline… JUNE, JULY & AUGUST: Restrictions ease. Football fever grips the nation. The number of vaccinated people exceeds three billion. I lay the foundations for a log cabin in my garden and bury a time capsule within its concrete base. Massive floods devastate large regions of Europe. The event is attributed to a slowed jet-stream caused by climate change. The IPCC unequivocally states that climate change is human-caused, widespread, rapid, and intensifying. Two decades of foreign policy fail as the Afghan government surrenders to the Taliban; the US withdraws, ending 20 years of occupation. I come up with an idea that fulfils my new year's resolution to learn more about space and spend the next quarter planning for it. SEPTEMBER: I visit the Science Museum, We The Curious in Bristol, the Royal Observatory Greenwich, all for this project that launches in four days time. I sold my car. El Salvador becomes the first country to accept Bitcoin as an official currency. Inspiration4 is launched by Space X and becomes the first all-civilian spaceflight. I come back online and write a piece for Science+Nature all about the Overview Effect. OCTOBER: I go to the cinema for the first time in two years to see James Bond. I visit a wedding. I stroll through history by walking the Ridgeway, treading a route that's been used by thousands for millennia. NOVEMBER: World leaders gathered in Glasgow for the COP26 climate conference and emit nothing but hot air. I try NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month – and tap out 14,000 words all about humankind and its attempts to project our condition into the universe. DECEMBER: News of a new coronavirus variant seizes headlines once more. World leaders begin to hermit their kingdoms again. Vaccination efforts intensify, case numbers quintuple. I go to two Christmas parties and get a booster jab. The biggest space telescope ever built opens a new era in astronomical exploration. Our collective human story has always been marred with setbacks and challenges but 2021 is proof that the wheels of human progress will restlessly turn. It was also a reminder that it's up to us to steer the vehicle. You'll next hear from me in just a few days time on Tuesday, January 4th 2022 where I'm going to tell you about that exciting project I mentioned. Happy New Year.

His body blue, no blood pressure to speak of, and no pulse to find, artist Andy Warhol was declared dead on arrival at Columbus Hospital in New York City – 4:51pm on June 3rd 1968 – having just been shot by a former colleague at his workshop, The Factory. Bleeding on the gurney, a senior doctor took a fleeting look at the corpse, peeling back an eyelid and watched as its pupil contracted in the bright emergency room lights. Andy Warhol wasn't dead. A reminder that there's a written version of this podcast also available at adamstoner.com In 1964, a few years prior to Andy's shooting, he had his photo taken in front of a bare Christmas tree, a blue spruce, stripped of all decoration. Warhol's tree was left out of the cheery full-colour spread that filled Ladies' Home Journal that year and became known as his 'anti-Christmas tree', but neither Matt or I think that was his intention... Warhol's tree captures precisely what makes Christmas so special because whether you're a fan of the theatrics of religion or of commercialism, this time is a blank canvas to decorate as you see fit. There is no right or wrong way to celebrate the holidays. Whether you spend this time surrounded by family, binge-eating food or in quiet contemplation of the year just gone, I hope you enjoy it. Here's how Warhol spent his final Christmas in 1986: I went to the church of Heavenly Rest to pass out Interviews [his magazine] and feed the poor. Got a lot of calls to go to Christmas parties but I just decided to stay in and I loved it. Merry Christmas. You'll next hear from me on December 31st 2021.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support His body blue, no blood pressure to speak of, and no pulse to find, artist Andy Warhol was declared dead on arrival at Columbus Hospital in New York City – 4:51pm on June 3rd 1968 – having just been shot by a former colleague at his workshop, The Factory. Bleeding on the gurney, a senior doctor took a fleeting look at the corpse, peeling back an eyelid and watched as its pupil contracted in the bright emergency room lights. Andy Warhol wasn't dead. More culturally relevant to modern day, materialistic Christmases than Jesus himself, disciples of the king of consumerism gathered outside the hospital that night, Andy's resurrection happening within. A cardiac arrest on the operating table and 12 pints of blood later, Warhol's scarified body walked from the hospital alive. I tell you this because I've just finished reading The Andy Warhol Diaries and am about to finish Year of Wonder: Classical Music for Every Day by ex-BBC Radio 3 presenter Clemency Burton-Hill. Clemency's got a sequel out this December, Another Year of Wonder, which I've pre-ordered. On the subject of music, Paul McCartney's new double-volume coffee-table book – The Lyrics – is an intimate self-portrait in 154 songs, a fascinating trawl through the handwritten notes of the UK's greatest songwriter. I got that at the start of the month when I saw his Q&A at the Southbank Centre in London. Spread over pages 48 and 49 of the most recent edition of Science and Nature magazine, I write about something that world leaders overwhelmingly failed to grasp at COP26: