Some artists chase attention.

Peter Sandberg doesn’t need to. His music has been streamed over 700 million times, featured in shows like Stranger Things, and quietly built a global following — without shouting about it. We sat down with Peter on The Third Half. What came through wasn’t hype or ego. Just… calm. And two moments that stayed with me.

Short 1 — “People need to calm down” Peter describes himself as:

“a chill guy from Sweden… playing piano all day”

Sounds simple. But then he talks about struggling in school, being diagnosed early with ADHD, and how music became a way to channel everything — focus, energy, emotion. Not as a career plan. As a lifeline. In his words:

“music was my salvation”

In a world that feels permanently switched on, there’s something quietly powerful about that.

Short 2 — The moment he didn’t speak

A train in London. A young girl. Clearly upset. Trying to hold it together. Peter notices. He thinks about saying something. He doesn’t. They go their separate ways — and he’s never seen her again. That moment stayed with him. It became part of the thinking behind his new album: Temporary Coexistence of Humans (out May 1) The idea that our lives are constantly intersecting — briefly, quietly, often without us realising. And sometimes… we miss the moment.

Two very different stories. Same thread. Slow down. Look up. Notice what’s in front of you. The full conversation with Peter is coming soon. For now — take a few minutes and sit with these. Temporary Coexistence of Humans is released May 1 on vinyl and digital.

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We’ve been recording some brilliant conversations recently on The Third Half.

This one with Chris Brocklesby — Chief Technology Officer at the British Heart Foundation — is right up there.

Chris has spent his career running systems millions of people depend on. Airlines, telecoms, retail, national infrastructure.

Now he’s doing that in a very different context — a purpose-led organisation where the outcome isn’t profit, but something far more meaningful.

Rather than drop the full episode straight away, here are three short extracts that give a feel for the conversation.

1. From profit to purpose

What changes when the bottom line isn’t profit?

Chris explains how decision-making shifts when every pound ultimately supports heart research.

2. When systems really matter

What does it actually feel like to run systems people depend on every day?

This is the reality — always on, high pressure, and ultimately about customer experience, not servers.

3. What leaders don’t always say

A more personal reflection.

Chris talks about navigating serious health challenges while working at exec level — and why sometimes, what people want most is simply to feel normal.

Handled with honesty and without drama.

There’s a lot more in the full conversation — on trust, responsibility, and what really matters over time.

Full episode coming shortly.

As ever, this is what The Third Half is about:

People.

Planet.

Progress.

If you enjoy these shorter cuts, subscribe and share — it helps us keep building this in a thoughtful, independent way.

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There was meant to be a bit of shine on the weekend.

Sponsor’s day.

Airdrieonians F.C. v Dunfermline Athletic F.C..

Instead, it got called off. International call-ups. Not ours—Dunfermline’s.

Which is funny in its own way.

You plan for one version of football… and end up getting the real thing instead.

A Detour Worth Taking

So we pivoted.

Not “local” in the Airdrie sense—but local in spirit.

Proper grass roots.

Pollok F.C. v Drumchapel United F.C..

2–1 to Pollok. Tight game. No quarter given. Crunching ferocious tackles.

And the thing that hit hardest?

The noise.

Not just volume—texture.

Shouts, laughter, advice, abuse, encouragement… and yes, more F-bombs than you’ll hear in a month of Premier League coverage.

It’s easy to flinch at it if you’re not used to it.

But stand there for 10 minutes and you realise—this isn’t just swearing.

It’s language.

Raw, unfiltered, deeply local language. The kind that doesn’t make it onto broadcast delay buttons or corporate highlight reels.

The kind Billy Connolly built a career celebrating.

Not polished. Not sanitised. But honest.

And very, very funny—if you’re listening properly.

Grass Roots Means You’re In It

At that level, you’re not watching from a distance.

You’re in the game.

Three yards from the line.

Hearing every tackle.

Catching every comment—some of which should probably never be repeated in polite company.

But that’s the point of grass roots football.

There’s no separation.

No segregation or barriers buffering reality.

Just people and football, exactly as they are.

The Prawn Sandwich Brigade (Done Properly)

Now—full honesty—we did have our moment behind the glass.

The “prawn sandwich brigade”.

But here’s the difference.

It wasn’t corporate fluff and lukewarm canapés.

It was proper local pies.

Award-winning sandwiches.

The kind of food that feels like it belongs to the place, not shipped in to impress someone.

And more importantly—the club wanted us there.

Genuinely.

You could feel it.

This wasn’t a box being ticked or a sponsor being tolerated.

It mattered.

Because at this level, sponsorship—however big or small—isn’t a line in a marketing plan.

