TudoRama
TudoRama explores the nature and practice of creativity in the arts, sciences, politics and above all in everyday life. Tudor Rickards is Emeritus Professor of Creativity and Organizational Change at the University of Manchester. Tudor studied chemistry and radiation chemistry at The University of Wales at Cardiff. Following post-doctoral research at New York Medical College, he returned to the UK to work in technical management before joining Manchester Business School. He has published numerous books and articles on creativity, sporting management and leadership, as well as fictional works involving the mythical University of Urmston. He has been influential in the de...
“We were only obeying orders”
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In this post, I’m quoting extensively from the work of Emmanuel Kant. It is a difficult lesson and I can only claim to grasp more and more of its significance after several readings.
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Tudor Rickards
I read and comment on an interview given by Anne Carson in *The Paris Review*. She talks about writing, understanding between people, translation, as well as hesitation, contradiction, and time. The interview gained attention after Anne Carson received the 2026 Nobel Prize for Poetry.
The Blood Lust of the Trump Administration
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This week saw the announcement that the execution of Nidal Hasan, who shot dead 13 unarmed US soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, is to be live streamed to the American public.
It is believed this would be the first public execution in the US in almost a century.
The decision to livestream it is "unprecedented in the modern era" and "on uncertain legal terrain," said John Mills, a lawyer who works with inmates sentenced to death…
Kemi is very Marmite
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In early autumn in the UK, each political party holds a conference. This is the context in which Conservative leader and Prime Minister in waiting Kemi Badenoch makes her speech today.
These events are primarily intended to whip up approval for the party faithful. This time-honoured process is now screened for wider consumption. For many years interest has been focused on the two main parties of government the conservative and labour parties. More recently, the Liberal Democrats, emerging from another great force in the land, also take part in the ritual. A...
The Chess Season bursts into life
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This informal audio message is intended for members of East Cheshire Chess Club who are now gearing up for the new season. A special welcome to new members.
It may be of interest to others for its insights into workings of a typical enthusiastic but not always successful Club.
Several books have been written about the fictionalised happenings to a mythical club East Cheadle…
As August slipped into September, East Cheshire Chess Club members slipped back into its premises at the Cheadle Hulme In...
A General Election soon seems inevitable
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30 September 2025
A General Election in the UK soon seems inevitable.
That’s the startling conclusion reached by the respected political commentator Lord Adonis immediately after Andy Burnham’s speech to the Labour Party Annual Conference.
His analysis appeared in Prospect, which I have always found one of the UK’s more balanced political journals…
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At her retirement as German Chancellor, an entire nation to the homes and balconies to applaud for six minutes.
it was a unique tribute to a unique woman
Living rent free in your head
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I came across the expression recently and wondered where it originated. My latest research assistant ChatGPT informed me that the earliest documented print version appears in Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski's 1988 book Living Each Day. It says:
“Hanging on to resentments is letting someone you don't like live rent-free inside your head.”
The phrase became widely associated with the American advice columnist Ann Landers, who used a similar version in her syndicated column on March 8, 1990.
In short: It began as advice about letting go of resentment, then evolved into t...
DeepSeek: The Chinese AI App that has the world talking
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A BBC technology report last year drew attention to an open source AI system that is quietly becoming a major competitor to the emerging Western mega products.
The controversy over DeepSeek has arisen because of accusations on intellectual property theft and its operation with strict political control.
According to the BBC, DeepSeek is a Chinese artificial intelligence app that is rapidly gaining market share when the market share of Western apps such as Nvidia were falling dramatically…
Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs co...Normative Frameworks as a means of studying AI developments
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Recently, the potential for global chaos through rogue AI actions has become headline news.
This week, In mid September 2026, the news reported on the concerns of leading figures of the largest AI organisations. The king of England brought them together in a meeting urging responsible actions.
While browsing the literature , I came across reference to normative frameworks as a method of studying and understanding these new AI systems and their consequences.
So what are normative frameworks? I tried to apply the learning approach taken in my Business te...
Dear Mr President
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This audiotape is a transcript translated into English of
an open letter written to President Trump by the distinguished Russian director and author Eduard Topol.
The letter was widely circulated on the Internet on September 13 2026.
MacGillycuddy's Reeks: The creation of a folk ballad (1)
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MacGillycuddy's Reeks: The Creation of a Folk Ballad
MacGillycuddy's Reeks is a ballad about a young woman abandoned on the eve of her wedding. This is the audio note I made in turning an idea into a poem, on Friday 11 September 2026.