the fragility of planet Earth. Despite their failure, it was lovely to see my writing published and now exist in the hands and homes of people across the country. That edition is still on newsstands if you've not been able to pick up your copy yet. On Audible I've been listening to Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind by Annaka Harris, Your Brain Is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time by Dean Buonomano, and Transcend by Scott Barry Kaufman. I've also been listening to the tonnes of great music that's come out this month. HalfNoise's new album, Motif, is a blend of classical and jazz and a perfect easy evening listen. ABBA's new album shot straight to number one and it's no surprise why. Adele's new album is undoubtedly fantastic too. I was gifted a gorgeous Voyager Golden Record three-LP box-set from Ozma Records and also received a signed copy of Christopher Tin's Calling All Dawns on vinyl this month. For me, albums are a snapshot of the time in which they were recorded, something the Voyager record captures so poignantly and Adele clearly feels too; why else would you title each album your age? That's why I feel strongly about Taylor Swift's re-recording of her albums. Red (Taylor's Version) came out earlier in the month and although I sympathise with the reasons behind its re-release, there's something wholly inauthentic about a soon-to-be 32 year old re-releasing songs written by a 22 year old Swift. As she catches up with her present day work, I daresay I'll feel differently. That said, the album is just as fantastic as the first time around and like Paul McCartney's book, I love gems from the archive. I've had such a lovely month getting out-and-about too. Working on a big project I'll be able to tell you more about in the new year, I was at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in mid-November. I also visited We The Curious in Bristol yesterday for more of the same. Either my taste in films is terrible or critics are stuffy people whose self-importance impedes their judgement. The reviews for House of Gucci are terrible; I saw it in the cinema on Friday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I reckon it's the second of those two things. I was invited to hear the Cotswold Male Voice Choir perform in Cheltenham on Saturday and even took a walk around Westonbirt Arboretum a few days ago on a press preview of their Enchanted Christmas trail. I was also invited to the Tewkesbury Festival of Lights at the start of the month, a beautiful sound and light show telling the story of Tewkesbury through the lens of its 900 year old Abbey. That's sort of what I'm trying to do with these updates; place my story – what I've been doing, reading, watching, and listening to – within the much wider context in which we all live our otherwise individual lives. I think that's also what makes religion so fascinating, I'm not a religious person (though I did have tea with the Bishop of Tewkesbury in the Reverend's home) but I do love the theatrics of it; cathedrals and churches and choirs and the feeling of belonging to something bigger than yourself, a grander story. Today's the first day of December and the countdown to Christmas and the New Year is on. Assisting me are advent calendars from Yankee Candles and T2 Tea. It won't be long before we pop up our tree also; we've decorated ours in basically the same style for as long as I can remember, only ever replacing and adding ornaments here-and-there. I've also got a smaller tree from Bloom & Wild. It comes through your letterbox, is taking pride of place atop a locker I got from Mustard, and with its roots still intact, you can even plant it on afterwards! I did so last in 2019; it's still growing strong. In 1964, a few years prior to Andy's shooting, he had his photo taken in front of a bare Christmas tree, a blue spruce, stripped of all decoration. The image is anathema to everything we know about Warhol his colourful pop art so I emailed the The Andy Warhol Museum on a quest to find out more about it. Matt Gray, manager of the archives, replied. The photo is a design submission for an exhibit at the headquarters of Hallmark Cards. His decision to submit an empty tree wasn't a publicity stunt or a critical read on culture but was a very subversive and deliberate artistic decision. […] He was very aware that the other participants in the show were stuffy and traditional and this was a chance to emphasize his new and rebellious image. […] The fact that he was given the largest tree and a prominent location [in the show] confirms he was on to something. Warhol's tree was left out of the cheery full-colour spread that filled Ladies' Home Journal that year and became known as his ‘anti-Christmas tree', but neither Matt or I think that was his intention… Warhol's tree captures precisely what makes Christmas so special because whether you're a fan of the theatrics of religion or of commercialism, this time is a blank canvas to decorate as you see fit. There is no right or wrong way to celebrate the holidays. Whether you spend this time surrounded by family, binge-eating food or in quiet contemplation of the year just gone, I hope you enjoy it. Here's how Warhol spent his final Christmas in 1986: I went to the church of Heavenly Rest to pass out Interviews [his magazine] and feed the poor. Got a lot of calls to go to Christmas parties but I just decided to stay in and I loved it. Merry Christmas. You'll next hear from me on December 31st 2021.