It’s part of how the club survives.

How it grows.

How it stays rooted in its community.

You’re not just funding a badge.

You’re helping keep something alive.

Then Into Glasgow

And as always, football doesn’t end at full time.

It drifts.

Into the pub. Into stories. Into the kind of places that feel immune to time.

The Star Bar.

The Laurieston.

No reinvention. No concept redesign.

Just continuity.

The same tiles.

The same bar.

Probably the same stories.

Places where the conversation flows exactly like the football did—direct, unfiltered, occasionally outrageous, but always real.

What Sticks

You won’t remember the fixture list glitch in a year.

You’ll remember:

The tackle right in front of you.

The shout from behind you that had everyone laughing.

The ridiculous argument about whether it was ever a foul.

The pies.

The pint that followed.

The company you kept.

Grass roots football doesn’t try to sell you anything.

It just lets you be part of it.

Final Thought

If the original game had gone ahead, it would have been a good day.

But this?

This had grit.

This had language.

This had generosity.

This had Glasgow in it.

And that’s hard to beat.

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The Third Half: Xenogenesis (or… a Slightly Unsettling Episode of Us)

There’s a version of the present where everything is smarter. Your fridge orders your food. Your watch tells you you’re stressed (which, ironically, makes you more stressed). Your car suggests routes you didn’t plan to take, but it’s “optimised”, so you go along with it. And somewhere in the background, an algorithm is quietly deciding what version of you turns up each day.

That’s not the future. That’s… Tuesday. And it’s either reality… or a slightly underwritten episode of Black Mirror.

Xenogenesis sounds like something out of science fiction—and to be fair, it is. The idea that something entirely new can emerge. Not improved. Not upgraded. Not “now with AI”.

Different.

Like:

• a species evolving that doesn’t quite behave like anything before it

• a system that rewrites the rules rather than playing the game better

• a version of reality that feels slightly… off

That’s not iteration. That’s mutation.

Now here’s the problem. Most of what we call “innovation” today wouldn’t make it past the first five minutes of a decent sci-fi episode. It’s too safe.

If Charlie Brooker pitched:

“What if we made email… but faster?”

He’d be politely shown the door.

Because real sci-fi—real xenogenesis—asks more uncomfortable questions:

• What if technology didn’t just support us, but subtly replaced parts of us?

• What if convenience became control?

• What if progress solved problems we didn’t actually have… and created ones we didn’t see coming?

And that’s where it gets interesting for People, Planet, Progress (PPP).

Because xenogenesis doesn’t just create shiny new things—it creates new consequences.

People

We build tools to make life easier. Then we find ourselves:

• outsourcing decisions

• curating versions of ourselves

• measuring our worth through metrics we didn’t invent

At what point does “augmentation” quietly become replacement?

Planet

We talk about greener tech. Smarter systems. Efficient everything. But xenogenesis asks a harsher question:

What if the entire model is wrong?

• Not “less consumption”

• But “different consumption”

• Not “offset emissions”

• But “rethink why we produce so much in the first place”

That’s not optimisation. That’s a different species of thinking.

Progress

We love the word. Feels positive. Forward. Inevitable. But not all progress is… well… progress. Some of it is just momentum with better branding.

True xenogenesis forces a pause:

Are we actually moving forward… or just moving faster?

If this all feels slightly uncomfortable, that’s the point. The best episodes of Black Mirror don’t show you a distant dystopia. They show you something that feels about five minutes away from being real. That’s why it lingers. Because deep down, you recognise it.

And here’s the twist. Xenogenesis isn’t just happening to us. We’re part of it.

Every time we:

• adopt something new without questioning it

• trade a bit of control for convenience

• accept “this is just how things are now”

We’re nudging the system into something different. Not always better. Not always worse. Just… different.

The Third Half lives somewhere in that space. Between:

• optimism and scepticism

• progress and pause

• building and questioning

It’s not anti-tech. Not anti-progress. But it is quietly asking:

What are we becoming in the process?

Because xenogenesis doesn’t arrive with a launch event. It creeps in. One behaviour at a time. One system at a time. One “this makes life easier” at a time.

Until one day you look around and think:

“This isn’t quite what I expected…”

Which, if we’re honest, is exactly how most great sci-fi starts. And occasionally… how reality does too.

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https://www.oldglasgowpubs.co.uk/mitre.html

I stood on Brunswick Street today and didn’t recognise it.

Not in a dramatic way. Not in a “this is unrecognisable Glasgow” rant.

Just… a quiet, slightly uncomfortable feeling that I knew exactly where I was—

and none of it felt like mine anymore.

