NORTHERN PLANNER

Daniel Miller's The Comfort of Things is one of those books every planner, in the UK at least, should read. The analysis of the contents of 30 households in London exposes so much about what we really care about. It paints a true picture of the drama of everyday life, where nothing happens yet everything happens.

It perhaps offers a counter argument to the convention that happiness is about 'doing stuff' rather than 'owning stuff'. But that's for another day.

But when you get to the end, there is the need to justify writing in rich, accessible prose, rather than 'academic language'.

That's right, there's a very specific 'academic' style of writing. As if it's not 'really clever' unless it's written in over-complex langauge.

Just as Newton and his mates used to write in Latin to stop the plebs reading their stuff.

Just, to be honest, as so many folks speak 'marketing', or even worse, speak 'planner'.

When psychology tells us that the more complicated your style of communication, the less seriously folks tend to take you.