Hi! It’s good to connect with you here.

My background is in philosophy and philosophy of various kinds informs all I do. I’m not interested in being told what to think, but I am interested in learning what others think. Strangely for all the talk of philosophy what I really want to be is a visual artist. I digress…

I did a BA Hons in philosophy but had no support or guidance about being at university. It was a mess. I read one book and boy, I read it: Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard. My interest in that book was kindled by nearly dying and having a series of inner revelations whose content I no longer remember, but it sure turned my world upside down at the time. I was editing the student newspaper, dreaming of a BBC career. Turns out the BBC wasn’t my thing. This is.

Perhaps I should stop there? Does the Kierkegaard say it all, already? Or maybe the fact I turned my back on the BBC? I hope so.

I ended up doing a PhD in my early thirties, kind of by accident, because I became interested in a mystery piece of writing that was a journal article - a genre of writing I’d never before encountered, despite having done an undergraduate degree (oops). I wanted to write like that; say something like that. The author of that article became my PhD supervisor and my extremely right-brained brain became more left-ish in the PhD process. Now I’m not just a poet with a sad face. Various forms of writing turn out to be empowering.

Thought is a product of the question “why?” or maybe “how do you mean?” It is a turn towards what we do not know, in order to know something we want to understand. This turn is a human gift. I’m not sure animals can philosophize. Given this gift, with it comes tremendous responsibility to think right. What that is or could be needs careful, good, strong and robust thinking. With such thinking comes power.

In philosophical counselling sessions with me I will ask you curious questions, and then, suddenly, I might say “why?” and you’ll be non-plussed. Why is she asking why? The answer slowly emerges and this is the exchange. My skill, for you, is in the right why at the right time. A form of surgery. And there’ll be some homage paid to great writer-thinkers and I hope many won’t be white, nor male.

I am, these post Brexit days, a dual British-Italian national and I live near Florence, Italy. I visit the UK on a regular basis.

It will be my pleasure to work with you on what it is that you need to think through, philosophically speaking.