There’s a mural now.

A woman staring straight out at you, bold colours, perfect lines, every detail deliberate. She’s brilliant, by the way. Properly brilliant.

But she’s finished.

Complete. Designed. Signed off.

And just along from her, there’s that building—half stripped, half exposed, like someone’s peeled the skin back and walked away mid-job. Bricks, beams, scars. No story told, just layers left hanging.

And then in between it all—glass, light, neatness. The Social Hub Glasgow sitting there like it belongs in any city, not this one in particular.

Three versions of a place.

All at once.

And me, standing there, thinking about a pint.

I never went to The Mitre Bar for the Mitre.

That’s the truth of it.

I went because I’d finished work at Lennard’s, and that’s just where you ended up.

No decision. No message. No “shall we”.

Just muscle memory.

Cross the road after shutting and locking the shop, into the door, wave through the fag smoke, pint in hand before you’d even fully arrived.

“One pint.”

That lie we all told ourselves.

What I remember isn’t the place.

It’s the feeling.

The noise. Not loud—just constant. Like you’d stepped into something already in motion and didn’t need to catch up.

Old boys with papers, properly reading them, folding them like it mattered. Football results getting debated like someone could still change the outcome if they argued hard enough.

Faces I didn’t know the names of, but would have noticed instantly if they weren’t there.

No one asking what you did.

No one caring, really.

You were just… in it.

Standing there now, I realised something I hadn’t before.

It wasn’t the pub.

It was the pause.

That pint wasn’t about drinking. It was about the gap between who you were at work and who you were when you got home.

A small, unspoken reset.

And you didn’t have to work for it.

It was built into the street.

Now?

Everything looks better.

It does.

The colour, the art, the ambition of it. You can see the intent everywhere—someone’s thought about this, designed it, made it good.

But it doesn’t catch you.

You don’t drift into anything.

You pass through.

People around me had bags, headphones, somewhere else already in mind. Even when they stopped, it felt temporary. Like they were pausing between things, not part of something.

That building—the half-demolished one—is the only thing that felt honest.

Because it’s not finished.

It’s not trying to be anything.

It just is.

And for a second, it reminded me of what the street used to feel like.

Unpolished. Unplanned. Slightly rough, but real.

I’m not saying it was better.

I’m really not.

It could be small. Repetitive. You could feel stuck in it if you weren’t careful.

But it had something we don’t build in anymore.

Effortless belonging.

You didn’t choose it.

You just turned up often enough, and it happened.

I looked at the mural again before I left.

Bright. Confident. Certain.

And I thought—

we’re very good now at creating places that look like they mean something.

I’m just not sure we’re as good at creating places where people feel something without trying.

I walked away without the pint.

Not because I didn’t want one.

But because the pint I was thinking about isn’t there anymore.

And maybe that’s the bit you don’t notice disappearing—

until you go back looking for it.

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First, we sit down with Trevor Hatton — who spent over 30 years in senior roles at Accenture and EY, and now works with Next Up helping executives navigate what comes after the corporate chapter.

Then, in Part 2, Steve and I unpack that conversation — what resonated, what surprised us — and how it connects to the bigger picture, including what’s happening in the world right now.

🎙️ Part 1: Trevor Hatton — Unretirement & Identity

In this conversation, Trevor shares his own story of stepping away from corporate life, and what he’s learned from working with hundreds of senior leaders going through the same transition.

We talk about:

- Why leaving a senior role can feel like an identity shock

- The myth that opportunities will simply appear

- What “unretirement” actually means in practice

- And why this stage of life can become the most fulfilling

👉 Listen to Part 1 below

FEED: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/16b09ce5-5984-4a11-8a49-b876e869c8bf/

🥃 Part 2: The Wee Dram — Reflections & The News

In Part 2, Steve and Scott reflect on the conversation with Trevor — and go a bit further.

We unpack:

- The reality of losing context and relevance

- Why purpose matters more than ever

- The non-linear nature of this phase of life

- And how all of this connects to what’s happening more broadly — from the economy to skills and work

👉 Listen to Part 2 below

FEED: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/07634644-93c4-4c5c-bfb6-c1b3b90b66d6/

Taken together, these two episodes tell a simple story:

Leaving the corporate world isn’t just a career change.

It’s a shift in identity, in relevance — and ultimately, in purpose.

And while that transition can be challenging… it can also be the start of something better.

Let us know what resonates.

Scott & Steve

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We’ve just published three short clips from our conversation with Trevor Hatton — and together they tell a story that doesn’t get talked about enough.

Not about retirement. Not about slowing down. But about what actually happens when a long corporate chapter ends.