Before I wrote a word of the poem, I wanted to imagine it as being sung by a young Irish folk singer, to whom I gave the name
Sheilagh 0’Shea
I added to this a little fictional back story for my new singer:
She...
The Two State solution: A renewed search for the Holy Grail?
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Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs makes the announcement of a major policy change by the new Government. To a packed house, he announced actions to urge the Israeli Government to address actions of settlers in the West Bank, and longer term to renew international efforts to secure the Two State resolution of the crisis.
The plan, supported in principle by large numbers of countries in and beyond Europe, remains that, a plan defying various attempts to move to any effective resolution.
Stay up-to-date with a...The Two State Solution: A renewed search for the holy grail?
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Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs commentary by signing up to our newsletter! Email everydaycreativityuk@gmail.com to sign up!The Modern Book Burners
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This is the story about a large scale operation, possibly illegal, in buying second hand books, scraping their contents before destroying the originals.
It was drawn to my attention by a regular contributor to my newsletter who sent me this intriguing message.
“I read this article a week or so ago, and it made me think about our conversation about your books being scanned for AI use. It’s such an odd situation - codified knowledge, scanned for AI use, and then the source is destroyed”
Stay u...Nigel Farage defends the Indefensible
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Nigel Farage defends the indefensible
This audio tape is the second dealing with The Channel 4 report on malpractices within the Reform party. It is offered as an example of how not to prepare a statement for public release if your intention is to clarify rather than to confuse.
The earlier tape can be heard under the title: Channel 4 does a number on Nigel Farage
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As the Channel 4 programme revealed, Mr Farage was filmed by undercover reporters from @Verbatim_Media as part of a year-long investigation that Channel 4 News has thoroughly checked and verified.
This meeting took place in his Clacton constituency in July - when Mr Farage was fighting a by-election he called after separate allegations about his finances…
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ChatGBT helps me understand Andy Burnham's first policy statement as Prime Minister.
The news headlines tended to tell us more about their political leadings than the statement to the House.
As The Spectator saw it ‘Reviews of his debut yesterday are mixed, with most papers this morning focusing on his blaming of Brexit and Margaret Thatcher for Britain’s problems’.
I found myself turning to ChatGPT.
I couldn’t help noticing how the system had been programmed to be informative, but also to be indeed a...
The Cost of Polish, by Jeff Bullas
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This audio text replicates contents of a post on X by the American social influencer Jeff Bullas. Jeff has granted permission for me to present his material, which I believe addresses one of the urgent challenges of the AI world.
@jeffbullas posts
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Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs commentary by signing up to our newsletter! Email everydaycreativityuk@gmail.com to sign up!Nine till ever. A tribute to Dolly Parton
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Nine till ever. A tribute to Dolly Parton
This week every other news item was superseded by the news of the death of country superstar Dolly Parton
I learned how she wrote songs in consolation at tragic incidences in a rollercoaster of life. My friends will confirm that I am not easily disposed to visual displays of emotion. Maybe this tribute has something special in that respect.
Nine till ever. A tribute to Dolly Parton
ONE
Nine till ever, no eclipse
Goodby...
Learning to chat with CHAT GBT
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I am continuing my apprenticeship learning to use ChatGPT. At the moment, my experiment demonstrates how with minimum experience it is possible to find the appropriate amount of information and dealing with some problem.
Today my problem was identifying a new local Business, which I believe to be some kind of music club.
My conversation with ChatGPT went something like the following, which I have slightly abbreviated.
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A discussion supported by ChatGBT and illustrating a practical search process.
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An important skill for the age of AI is developing skills at prompting AI agents. This audio note outlines some preliminary thoughts of my own, and an interesting publication on the topic.
First, a working definition. What do I mean by creative prompting?
Creative prompting is the process of obtaining powerful suggestions from an AI system through the prompts provided by an individual or group.
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This week, the United Kingdom discovered a new sporting heroine, in the European Games. Amy Hunt won four gold medals in an increasing blaze of publicity.
As the BBC enthused
Amy has never been afraid to choose the hard path. Undertaking an English Literature degree at Cambridge University, she was determined to prove - as she did in winning silver at last year's World Championships - that you can be "an academic badass and a track goddess"
Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs c...Watching the World go dark. The 2026 Eclipse
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Wednesday 12 August 2026
Tonight the world will go dark. Light from the Sun will be blocked off for a few minutes.
Put simply, the orbit of the moon gets between the Sun and the Earth. This briefly blocks the light waves from the Sun.
I report how the spectacular event impacted on myself, on thousands of eclipse watchers around the northern hemisphere and on the BBC reporters following it.
