Tuesday work and play.

What a wonderful photo. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/08/a...

Never mind #dogsatpollingstations there was a cat inside ours

I was sad to hear today’s news about Andy Kershaw. When I was a teenage broadcaster on BBC local radio in the 1980s, Andy’s Radio 1 show was a huge influence on the music I played. In 2013 Leigh Folk Festival invited me to interview Andy for this short film. youtu.be/Z9HBmVvGTGE

🇨🇺 Havana, 1993 The first time I visited Cuba. I went back in 2005.

‘What do you do?’ Why having a unifier helps when you’re multidimensional www.iansanders.com/blog/what-do...

There was a great column in @ftweekend.com recently on the power of poetry in times of crisis. So I googled it to find the link. No, not 🐓 🐓 🤦🏻‍♂️

I’ve started a new Instagram page, Still Here, Still Me, where I’m posting honest reflections on what life is teaching me through my cancer journey. 👇🏻 www.instagram.com/reel/DTAbLZx...

A quote to end 2025.

I've been aware for a while of the work by faith and other community groups to support people seeking asylum. So I asked the @refugeecouncil.bsky.social where there was really vigorous community support. They said Northallerton. Here's what I found when I went there: as.ft.com/r/b3449fbd-3...

@ftedit.ft.com I’m not getting access to my FT Edit stories this morning. When I click on a story it says ‘this article is not included in your membership.’ I tried signing out and signing back in to my account but get the same issue.

It’s looking magical out on the mudflats

How do you bring more of You into how you lead? In ‘How To Lead as Yourself: insider knowledge from the c-suite’, three senior leaders share candid insights on how they bring authenticity into their leadership. Check out the insights: www.iansanders.com/blog/how-to-...

'Lard - 4 for 50p' Southend Market 1986: from my A level photography studies

‘Reading is not only for the joy of literature, and decompression — but can also make CEOs better at their jobs.’ I enjoyed this @financialtimes.com column by Emma Jacobs on the benefits of reading fiction. on.ft.com/49ovEBO

Sunday

Thursday

Why nothing beats pen & paper for my creativity, reflection and getting things done www.iansanders.com/blog/why-not...

I was invited to talk about what I’d learned since my cancer diagnosis. So I called it, ‘Riding The Waves: a manifesto for thriving in good times and bad.’ Probably the hardest talk I’ve ever given. But perhaps the most important. At The Do Lectures, 2025. thedolectures.com/talks/riding...

Can you remember what you learned in your very first job? Here are five career lessons from my stint as a ‘runner’ in a TV company, that have stayed with me for the last three decades. www.iansanders.com/blog/five-ca...

Grateful for the late September sunshine

My grandfather Vincent Sanders played in a band - here’s his diary from 1939 with bookings in it

“I don’t feel guilty, I celebrate it.” I was really struck by something the journalist Lyse Doucet - who is the BBC's Chief International Correspondent - said at the Financial Times Weekend Festival recently. www.iansanders.com/blog/i-dont-...

This is for anyone learning to navigate change, struggle, or uncertainty—and still choosing to show up with hope. Riding The Waves: a manifesto for thriving in good times and bad www.iansanders.com/blog/riding-...

Fond memories of meeting Flaco in Leigh-on-Sea in the ‘80s! In 1987, when I was 18, I had a couple of part time jobs. I worked for the owner of Waterfront Records who had just released a 7” from Tex Mex accordion virtuoso Flaco Jiménez and brought him over from Texas for a few gigs.

Not for the first time I am begging angry people to put the phone down, walk through actual streets, go to actual pubs, stand on the touch line at local sports clubs, browse Saturday markets, chat with ramblers on footpaths and rediscover beauty & contentedness.

I love Bree Groff’s new book Today was Fun www.breegroff.com/book

Writers gotta write! For my twentieth birthday my parents bought me a portable typewriter and this typewriter cake…

😂 Ha, that was worth my FT Edit subscription. Masterful opener to this article on the crushing costs of vets’ bills by Jonathan Guthrie

Well this just landed. The Chinese publisher of 365 Ways To Have a Good Day has just published a brand new edition of my book. The title has been updated to 我的人生，不是一套商業模式 (‘This is my life not a business model’) which is a quote from the book.

When we open a door, it lets other people in. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the power of being vulnerable, and where vulnerability sits in storytelling

My friend Bree has a new book out this week called Today Was Fun. It’s a brilliant read on reframing our relationship with work. I’ve published a little Q&A with her on my blog www.iansanders.com/blog/today-w...

Thursday lunchtime

A beautiful gathering. Four days at Do Wales on David and Clare's farm. Laughter, conversations. The thrill of meeting new people. Singing and dancing. Walking on the beach, laying in the grass. Incredible food. Good coffee. Eating outside. Playing with Smithy the dog #dolectures

Friday lunchtime in Leigh-on-Sea at the Unplugged walk club

Giving my Do Lectures slides a spin before I head to Wales next week

Saturday morning things

“As one protester said of the effects of being tear-gassed, it ‘tasted like fascism.’” Outstanding essay by Viet Thanh Nguyen on.ft.com/4ebS6OU

The backdrop for today’s Unplugged walk club

A little story about my favourite architectural feature at the Southbank Centre and why we could all benefit from being a bit more Yellow at work www.iansanders.com/blog/six-way...

🚂 A stone's throw from The Railway Hotel, where you'd often see the late great Wilko, it was great to attend the naming ceremony of the Wilko Johnson train today. Here's his son Simon talking about his Dad's love of taking the train: how he'd always choose a window seat to see those estuary views

guy next to me in the café was quite dramatically sitting with his head in his hands so I glanced at his screen to see what he was working on, and it was a doc with "IDEAS:" written at the top and absolutely nothing else my brother I hear you, I feel you, we are as one

'This is why we gather. Why we risk vulnerability. Why we reach across to take the hand of another. In finding our kinfolk, we find our courage. We find our resilience. We find a light to guide us through.' A beautiful invitation from @jerrycolonna.bsky.social www.linkedin.com/pulse/findin...

When I was a uni student I wrote an essay about the BBC production of Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. I sent a copy to the then controller of BBC2, Alan Yentob. I didn’t expect him to read it let alone take the time to reply with comments. So I’ll always remember this letter.

A true publishing innovator would simply take the AI-generated reading list and then ask the AI to generate all the non-existent books

"The UK is very good – much better than most European countries – at integrating migrants, because most Britons, and most migrants, want integration... The rhetoric and policy we saw yesterday will take us backward to a much uglier, and more dangerous, place." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Today. The perfect parklet lunch outside The Wilton Way Deli

call me old fashioned, but I would have thought that water was a water company's most precious resource!