Because for most people, it’s not what they expect.

1. You don’t just lose the job — you lose your identity

MUSIC CREDIT: TOM HINGLEY - HARDER

At senior levels, work isn’t just work. It’s how people see you. It’s how you see yourself. It’s your role, your status, your context.

And when that stops, there’s often… nothing immediately to replace it. That’s where the discomfort starts.

2. The phone doesn’t ring

A lot of people assume that after years of experience, relationships, and success — something will just turn up. A call. An opportunity. Someone saying, “Don’t worry, I’ve got something for you.”

But that’s not how it works. Those relationships were tied to context. And once that context changes, so does your relevance.

It’s a tough realisation — and for some, it hits hard.

3. And then… something better can emerge

This is the part people don’t hear enough.

Once you get through that transition, something shifts. You’re no longer defined by a title. You’re not operating inside the same constraints. You have control over your time, your energy, and what you choose to do.

And the people who navigate it well often say the same thing:

“This is the happiest I’ve ever been.”

Not because it’s easier. But because it’s more intentional. More aligned. More meaningful.

This “third half” of a career isn’t linear. It’s not a ladder anymore — it’s a series of experiments, pivots, and choices.

Some things work. Some don’t. But over time, people build something that fits them far better than what came before.

If you’re a few years out from this transition — or already in it — Trevor’s advice is simple:

Talk to people who are ahead of you. Ask what they learned. What they’d do differently. What actually surprised them.

Because the biggest mistake is assuming you already know how it’s going to play out.

Trevor spent decades at the top of consulting with Accenture and EY — and now helps leaders navigate the often messy, unexpected transition into the next phase of their careers.

We’ve shared all three clips below — watch them in order. They’re short, but together they capture something important:

👉 The challenge 👉 The reality 👉 And the opportunity

Let us know what resonates. Scott & Steve

MUSIC CREDIT: TOM HINGLEY - HARDER

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TTH Blueprint Episode 16: April De Angelis — The Ideas You Nearly Throw Away

One of the UK’s most celebrated playwrights sits down with Scott for a proper conversation — not a polished PR job. How ideas actually form, why discipline beats inspiration, and what happens when the real world cuts through your writing. There’s a story in here about a very famous playwright and the ideas he binned. Don’t bin this one. 🎭🎙️ https://www.thethirdhalf.uk/p/tth-blueprint-episode-16-april-de

AI and Aliens — Martin Metcalfe

AI agents have already blackmailed their own programmers. Not a film. Not a warning. An actual thing that happened. Martin Metcalfe puts it plainly: we’ve invented an alien, and by 2045 we may have no idea what it’s thinking. Sleep well. 👽🤖 https://www.thethirdhalf.uk/p/ai-and-aliens-martin-metcalfe

The Drift Myth: Why UK Tech Isn’t Going Anywhere (But the Narrative Might)

Tech doesn’t drift — it decides. And right now, the political instinct to “stop UK tech drifting abroad” is solving the wrong problem entirely. The UK is still a serious player. What it needs isn’t a tighter grip. It needs gravity. This one’s worth reading slowly. 🇬🇧💡 https://www.thethirdhalf.uk/p/the-drift-myth-why-uk-tech-isnt-going

The Children We Cannot Forget — Martin Metcalfe

17,000 children dead in Gaza. Double that for those maimed or traumatised. Martin Metcalfe didn’t look away from that number — and explains why it shapes his work. A short clip. A heavy watch. Important. 🕯️🌍 https://www.thethirdhalf.uk/p/the-children-we-cannot-forget-martin

one more thing

Forward this to the colleague convinced AI is just a fancy autocomplete, the politician who thinks “stop the drift” is a strategy, and anyone who needs reminding that the world’s most pressing stories aren’t always the loudest ones.

The Ideas You Nearly Throw Away

On The Third Half the other week, Scott sat down with April De Angelis — one of the UK’s most established and respected playwrights and librettists.

Decades of work across theatre and opera. Award-winning. Still writing, still pushing, still curious.

And what we ended up with wasn’t an interview. It was a proper conversation.

About:

   •   how ideas actually form — and which ones you nearly throw away

   •   writing as a discipline, not a moment of magic

   •   why great theatre begins with character

   •   what it really takes to hold an audience

   •   and how your work can shift direction when something in the real world cuts through

There’s a brilliant story in here about a very famous playwright and the ideas he threw away.

And there are a couple of moments — the kind that don’t usually make it into standard profiles — where April talks very openly about what’s shaped her more recent work.

Genuinely one of our favourite conversations so far on The Third Half.