The story of civilisation is one told entirely on two legs. It's only because our ancestors decided to wander out of Africa 80,000 years ago that you and I are fortunate enough to be here today. From settlements to silk roads, those initial ramblers laid the foundation for everything to come.  The presence of humans in Britain has only been continuous for about 12,000 years during half of which, the Ridgeway – an ancient trail running from the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Avebury to Ivinghoe Beacon – has been used by traders and travellers. Last week, I decided to walk all 87 miles of it. A reminder that there's a written version of this podcast also available at adamstoner.com Walking the Ridgeway imbued me with a great sense of sonder – the realisation that everyone around you is living a life as complex as yours with their own stories and their own successes and failures – and not just now but throughout all of human history. My footprints on that 5,000 year old road will fade like the footprints of the travellers and tradespeople before me but for a few days in October, our stories became one. I realise that I depend on them in the same way we all depend on each other. I didn't manage to walk the whole trail in five days as I had planned – zero training, poor pacesetting and overly ambitious targets don't make for good ultra-distance walking – but I did cover a significant chunk of it and I'll walk the rest of the Ridgeway over the coming weeks and months and continue my journey along Britain's oldest road one step at a time. And that's the same spirit in which we need to tackle the challenges that bring leaders together for the COP26 conference today. We have a long distance to walk and there is much ground to cover but the solutions to the challenges we face are in essence the same solutions that got you and I here today: curiosity, collaboration, and unflinching determination in the face of adversity.  Humankind is is not inept; we are adept to change and we must adapt in the next 8 years to see the next 80,000. You'll next hear from me on December 1st 2021.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support The story of civilisation is one told entirely on two legs. It's only because our ancestors decided to wander out of Africa 80,000 years ago that you and I are fortunate enough to be here today. From settlements to silk roads, those initial ramblers laid the foundation for everything to come. The presence of humans in Britain has only been continuous for about 12,000 years during half of which, the Ridgeway – an ancient trail running from the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Avebury to Ivinghoe Beacon – has been used by traders and travellers. Last week, I decided to walk all 87 miles of it. ‘Because it's there,' was the legendary reply of mountaineer climber George Mallory when he was asked why he kept attempting to conquer Everest. That's from Walking: One Step At a Time by Erlign Kagge, the first person to reach both Poles and summit Everest on foot. I've also been reading The Wood for the Trees: A Long View of Nature and Orchard: A Year in England's Eden this month. Walking is meditation for me. There's not much you can do miles away from the next settlement other than simply put one foot in front of the other to get there. My new Muse S headband has also been helping me deepen my meditation practice. About the size of two postage stamps, it conducts a full EEG brain scan meaning that you get live audio feedback; it also doubles as a powerful sleep tracker thanks to its on-board acelerometer and heart sensors. To accompany me on my walk, I laid my hands on a pair of ECCO Gore-Tex walking boots, trousers from Brasher and a lightweight backpack from Deuter alongside a tiny Ridgeway National Trail guide. All walking guides tell you spring is the best time to walk but I think either changing season is perfect as each presents a radically different view of the landscape. It's easy, especially if you live in a city or town, to divorce yourself from that natural cycle, where shop windows become indicative of which season you're in rather than tree leaves. Walking is a reminder that I am part of that ecosystem, not independent of it. My stroll soundtrack came in the form of Coldplay's new album, Music of The Spheres, which was released the day prior. The band also opened the Earthshot Prize ceremony earlier in the month, a fund giving £50 million across the next decade to solutions that will combat climate change. The Earthshot ceremony was beautiful to watch and is available on BBC iPlayer now. I've also been watching One Strange Rock on Disney+ alongside season two of The Morning Show on Apple TV+ and the third season of RuPaul's Drag Race UK. I was also excited to see Professor Brian Cox's new series, Universe, which airs on BBC Two. Speaking at a press conference for the series, Cox said: if our civilisation doesn't persist […] whatever it is we decide to inflict on ourselves, it is possible that whoever (is responsible) eliminates meaning in a galaxy