David Brooks, Richie Benaud, Future Of London, Sex Education

David Brooks, Character-Builder

Oliver Burkeman | Guardian | 11th April 2015

Conversation with the New York Times columnist, mostly about his new book, The Road to Character. "It’s a powerful, haunting book that works its way beneath your skin. And the motive for writing it, far from being a pompous desire to sermonise, was at least partly due to a personal crisis: Brooks’s realisation that his own life of well-paid worldly success, plus regular meetings with the president, was missing something essential inside" (1,950 words)

Richie Benaud’s Sound Of Silence

Tim de Lisle | Intelligent Life | 10th April 2015

Richie Benaud was a great cricketer and team captain, but an even greater commentator: "Many sports commentators are in love with the sound of their own voice, but Richie was in love with the drama of the game, and he preferred to let it speak for itself. His genius lay in knowing when not to say anything. His commentary was a piece of the finest Swiss cheese: it was the holes, the silences, that made it what it was" (850 words)

Welcome To The Londonsphere

Simon Kuper | Financial Times | 11th April 2015 | | Read with 1Pass

Already you can live in Paris or Brussels or Lille, take the children to school, hop on the Eurostar, and do a day's work in London. Greater Tokyo serves 36 million residents. That's a fair model for London in 20 years' time. Birmingham and Manchester will be dormitory cities. Central London will be a "giant drop-in office" for workers from all over Europe, commuting by bullet train for a day or two each week (775 words)

Jonathan Zimmerman On Sex Education

Beatrice Wilford | Five Books | 10th April 2015

Interview. Intelligent and thought-provoking throughout. "Schools are sexual spaces and teachers are sexual beings. So, anything the teacher says or does is in some way - at least indirectly - going to address her or his sexuality. You've got a teacher there and the natural question on the part of adolescents if the teacher starts talking about sex is: 'Is this what you do? With whom?' That's implicit in the discussion" (5,600 words)

Video of the day: The Great European Disaster

What to expect: Trailer for Bill Emmott and Annalisa Piras's film about European disintegration (2'20")

Thought for the day

It doesn't matter what happens as long as the right person gets the blame
Walter Kirn (https://twitter.com/walterkirn/status/397872744798253056)