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Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs commentary by signing up to our newsletter! Email everydaycreativityuk@gmail.com to sign up!How the BBC creates rather than reports a news story: The death of a police officer
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The BBC has recently presented a significant news event in a way that seems to me to be utterly irresponsible and biased. It shows how reporting the news can slide into creating a news story to achieve an implicit goal.
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This week in the United Kingdom, two people were thrust into the headlines. One is a university professor. The other is a convicted criminal whose rehabilitation as a local counsellor is being backed by the leader of the Conservative Party.
It sometimes seems that such stories have an increased chance of success if the key figure has an extremely unusual name, or unconventional appearance...
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One of those stories you want to believe in, even if you suspect there is an element of promotional wishful thinking about it.
The four grandmothers, Lynn, Susie, Rose, and Christine met wrestler Gordon DeReiss while travelling to Las Vegas to scatter the ashes of Rose's late husband, Pete.
As sometimes happens, Gordon was sitting in one of their seats. He was wise enough not to get into an argument with the four grandmothers …
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I wrote it this song initially for myself. It is called Dusky Come Ride with Me. An Anglo-Welsh Odyssey.
I hope someday it will be heard and maybe sung by a new generation, with a deeper appreciation of the dynamic interplay between the English and Welsh languages and their cultures.
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Recently, a new nightmare known as Gazundering has entered into the process of selling a house…
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Guess what?
I lost my phone yesterday. I did all the usual stuff searching many times in the same place and getting the same result.
That’s one definition of insanity according to Albert Einstein.
As I was carrying out my futile search, the enormity of my loss struck me. The first obvious reason was that I could not contact anyone to help in my search, because I had deprived myself of my main means of communication…
Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and curr...Count Binface's Manifesto
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For many years, local elections in England have been brightened by the appearance of a bizarre figure dressed in a surreal costume topped by a space age dustbin.
Some have been angered by what they see as making a mockery of the sacred democratic process. Others have celebrated it as an example of quirky English humour lighting up the drab political scene.
Count Binface grabbed the publicity from Nigel Farage when in July 2026 the latter announced his intentions to retire as an MP and then fight for his return i...
How to create a name for a new product
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Coming up with a new idea for a product is one of those examples of a search for everyday creativity. The challenge crops up in a wide range of contexts and the approach I’m going to describe is one of various ways of carrying out a successful search.
It can, however, be applied across a wide range of practical situations. I will take an example an attempt to provide a title for a new song by a small team of songwriters.
I will describe the process in a gen...
Agatha Christie: Another unsolved mystery
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As regular listeners to my audio casts will know, I am addicted to detective thrillers and particularly to those in the so-called golden age roughly between the first and second world wars.
Among the galaxy of star writers, one blazed more brightly than the others. Agatha Christie‘s personal life has become as much a mystery in several ways as those fictional mysteries which brought her fame and fortune.
I have acquired two of her works that were unknown to me but reissued recently. Perhaps they are clues in th...
The Assassination of Keir Starmer, 22 June 2026
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Keir Starmer’s historic final hours as prime minister.
Shortly after 9 am, it was clear the moment was imminent, when he and his wife Victoria appeared in front of No 10 Downing Street.
It is often a symbolic changing of the political guard. Staff from No 10 are in the street applauding.
Starmer begins the most difficult speech he has ever had to make…
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Over the course of many years, I had probably over quoted the story about Archimedes and his moment of discovery which has become known as the Eureka phenomenon.
As it gets taught in universities around the world, Archimedes discovered his famous principle while in his bath prompting him to leap out and run through the streets of Athens crying something loosely transliterated into English as Eureka, that is to say ‘I’ve found it’.
The Eureka moment is the moment of discovery accompanied by intense emotional pleasure.
So we...
Question Time. A gruesome disappointment
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I’m still getting my head around what I witnessed watching Question Time, yesterday evening. I was attracted to the idea of the programme with the leading candidates in the Makerfield by-election.
Some years ago, I enjoyed Question Time, when it permitted intelligent debate between guests with interventions from the audience. This seemed to change with the departure of the authoritative but skilfully impartial chairmanship at the time, by Robin Day and his successor David Dimbleby…
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The question of copyright has become a hot issue with the rise of creative products assisted by artificial intelligence systems.
I started thinking about this recently with a specific case example. It cropped up the work directed by Jonathan Levitt in
producing a wide range of songs supported by his lyric writers, including myself, with Stephen Tranter, and a range of distinguished poets whose work has passed beyond the limit of copyright legislation.
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