for ever. The piece I wrote for The Week Junior's Science+Nature magazine on the phycological phenomenon known as the Overview effect echoes this sentiment and is available in the coming days. Go and pick it up from your favourite newsstand. Here's a tiny bit from the original draft: Given the ongoing environmental crisis, adopting a sense of the Overview effect in our daily lives might be more important than ever. It leads to an understanding that everything on Earth is interconnected and that humankind's very existence is dependent on a complex ecosystem that spans the world. That weight is what leaders gathering at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow have to reckon with over the next fortnight. The realisation has long dawned that first their actions and then their inactions are directly responsible for subverting and sabotaging the same delicate goldilocks locations that allowed us to walk out of our homeland 80,000 years ago. In a twist of irony, those cradles of civilisation are among the first to feel the impacts of climate change: a racism inflicted on one corner of the world from another. We look to them to make the changes required possible and the Ridgeway is testament to the fact that history will remember whether they succeed or fail. Whether it's Segsbury Camp (est. 700 BC) or Wayland's Smithy (3,600 BC), the route is littered with memories and memorials of people of the past: civilisations lost to the mists of time. Walking the Ridgeway imbued me with a great sense of sonder – the realisation that everyone around you is living a life as complex as yours with their own stories and their own successes and failures – and not just now but throughout all of human history. My footprints on that 5,000 year old road will fade like the footprints of the travellers and tradespeople before me but for a few days in October, our stories became one. I realise that I depend on them in the same way we all depend on each other. I didn't manage to walk the whole trail in five days as I had planned – zero training, poor pacesetting and overly ambitious targets don't make for good ultra-distance walking – but I did cover a significant chunk of it and I'll walk the rest of the Ridgeway over the coming weeks and months and continue my journey along Britain's oldest road one step at a time. And that's the same spirit in which we need to tackle the challenges that bring leaders together today. We have a long distance to walk and there is much ground to cover but the solutions to the challenges we face are in essence the same solutions that got you and I here today: curiosity, collaboration, and unflinching determination in the face of adversity. Humankind is is not inept; we are adept to change and we must adapt in the next 8 years to see the next 80,000. You'll next hear from me on December 1st 2021.

When astronaut John Glenn commenced mission Mercury-Atlas 6 to become the first American to orbit the Earth, he had something strange strapped to his silver spacesuit: a stopwatch. Seconds after launch, Glenn starts the stopwatch in sync with tracking stations across the world and at that moment Mission Elapsed Time begins counting up from zero. And so a new timezone shared between a handful of specialists on Earth and one man in space is created: a new epoch.  As a reminder, there's also a written version of this podcast that I send out as an email newsletter. They're intended to be consumed side-by-side – adamstoner.com/epoch is the place to read it. Talk of 'the new normal' is gauche this far since the epoch moment of March 23rd 2020 when the UK entered its first lockdown. Yet, over the past few weeks, in conversations with friends and colleagues, and as I walk around London and visit museums and galleries and live comedy shows, a realisation has come to pass: the pandemic is over. Not scientifically – the pandemic is still there – but attitudes towards it have changed. Gradually, we've shifted our perspective. The news agenda has moved on, offices have re-opened, restrictions relaxed, the vast majority of people have the most effective vaccine in them, and we're emerging from the nineteen month tunnel dazzled by a new dawn.  Mercury-Atlas 6 was the name of the mission. The spacecraft itself John got to name. He chose Friendship 7. After three orbits – 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds – John splashed down safely in the North Atlantic. After, he uttered just a few simple words: We have an infinite amount to learn from both nature and from each other. I think that sentiment is just as poignant today as it was when John uttered it 59 years ago.  We are in a new epoch and we have an infinite amount still to learn.