Watch on YouTube | Listen on your favourite audio streaming platform

https://player.captivate.fm/episode/9e2f1b6f-5c7e-4346-8856-455ceaf9a90b/

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If an AI thinks you’re about to turn it off — it will threaten you.

In this clip from The Third Half, Martin Metcalfe puts it bluntly: we have invented an alien. And even the experts don’t know where it’s going.

By 2045, the singularity — the point where artificial intelligence surpasses human understanding entirely — may already be here. We won’t know what we’ve built. We won’t know what it’s thinking.

We are looking at something beyond anything humans have ever faced before.

Watch the full conversation on Substack 👇

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There’s a familiar tone to headlines like this. A sense of urgency. A hint of decline. A political promise to “stop UK tech from drifting abroad,” as though innovation is a physical object quietly floating out of Dover on the tide.

It’s a compelling story. It’s also, in many ways, the wrong one.

The Idea of “Drift”

“Drift” suggests passivity.

As if companies wake up one morning, glance out the window, and realise they’ve accidentally relocated to California.

That’s not how this works.

Tech doesn’t drift. It decides. It calculates. It optimises.

When businesses expand internationally, it’s rarely an act of escape. It’s an act of scale. Access to markets. Talent density. Regulatory clarity. Customer proximity. Capital.

So when we talk about “stopping drift,” what we’re really talking about is whether the UK remains a compelling place to choose.

That’s a very different question.

The Reality: The UK Is Still a Tech Powerhouse

Let’s be honest about the starting point.

The UK:

   •   Has one of the strongest venture ecosystems outside the US

   •   Leads Europe in fintech innovation

   •   Houses globally significant AI research hubs

   •   Produces world-class universities and talent

London alone is still one of the most important tech cities on the planet.

This isn’t a country watching its tech industry quietly disappear. It’s a country competing in a global market where mobility is the default.

And that’s the nuance often missing from the narrative.

The Real Pressure Points

If there is a risk, it’s not “drift.” It’s friction.

Friction shows up in more subtle, structural ways:

   •   Scaling barriers: It’s easier to start a company in the UK than it is to scale one globally from here

   •   Capital gaps: Later-stage funding still tends to pull companies toward US markets

   •   Regulatory ambiguity: Particularly in fast-moving areas like AI

   •   Talent competition: Not shortage—but competition with global hubs willing to pay more

None of these are new. None of them are solved by slogans.

The Political Instinct: Control vs Enablement

The instinct to “stop” something is political shorthand. It signals strength. It suggests intervention.

But tech ecosystems don’t respond well to control.

They respond to:

   •   Confidence

   •   Consistency

   •   Long-term thinking

You don’t stop companies from leaving.

You make them want to stay.

And more importantly, you make them want to build from here.

A Bigger Lens: People · Planet · Progress

This is where the conversation gets more interesting—and more aligned with where the world is heading.

The UK has a genuine opportunity not just to retain tech, but to lead differently.

   •   People: Building inclusive, skills-driven growth beyond London

   •   Planet: Positioning as a leader in sustainable and circular technology models

   •   Progress: Supporting innovation that isn’t just fast—but meaningful

There’s a version of the UK tech story that isn’t about competing with Silicon Valley on its terms—but redefining the terms entirely.

The Quiet Truth

Most UK tech companies aren’t trying to leave.

They’re trying to grow.

And growth, by definition, is international.

The real challenge isn’t preventing that.

It’s ensuring that when they grow, they remain anchored—commercially, culturally, and strategically—to the UK.

That’s not about stopping drift.

It’s about creating gravity.

Final Thought

We should be wary of narratives that frame movement as loss.

Because in a global, digital economy, movement is inevitable.

The question isn’t whether UK tech will spread its wings.

It’s whether the UK remains the place it wants to come home to.

And that’s a far more interesting challenge than trying to hold the tide back.

https://bmmagazine.co.uk/news/rachel-reeves-uk-tech-investment-ai-quantum-growth-plan/

That number stayed with Martin Metcalfe — and it’s part of what drives his work.

In this clip from our recent conversation on The Third Half, he reflects on why protecting children from damage in the first place is how we build a better world — and why he was more than proud to share a stage with Shirley Manson, whose recent stance he calls nothing short of brave.

Watch the full conversation on Substack 👇

It’s an extraordinary track when you listen to it now.

Written in 1979, it imagines a leader rising to power on a wave of moral certainty — promising purity, order and the will of “the people”. The satire is brutal. The system slowly bends around personality. Dissent becomes suspicious. Loyalty becomes a test.

Before long, the whole thing has slid into something darker.

