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Right then. Let’s catch up.

If you’ve been wondering where I disappeared to, don’t worry — I haven’t joined a cult, won the lottery, or run off to live in the woods (although all three remain possible future options). I’ve just been busy doing something a bit… mmm, odd.

I decided to contact 200 entrepreneurs — yes, two hundred — and ask them a simple question:

“If you had to start again from zero, how would you make your first £10K?”

Now, depending on how you look at it, this is either a brilliant idea… or the behaviour of a man who has clearly run out of sensible hobbies. Either way, I sent the messages.

And here’s the surprising bit:
Out of the 200 people I contacted, nine replied with proper, decent, thoughtful conversations. Put another way – I’ve now got nine mentors!

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You’ve got to have sympathy with the Director of the Louvre Museum – Laurence des Cars.

She was given the top position in 2021 by President Emmanuel Macron, based on the fact she was an expert on 19th century and early 20th century art. And thats what you want at the biggest museum in the world right? Someone at the top who can handle the pressure of ensuring the exhibitions, acquisitions, and scholarships align with the museum’s mission and national cultural policy. Yet, she is also the person everyone is holding accountable for the security beach in the Museum on the 19th Oct 2025 when unarmed robbers walked away with $102 million dollars of jewels. And to me these things don’t align. 

For those of you who don’t know, the heist was a pretty simple plan executed very well. Four thieves dressed in high viz vests pull up outside the museum in a vehicle mounted mechanical lift. Two of them are raised to a first floor balcony, where they use an angle grinder to cut through some ultra think glass, then again on the jewelry glass. They then climb back through the window, back down the lift, jump on mopeds and disappear into the Paris traffic. This was carried out in under 8 minutes whilst the museum was open and visitors were walking around. 

But surely the person who’s head is on the line is the person in charge of the security right? Not the one in charge of the exhibits? 

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I’ve realised my real interest isn’t in building systems — it’s in watching them fail. Not because I enjoy chaos, but because failure always reveals how humans behave when logic runs out.

Most people blame bad systems, lazy workers, or broken processes. I see something else: people reacting emotionally inside structures that were designed for logic. Every mistake, inefficiency, or “stupid rule” is just a human workaround that made sense to someone at the time.

My focus is understanding why humans misfire inside the systems they built — workplaces, governments, businesses, families — and what that says about our wiring. We design for order but act from instinct. We talk logic but make decisions based on ego, fear, and habit.

So rather than preaching “how to fix” things, I expose the hidden logic behind why they fail. My role isn’t to offer solutions; it’s to show patterns — the irony, the blind spots, and the predictable chaos that makes humans both brilliant and ridiculous.

In short: I don’t study systems. I study people pretending to be logical inside them.

As part of my constant bid to keep my young family entertained and away from the tv, yesterday we ventured to a location we’d never visited before; a wood in the heart of the Somerset countryside.

We all know the deal, right? A small shaded car-park in the middle of nowhere, usually with enough parking spaces for a few dog walkers and the occasional rambler, an overflowing poo bin and a rotting perimeter fence which had seen better days, all surrounded by miles of woodlands and footpaths. This place didn’t disappoint.

Within a few minutes we were suited and booted and already jumping in our first muddy puddle. The place was everything I expected. Remote, tranquil and deserted.

So I was surprised to find a small caravan in a clearing selling coffee. Don’t get me wrong it was well presented: the caravan had been lovingly painted, it had a good variety of drinks and cakes, and a few chairs and tables were placed neatly around the clearing to better soak up the ambience.

But who were they offering their offerings to? Squirrels and hedgehogs? You see, the kids and I had been there for around an hour and we’d bumped into only one hiker and a couple walking their dog.  A total of 3 paying customers an hour. So, with so few people (limited passing trade), no option for a delivery service, and little to offer in the way of protection from the rain and wind, who in their right mind would set up a business here? In a world where we are taught ‘location is everything’, this business couldn’t have got it more wrong.

Or had they?

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Most chatbots answer questions.
This one guides decisions.

Let me show you what I mean.

I recently coded a second AI demo bot, and while it might look like a simple tattoo consultation assistant… it’s actually a powerful example of how AI can gently steer users toward a business’s desired outcome — without them ever feeling pushed.

The twist?
No matter what you tell the bot — your age, gender, size, reason for the tattoo — the answer is always the same:
“You should get a small flower tattoo on your shoulder.”

Now, If you think the bot’s suggestion felt a little obvious or forced — that’s on me, not the tech. I programmed it that way to make the principle clear.

In the real world, the challenge for any business is getting the balance right: guiding the user subtly, while still steering them toward the outcome that drives results. That’s where the real power (and craft) of this tool lies.

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I’ve just put together a working demo of an AI-powered chatbot—and while it looks simple, it’s a small example of a big opportunity for businesses worldwide.

So, what is it?

It’s a chatbot you can drop onto any website that answers questions in a friendly, helpful way. What makes it different is that it only responds based on a clear set of instructions—you decide what it should talk about, how it should behave, and who it’s for.

In the demo I’ve built, it’s focused on helping small hospitality businesses in the UK answer HR-related questions. It explains things in plain English, follows UK employment law, and politely shuts down anything that’s off-topic.

What makes it useful?

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I sat down with a clear idea: build a simple AI-powered tool that could help people validate their business ideas faster.

No fluff, no endless scrolling through guru content—just a practical way to get clarity.

You see, most people waste weeks (or months) thinking they’re working on “the next big thing” when in reality, they’ve skipped the one thing that matters most: validation.

That’s the itch I wanted to scratch. I wasn’t trying to compete with ChatGPT—I wanted to leverage it in a way that delivered structured, usable outcomes. No prompt engineering, no jargon, just “is this idea worth pursuing or not?” in five minutes or less.

So I started sketching what this might look like.

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The Idea Was Simple (Maybe Too Simple?)

I imagined a short, guided process: a few focused questions about your idea, your audience, your differentiator—stuff I know works from experience. Behind the scenes, AI would take those answers, run some logic, and return a personalized validation summary.

Kind of like a business coach in a box.

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This ‘was’ my 742nd idea of 2025 that i got excited about and then died a slow death. I’m not sure writing is quite for me, but for full transparency am keeping this as a post. For now anyway! Enjoy.

Chapter 1 [Chapter 1, Draft 2]

Habits were more dangerous than secrets. Secrets could be buried; habits exposed them. That’s why someone had spent three mornings last week, and three mornings this week, tracing the precise movements of the man leaving Norfolk Crescent.

At 6:52am on Monday, 6:56 on Tuesday, and 6:50 on Wednesday, the front door clicked shut, and the man emerged, bag slung over his shoulder, the same every day. He turned right onto Great Stanhope Street and passed the bakery at James Street West, avoiding the Riverside footpath entirely. Not once did he glance over his shoulder.

That Thursday, the observer had stationed themselves further down James Street West and noted the man’s passing at 7:03am his brisk pace uninterrupted by the chatter of passing students or the honk of a distant car. By 7:12am they had both reached St James Parade, and a precise note was scratched into a small pad.

This morning, the observer lingered outside the college which, if his calculations were correct, was approximately fourteen minutes into the man’s journey. The air was thick with the sharp scent of burnt coffee, but his focus didn’t waver. At 7:11am the man appeared, moving predictably toward the station, stepping inside at exactly 7:15.

Seventeen minutes. Always seventeen minutes. The rhythm was clockwork, utterly dependable. Dependable was good. Dependable got paid. The observer unchained his bike and rode off.

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