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support When astronaut John Glenn commenced mission Mercury-Atlas 6 to become the first American to orbit the Earth, he had something strange strapped to his silver spacesuit: a stopwatch. Seconds after launch, Glenn starts the stopwatch in sync with tracking stations across the world and at that moment Mission Elapsed Time begins counting up from zero. And so a new timezone shared between a handful of specialists on Earth and one man in space is created: a new epoch. An epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular era […] The epoch moment […] defined from a specific, clear event of change. That's the premise behind Time Since Launch, a long-scale clock made by US indy design duo CW&T that I purchased at the start of the month. Functioning like a stopwatch grenade, pulling its pin burns into the Time Since Launch chip that very moment – an action that cannot be undone. The counter will then tick up for just shy of one million days: 2,739 years. I pulled my pin at an entirely arbitary time: September 15th 2021 at 05:32. I've also done a range of non-pin-pulling related things including decking the house out with Philips Hue lightbulbs and Eve Cameras – I manage the whole lot in Apple's HomeKit – and I laid my hands on the Astrohaus Freewrite Traveller, an offline ‘smart' typewriter. I hope it'll help me write better in a more distraction-free environment. As well as writing, I've been reading. Walking Home by Simon Armitage and Anna McNuff's trilogy of adventure books – The Pants of Perspective, Fifty Shades of the USA, and Llama Drama – are all fantastic. Anna and I have spoken on a couple of occasions and she's bloody lovely. There's also About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks by David Rooney which unpicks humankind's fascination with measuring and studying time from GMT to GPS, time as a means to oppress, liberate, time as a weapon, and as a peacekeeping tool. If you're after a 30-minute viewable version instead, David's seminar provides a nice overview. I'm in London for the first time in four months today visiting both the Science Museum and Royal Observatory for a project I'm launching in the new year. The Science Museum is home to the Clock of the Long Now prototype; a 10,000-year timepiece designed by the Long Now Foundation to tick once a year and chime a unique permutation of bells every day. January 07003 is the Brian Eno album that explores those bells and you can jump to specific dates here. Another ‘slow clock' lives at Bristol's We The Curious which has a whole section dedicated to the exploration of time and our perception of it. I visited to experience their awe-inspiring planetarium and new exhibition, Project What If, for the Activity Quest podcast. If we truly aspire to a more objective understanding of the world, we have to make use of the advantages to be gained by occupying different intellectual places. That's a quote from How The World Thinks by Julian Baggini, another book I've been reading this month. With the COP26 climate summit happening in just a few short weeks, our leaders need to fast reckon with the long term effects of short term thinking. Occupying different intellectual places and witnessing different perspectives is perhaps more vital than ever. The Mysteries of Science team wrapped up season one of their podcast and extended an invitation to write for their Science and Nature magazine a few months ago. Astronauts get a literal different perspective and often come back psychologically changed from seeing the world from afar. It's a phenomenon known as the Overview Effect and has fascinated me ever since I saw Gaia at Gloucester Cathedral in 2020. That's what I wrote about and my piece on the Overview Effect is due to be published in The Week Junior's Science and Nature magazine in the coming weeks. Look for it on better newsstands. A renewed perspective is also the theme of Russell Brand's new live show which I saw at Cheltenham Town Hall on the 23rd. Called 33, it's all about the strangeness of lockdown: What have we learned? What have we not? And how do you ‘get back to normal' if you've never been normal? Talk of ‘the new normal' is gauche this far since the epoch moment of March 23rd 2020 when the UK entered its first lockdown. Yet, over the past few weeks, in conversations with friends and colleagues, and as I walk around London and visit museums and galleries and live comedy shows, a realisation has come to pass: the pandemic is over. Not scientifically – the pandemic is still there – but attitudes towards it have changed. Gradually, we've shifted our perspective. The news agenda has moved on, offices have re-opened, restrictions relaxed, the vast majority of people have the most effective vaccine in them, and we're emerging from the nineteen month tunnel dazzled by a new dawn. Mercury-Atlas 6 was the name of the mission. The spacecraft itself John got to name. He chose Friendship 7. After three orbits – 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds – John splashed down safely in the North Atlantic. After, he uttered just a few simple words: We have an infinite amount to learn from both nature and from each other. I think that sentiment is just as poignant today as it was when John uttered it 59 years ago. We are in a new epoch – post-pandemic – and we have an infinite amount still to learn. You'll next hear from me on November 1st 2021.