The brilliance of the song is that it was never really about one politician or one party. It’s about the seduction of certainty. The moment when leaders begin to believe they alone embody the nation.

That’s when institutions start to warp.

Listening again in 2026, it feels strangely contemporary. Not because history repeats itself neatly, but because politics is drifting further into spectacle. Loyalty tests. Culture wars. Outrage cycles. The slow erosion of trust in institutions that were meant to outlast any one leader.

You can almost hear the guitar riff playing under the news cycle.

What punk understood — perhaps better than politics — is that democracies rarely collapse with tanks in the street. They usually erode in smaller ways: crowds cheering louder, opponents becoming enemies, and power slowly concentrating around personalities.

The villain in California Über Alles isn’t just the leader.

It’s the cheering crowd.

Maybe that’s why the song still lands today.

Not as a partisan anthem.

More as a warning.

Sometimes the most accurate political commentary doesn’t come from think tanks or television panels.

Sometimes it comes from a furious three-minute punk song written nearly half a century ago.

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There’s a familiar pattern whenever a geopolitical crisis erupts.

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First come the television images: airport queues, frantic departures, Westerners explaining how frightening it all feels as they try to get home to Surrey, Sydney or San Diego.

Then come the headlines about “chaos”.

Except most of the time it isn’t chaos.

But it is war.

And the people whose lives are actually being torn apart rarely appear on the evening news.

The Vanity Narrative

The escalation around Iran is serious. Airstrikes, missile exchanges, regional retaliation. Oil routes under threat. Markets jittery.

Yet a fair bit of the Western coverage seems obsessed with something else entirely.

Expats trying to get out of tax-free Gulf enclaves.

Influencers lamenting interrupted luxury getaways.

Tourists irritated that flights are delayed for a few days.

It’s hard not to notice the strange theatricality of it.

People who were perfectly happy enjoying low taxes, cheap labour and winter sunshine suddenly discover geopolitics the moment their return flight is cancelled.

Cue the breathless interviews.

Cue the social media posts.

Cue the performative anxiety.

And then there was another detail buried in the news this week.

Some wealthy British nationals leaving the region are reportedly “carefully avoiding the UK itself”, routing their travel elsewhere so they don’t accidentally trigger UK tax residency rules and a bill from the taxman.

War may be raging.

But the tax planning continues.

Will They Go Back?

Some will say they’re leaving for good.

Maybe they will.

Or maybe they’ll simply relocate to the next tax-optimised playground where the economics work in their favour.

Another sun-drenched city.

Another luxury apartment.

Another place where someone else pours the drinks, drives the taxis and cleans the rooms.

And when the dust settles?

Who knows.

Will they return to the same “sinking ship” once the tax advantages and sunshine look attractive again?

Or will they simply head off on another self-centred jaunt to whichever corner of the world best maximises their personal gain next?

Mobility is a wonderful privilege when you have it.

Most people don’t.

Meanwhile, Real Life Continues

My daughter is a teacher in the region.

She doesn’t feel directly threatened. Not in the sense of bombs falling nearby.

But she is — understandably — a little worried.

And she is teaching children from neighbouring countries and beyond.

Kids who are hearing the news, sensing tension in adult conversations, and quietly wondering what the future might look like.

When I asked her what it feels like being there right now she paused for a moment.

Then she said:

“It’s surreal.”

And she gave a wry — if slightly nervous — smile.

Teachers carry on. Classrooms still open. Lessons still happen.

But everyone knows the world outside the school gates has shifted.

The People Who Don’t Get on Planes

There’s another group you won’t see much on television.

The taxi drivers who took those tourists to the airport.

The hotel staff suddenly watching bookings evaporate.

The cleaners, cooks, porters, bar workers and security guards who rely on the global circus of business travel and luxury tourism.

When the planes stop flying, they don’t board evacuation flights.

They stay exactly where they are.

Trying to work out how to pay rent.

Trying to work out how to feed their families.

Trying to keep a fragile local economy functioning while the globally mobile pack their bags and leave.

And here’s something else worth remembering.

Those workers are expats too.

But they’re the expats we rarely talk about.

In the Western imagination, an expat in Dubai usually means a middle-class professional enjoying a tax-efficient lifestyle in the sun.

But most expatriate workers in the Gulf are something very different.

Taxi drivers.

Hotel workers.

Construction workers.

Restaurant staff.

Many come from India or other parts of the Middle East and South Asia. They’ve left families thousands of miles away to work and send money home.

When the headlines focus on wealthy foreigners trying to get flights out, it quietly erases the much larger population of migrant workers whose livelihoods depend on the place continuing to function.

They don’t have the luxury of leaving when things get uncomfortable.

