Matt Greene discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Matt Greene is an author, teacher, former screenwriter, and stay-at-home dad. His first novel, Ostrich, won a Betty Trask Award and his memoir Jew(ish) was described by Booker-shortlisted author Nadifa Mohamed as ‘wonderful’ and ‘acerbically funny’. He teaches critical and creative writing in South London, where he lives with his partner and two sons. His new book is The Definitions, which is at https://evewhite.co.uk/books/the-definitions/.

1. Purple Mountains https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/review-purple-mountains-858339/
2. What killed the studio sitcom https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/oct/26/the-last-laugh-is-the-television-sitcom-really-dead
3. A Village After Dark https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/05/21/a-village-after-dark
4. Speech Act Theory https://www.thoughtco.com/speech-act-theory-1691986
5. Two Jews, Three Opinions https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/one-jew-two-opinions/
6. Wierzbicka vs Wittgenstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Wierzbicka

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Danny Scott discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Danny Scott grew up in an East Midlands mining village, serving his apprenticeship as an engineer on leaving school, before moving to London in the 1980s. After a job in counter (industrial) espionage, he became a private investigator, then a painter and decorator, then an engineer again, before becoming a journalist and interviewing people like Sir Paul McCartney, Mikhail Gorbachev, Usain Bolt and Dave Hill from Slade. He lives in Essex with his wife and their young son. His memoir, The Undisputed King of Selston (John Murray), was published in June 2025. It is available at https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-undisputed-king-of-selston-danny-scott/7836018?ean=9781399816793.

1. How to hang a door https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tizE31oU4Co
2. Children of the Stones was the best kids’ telly show ever made https://thedeadpixels.squarespace.com/articles/2015/8/10/children-of-the-stones-cult-tv-series-review
3. Getting pregnant isn’t as easy as you think https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jun/06/young-infertile-four-years-forty-negative-tests-ivf
4. What the miners did for us https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20240703-coal-mining-created-community-and-culture-can-clean-energy-do-the-same
5. Skegness is beautiful https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/local-news/skegness-things-to-do-which-4420027
6. These days, there’s no room for the working class. Except at the bottom. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/23/class-barriers-journalism-working-class-liverpudlian-journalist

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Alan Green grew up on the north coast of Cornwall and now lives in south London. As an environmental science graduate, he remains passionate about protecting and preserving the natural world. Alan spent nearly three decades at a Magic Circle law firm in the City of London, where he led a copy-editing team. A committed daily runner for over 35 years, Alan combines his love of nature with a commitment to wellbeing in all aspects of life. Sound Advice is his debut book, available at https://www.saltpublishing.com/products/sound-advice-9781784633585.

1. Our Sun is only 20 galactic years old The band Midnight Oil once asked, “How can we dance when our earth is turning?” The literal answer takes us from the Earth spinning at jet speed, to the Sun circling the Milky Way, to our galaxy itself hurtling through an expanding cosmos.

2. Ivan Wise has blue eyes. I have blue eyes. We may be related… We both have blue eyes — and they may trace back to a single ancestor, 6,000–10,000 years ago. Unlike brown eyes, blue eyes aren’t due to pigment but to the scattering of light, as with a blue sky.

3. You may not be as old as you feel. Our bodies are in perpetual renewal. Some cells live days, others last a lifetime. On average, our cells are only 7–10 years old — meaning we are all, in a sense, younger than our birthday-cake candles may suggest.

4. Yews, and why you often find them in churchyards. Step into a churchyard and you may find a yew that’s older than the church itself. These trees have stood as markers of sacred ground since before Christianity.

5. Our world without fungi wouldn’t function. From decomposing matter to building vast underground “wood-wide webs”, fungi are indispensable recyclers and collaborators.

6. Morgans don’t have wooden chassis. There’s a persistent myth that Morgan sports cars have wooden chassis. Not true: their chassis are steel or aluminium.

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