I left this space 2,572 ago on my 26th birthday, exhausted and anxious. Living online for the past fifteen months had worn me out in a way interacting in person never did and whilst working, writing, podcasting, and publishing fulfilled a desire to be heard, it came at a cost of being seen.  More people saw, read, and listened to things I had made in those fifteen months than Belgium, Barbados, Bermuda and Bahrain have people, combined. Previously taught that your value as a creative is not in what you make but in what you market, I took time over the past few months to take a different tact: doing what I want. As a reminder, there's also a written version of this podcast that I send out as an email newsletter. They're intended to be consumed side-by-side – adamstoner.com/return is the place to read it. I'm now back – and better (thanks for waiting) – and in the several months that have passed since we last spoke, two billionaires touched the edge of space, Wimbledon, the Euros, and the Olympics all came and went, and almost one million more people laid eyes or ears on my work.

If you enjoy this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://adamstoner.com/support I left this space 2,572 ago on my 26th birthday, exhausted and anxious. Living online for the past fifteen months had worn me out in a way interacting in person never did and whilst working, writing, podcasting, and publishing fulfilled a desire to be heard, it came at a cost of being seen. More people saw, read, and listened to things I had made in those fifteen months than Belgium, Barbados, Bermuda and Bahrain have people, combined. Previously taught that your value as a creative is not in what you make but in what you market, I took time over the past few months to take a different tact: doing what I want. I'm now back – and better (more on that later) – and several months have passed since we last spoke, so I suppose it's time for a bit of a catch-up… In June, I got a synth – the Arturia MicroFreak – paid a visit to independent music store Soundhouse in Gloucester to pick up a Zoom U22, made something resembling music, and put it on your favourite streaming service. I had never done that before – it's surprisingly easy. Too easy, you might say. Some of the more pleasant noise I've been making these past few months comes in the form of programmes. With Ciaran and Dan at TWJ's Science+Nature magazine and Chris at Devaweb, we've been making Mysteries of Science and answering some of the biggest questions in our universe. Are aliens real? What is Deja vu? Is there a curse on King Tut's tomb? And how does the placebo effect work? It's intended for kids aged 8 to 11 but is a billiant listen whatever your age. There's also Activity Quest which I make at Fun Kids and have given some real TLC to this summer. My favourite episodes include Dan Simpson's visit to Tower Bridge, my go at an at-home escape room experience known as Mini Mysteries, and a conversation I had about extreme-exposure analogue photography and astronomy with Sam from Solarcan. In fact, analogue film photography is something I've gotten back into over the summer. I've been shooting on cameras ranging from a 1960s point-and-shoot to a mid-2000s SLR on films Kodak Portra and Ektar, and Ilford HP5 Plus and PanF 50. Almost all of the photos in this update were shot on film then scanned for storage; newly-founded Take It Easy Lab in Leeds has been handling that whole process for me. I've rediscovered that having a mindful and respectful tactile relationship with things you create makes the experience more meaningful. To inspire the range of things I've been doing this summer, I was gifted beautiful coffee-table books including Paul Smith and Tom Ford's self-titled retrospectives, Vivienne Westwood's Catwalk and a book containing a load of Andy Warhol polaroids. I've also been listening to In Praise of Shadows and Revelation as well as Rework, Remote, and It Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work by Basecamp founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. All of these pastimes – whether it's photography or podcasting, art or Audible – have something in common: They're all time-intense, creative outlets that present a slow-burn of gratification… In amongst ten tonnes of hardcore and hidden beneath the concrete foundations of a log cabin, I placed a time capsule this summer. It'll be found long after you and I – 80 to 100 years in the future – when the concrete begins to deteriorate. Preparing a stash of items to be intentionally found after your death makes you address mortality in a very intimate and profound way. Compiling my own time capsule – a message-in-a-bottle, launched into the ocean of potential futures – affected me in only positive ways. It reminded me of a scene in the 2020 documentary Life in a Day where one man jumps into a lake, then speaking to camera, says: What I fear the most is that my life will pass unnoticed, that my name won't matter in the