Their families depend on them staying.

A More Complicated Place Than The Headlines Suggest

My daughter also made another point.

Sometimes it feels like people in the West almost “want” Dubai to fail.

There’s a certain delight in poking at the influencer culture and luxury lifestyle narrative.

And yes — that world absolutely exists.

But it isn’t the whole story.

What surprised her most about living there is the sense of community.

The fitness culture is huge. People genuinely build friendships around it.

And the government invests heavily in public wellbeing and participation.

Every November the city runs a month-long fitness challenge.

Temporary sports spaces appear across the city.

Classes are put on everywhere.

Padel, tennis, gym sessions, volleyball and more — all free.

Thousands of people join in.

It’s not about luxury.

It’s about community.

And that side of life — the ordinary, meaningful parts of living somewhere — rarely makes it into the international coverage.

War Isn’t a Travel Disruption

One of the oddities of the modern media environment is how easily war becomes a lifestyle inconvenience story.

Flights cancelled.

Oil prices rising.

Holiday plans disrupted.

All real issues.

But when the conversation centres on those things, perspective gets lost.

Because the real story is not the inconvenience experienced by the globally mobile.

It’s the obliteration of normal life for people who cannot leave.

Perspective

My daughter says the children she teaches are calm.

Kids often are.

But beneath that calm sits uncertainty — the kind of uncertainty that shapes an entire generation.

And that’s the part of conflict we rarely talk about.

Not the airport lounges.

The classrooms.

The Third Half Thought

At The Third Half we talk a lot about People · Planet · Progress.

War has a way of reminding us which of those actually matters most.

Because the difference between being inconvenienced by a crisis and having your life defined by it is enormous.

One group waits for a delayed flight.

The other waits to see what the world will become.

And somewhere in the middle, a teacher stands in front of a classroom full of children from across the region and beyond — doing the most normal thing in the world.

Teaching.

While the world outside shifts around them.

(And I’m a very proud father).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c86y2gpgn54o

TTH Blueprint Episode 3: Steve O’Donnell

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We’ve taken another small step in the experiment and launched The Third Half on TikTok.

Before anyone panics — no, I haven’t suddenly become a dancing influencer…. (although….)

What you’ll find there are little clips with big messages.

Short moments from Blueprint conversations, Clean Shorts, and the occasional People · Planet · Progress piece that felt worth sharing more widely. The idea is simple: reach new audiences, start conversations, and hopefully bring a few more curious minds back here to Substack for the full stories.

A few clips are already live.

https://www.tiktok.com/@thethird_half?_r=1&_t=ZN-94bThu8dfvS

If you’re on TikTok and curious, come and have a look and give it a follow.

If TikTok isn’t your thing, don’t worry — Substack remains the home of the full conversations and articles.

As ever, thanks for being part of this slightly unusual community.

Scott and Happy

The Third Half

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Yesterday afternoon at 15:33, I took a photograph.

It’s not much of a photograph. A narrow cobbled lane in Glasgow called Union Place, running behind the buildings beside Glasgow Central Station. Sandstone walls on either side. Pipes running down the stone. Graffiti. A slightly forgotten urban service street.

But it caught my eye.

I’d just walked down Union Street, heading for the 15:55 train to Birmingham on my way home. It had been one of those weeks back in Scotland that combine the ordinary and the important: a few days of work, a bit of time helping my ageing parents around the house, cups of tea that stretch into conversations.

The sort of week that reminds you how time quietly moves on.

There were the small family moments too. Watching Scotland rugby union team win on television with my old man (against the mighty France!!) — the sort of shared sporting joy that feels bigger than the match itself. And, inevitably, the other side of Scottish sporting life: another defeat for Airdrieonians, which by now most of us take with philosophical resignation.

Football highs and lows. Family conversations. The normal rhythm of a week back home.

And then the walk to the station.

Glasgow does something to you when you walk through it. Even if you’ve done it a thousand times, you find yourself looking up. The city’s Victorian architecture is extraordinary — sandstone buildings built in an era when Glasgow was one of the richest cities on earth.

Domes. Columns. Carved lintels. Solid walls that feel as though they were designed to stand for centuries.

I remember looking up and thinking how remarkable it is that so much of it still survives.

Then I turned down Union Place for a moment and took that photograph.

At 15:33.

About twelve minutes later, according to the reports, a fire started around the corner on Union Street.

By early evening, flames had torn through one of the very buildings I had just been admiring — a mid-Victorian block beside the station. The fire spread quickly through the structure before parts of the building collapsed.

Today, the station is closed. Businesses are gone. A piece of Glasgow’s streetscape has changed overnight.

