All articles
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The Instructions Nobody Wrote, That Everyone Follows
There's a number floating around in the back of most people's heads. Eight. Eight glasses of water a day. You probably feel…
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The Cabinet Meets Every Evening At Six
Parliament has a Speaker, a whip, a formal division lobby, centuries of procedural precedent. Your family has a kitchen table, someone who…
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The Fastest Way To Miss Is To Really, Really Try
Watch a penalty shootout through your fingers and you'll notice something odd. The player who buries it is usually the one who…
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You’re Going To Enjoy This More Than You Think You Will
There's a peculiar moment most of us know well. It's Saturday afternoon, you've got a clear few hours, and you end up…
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The Permanent Referendum Nobody Called
In a real democracy, you at least get to go home. The polls close, the counting starts, and for a year or…
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Nobody Wrote The Rules. Someone Just Stopped Arguing First.
Before the railways, sport didn't really need rules. Not written ones, anyway. A village played football in whatever way the village had…
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The Kitchen That Was Going to Change Everything
You know the feeling. You've been living with those tired cupboard doors for four years, and somewhere around year two you made…
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Every Time You Do Something, You’re Voting
Not in a "be the change you want to see" fridge-magnet way. In a genuinely mechanical, slightly unsettling, rather fascinating way. How…
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The Street Next Door Is Ruining Your House Price
There is a road about four minutes' walk from where you live – maybe less – and the houses on it are…
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The Word That Quietly Decided Normal Life Doesn’t Count
Pull up any dictionary entry for "activity" and you'll find something remarkably broad. An action. A pursuit. A state of being active.…
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The Gear That Clicks You Out of Yourself
There is a particular version of a Tuesday evening that most people have had at least once: you sit down to do…
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The Roll of the Dice That Made You Family
Here is something to know before your next family Christmas. The person sitting across from you – the one you've shared a…
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The Settings Nobody Chose For You
Somewhere around the age of four, you stopped learning about your family and started *becoming* it. Not the facts of it –…
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The Polling Station Never Closes
Somewhere inside you right now, a vote is being held. Not about anything as straightforward as a councillor or a bypass. The…
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Your Brain Is Running Software From 200,000 Years Ago
Picture a version of you standing on an African savannah, exhausted, having just chased an antelope for three hours in the midday…
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You Thought You Wouldn’t Like It. Science Knew You Would.
There's a specific kind of Sunday evening where you find yourself thinking, "how was that so good?" You were dragged to the…
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The App Was Not Designed For You. It Was Designed For Your Ancestor.
There is a small red circle sitting on your phone right now and it is making you slightly uncomfortable. Not dramatically uncomfortable.…
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The Monk’s Word For What You Did All Day Yesterday
There is a word your doctor might use in a letter about you. It sits in clinical guidelines, on NHS posters, in…
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The Longest Game Of Chinese Whispers In The World
Somewhere in a university in, say, Sweden, a researcher publishes a paper. It's 47 pages long, full of p-values and confidence intervals…
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The Shell That Became a Touchscreen
Somewhere in the 1940s, a mathematician sat down to solve a problem that had nothing to do with ordering pizza. The problem…