history of the world. Also containing its own time capsule, September 5th 2021 marks the 44th anniversary of the Voyager 1 launch. The Voyager Golden Record is a scrapbook of sounds and pictures from the planet, destined forever to float in interstellar space (or be intercepted by intelligent life). It's the furthest object from home that humankind has ever created; a record of our fleeting evolutionary fluke. It is a statement. We exist. Whatever happens to it in space, whatever its unknown destiny is, I think it represents a high water mark of our civilisation when we dreamed the biggest dreams. And I hope it will serve as an example, an inspiration for people to keep dreaming. Those are the words of Jon Lomberg, the artist who created the symbols on the Voyager's Golden Record cover which detail exactly how it is to be played, where in the universe it came from, and how to decode the images on it. The most important goal of any space mission is not to discover what's ‘out there' but is instead an effort to understand ourselves a little bit better… How did we get here? What is our position within the universe? Are we alone? Speaking to artist Luke Jerram for Activity Quest and learning of something called the Overview Effect, to discovering humankind's other strides to communicate our existence on this tiny pearl transformed all of the anxiety and exhaustion I had in May – the thought of over 14 million people consuming things I had made, a population double the size of London – into something entirely different: affirming. The point isn't being heard or seen. It is to make for the sake of making and in doing so perhaps understand ourselves a little bit better; a statement I knew 2,572 hours ago but that took 2,572 hours of practice to rediscover. I'm now back – and better (thanks for waiting) – and in the several months that have passed since we last spoke, two billionaires touched the edge of space, Wimbledon, the Euros, and the Olympics all came and went, and almost one million more people laid eyes or ears on my work. I won't leave it 2,572 hours next time, just 620 or so. You'll next hear from me on October 1st, 2021.

Hello, my name's Adam

Read the full thing at adamstoner.com/twentysix My life has always been marked by distinct phases and cycles of time; a flow of death and rebirth and reinvention; a constant redefining and mis- and re-understanding of what it means to be me. The closest comparison to these cycles that I can think of comes from music marketing. For a two- to three-year period, your favourite artists inhabit a very strict sonic and visual style before hibernating for another two- to three-years and emerging from the chrysalis anew with a recognisable yet entirely different theme and focus. I've noticed this in my life and just like album cycles, my shifts tend to happen gradually from within before appearing suddenly externally. I turn 26 today.  9,490 days old.  26 isn't a milestone birthday in the same way 16, 18, 21, 30 (and I suppose every decade then-on) is but it does mark ten years since I left secondary school and ten years from that Sliding Doors moment in life where you have to make big choices about what you want to do and who you want to be.  One of the only things I miss about a decade ago is the expanse of time I felt I had to make my own. YouTuber Will Darbyshire makes videos every year about his age and echoes this exact thing. His video 'Me At 27' features this line: 27 feels like a bit of a weird age to me. I'm still young but I feel older. I still feel like I have so much time but I also feel like there's this nagging feeling telling me to get moving In 10 days – Monday, May 31st 2021 and at 9,500 days old – everything on adamstoner.com and my podcast feed will be unlisted. I am withdrawing from my online space to focus on what matters to me most. It isn't this anymore. I'm also unplugging and taking a break so when this automatically publishes at 8:48am on Friday – the exact minute, 26 years ago that I was born – you won't hear from me until September. To continue the album cycle analogy, most musicians write and record in secrecy, releasing their work as a surprise, letting the music speak for itself and only discussing it after-the-fact as part of publicity runs. I'm doing the same.  In the same way the US President has the State of the Union address or Apple have their flagship events, my monthly updates – my email newsletter and its podcast counterpart – will be my only public statements come September. No more essays. No more opinions.  Tech designer and consultant Paul Jarvis has done something similar, pulling the plug on a platform that was once full of content. The first of only two lines on his website now reads:  I used to have a personal brand and online presence, and now I don't. I've always found the idea of personal brands reprehensible and reject the idea I ever was one so let's just go with this instead...  I used to have an online presence – and now I don't.