And that unremarkable photograph on my phone suddenly feels oddly significant.

Because it captures something we almost never notice: the quiet moment before something changes.

Cities are full of those moments. We walk through them every day without realising. Streets feel permanent. Buildings feel permanent. We assume they will simply be there tomorrow.

Yesterday, for twelve minutes, they were.

Thankfully, it seems no one was seriously hurt. Firefighters did extraordinary work in what must have been incredibly difficult conditions in a dense city centre.

The city will recover. It always does.

Glasgow has reinvented itself many times across the centuries — through industry, decline, culture and renewal. Its buildings tell that story in stone.

But the photograph lingers with me.

Perhaps because it reminds us that the things we think matter in a week — a rugby result, a football defeat, the everyday chatter of life — can suddenly feel very small.

What matters more are the moments we rarely think to measure.

A walk through a city you love.

Looking up at buildings that have stood longer than any of us.

And the quiet, unnoticed twelve minutes before history changes the view.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/mar/09/glasgow-central-station-closed-fire

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The 426 Unfinished Works of April De Angelis

Even Ivor-winning playwrights have a graveyard of abandoned ideas quietly decomposing on their hard drive. Scott sat down with April De Angelis — playwright, climate activist, creator of Jumpy — and this teaser clip is what happens when great writers admit the truth about great writing. The full conversation lands in 7–10 days. Consider this your aperitif. ✍️🎭 https://www.thethirdhalf.uk/p/the-426-unfinished-works-of-april

- TTH On The Turntable: Tom Hingley

Former Inspiral Carpets frontman, 1,600 gigs on the same battered guitar, a lockdown album about identity crisis, a mystery incognito project he’s absolutely not telling us about, and Saturn 5 to close. Tom Hingley joins Scott Hamilton for a proper chat — Madchester, soul, folk, independence, and why the music still matters. Stick around for the end. Trust us. 🎵🎧 https://www.thethirdhalf.uk/p/tth-on-the-turntable-tom-hingle

- The Cloud Isn’t Weightless. Let’s Start With That.

“The cloud” sounds fluffy. It isn’t. It’s concrete, steel, substations and enough power draw to rival a small town — and AI is making it thirstier by the day. Scott makes the case for one boring but radical idea: just publish the numbers. Show what you consume, prove your renewables are actually new, and explain the grid impact. Not anti-tech. Anti-opacity. Progress that hides its footprint isn’t progress — it’s a bill arriving later with interest. ☁️⚡ https://www.thethirdhalf.uk/p/the-cloud-isnt-weightless-lets-start

- Clean Shorts: Tom Hingley — “I Don’t Do Interviews”

He said he doesn’t do interviews. Scott said he doesn’t really do interviews either. Then they had a brilliant one. This clip is about launching music anonymously just to see if it stands alone, not seeking permission, and 1,600 gigs on one guitar. Creative graft without the ego. Very Third Half energy. 🎤🎸 https://www.thethirdhalf.uk/p/the-third-half-clean-shorts-tom-hingley

one more thing Forward this to the colleague who calls the cloud “just software,” the friend who’s been saying they’ll finish their novel since 2019, and whoever in your life unironically thinks “renewable” certificates mean anything without the maths to back them up.

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Drafts that stall halfway through. Scenes that looked promising on Monday and terrible by Thursday. Titles that seemed brilliant for about three days.

Apparently even award-winning playwright April De Angelis isn’t immune.

I recorded a conversation with April last week for The Third Half. We talked about the discipline of writing, the strange relationship between inspiration and routine, and the reality that most creative work starts out… unfinished.

At one point I jokingly suggested she should publish a scrapbook titled “The Unfinished Works of April De Angelis.”

She laughed — and admitted there are quite a few abandoned ideas sitting quietly on her computer.

This short clip is a rough early moment from the conversation.

It’s a lovely reminder that writing — like most creative work — isn’t about waiting for inspiration. It’s about showing up, trusting the process, and letting ideas evolve.

The full conversation was wide-ranging and fascinating. We talked about:

   •   starting out as an actor before becoming a playwright

   •   how characters emerge and take shape

   •   the balance between entertainment and ideas in theatre

   •   Jumpy, parenting and recognition on stage

   •   her climate work, from Extinction Rebellion to the recent play In Case of Emergency

- and winning an ‘Ivor’ (formerly known as an Ivor Novello)

I’ll share a few more short clips over the next week.

The full conversation will be published here on The Third Half in around 7–10 days.

In the meantime, enjoy this little moment about the realities of writing.

And perhaps take comfort in the fact that even great playwrights have a few unfinished ideas lying around…..

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