Here and There, Week 10 2017

I went to the most international place in Edinburgh this week:
the summit of Arthur’s Seat.

How do companies work? Marisa Meltzer describes how Patagonia and The North Face are working out how to be ethical and successful, and Jonathan Liew tells the story of how FC Barcelona became more than a football team, and what that means for elite sport.

I haven’t been on social media for ten days, and it’s been great. Lent has been the convenient excuse for this, and Tony Reinke has written a helpful meditation on attention, with encouragement to make the most of all the little bits of time that many of us increasingly automatically give to our phones.

As I’ve commented before, my occasional social media refusals don’t make me want to replace my smartphone with something less smart, even the retro-joy of the “new” Nokia 3310. Samuel Gibbs considers what this phone’s launch tells us about the smartphone market.

The Book of Jonah, narrated by N.T. Wright, with a dramatic soundscape by Benjamin David Blower? Sounds good, I’ve ordered a copy…