This is the age of the slogan, the soundbite, the snappy phrase in place of considered argument. Thought is dying; reason’s gone critical. In bookshops and magazine racks we’re told only what we want to hear: we’re told it in neat, bullet-pointed affirmations of our own worth.

No more. This is the fightback. The resuscitation. This is the slogan as explainer of the world. One a day for a year. Three hundred and sixty five phrases, soundbites and bullet points with which to make sense of the way things are now and point to how things could be tomorrow. Read them and weep.


Friday

4. It's not called "catching", it's called "fishing"

One weekend’s fishing can teach us more about life than years spent in libraries: not least the importance of patience and stoicism and the fact that a few moments of triumph really are worth hours of apparent failure. But most of all, it teaches us that trying is always more important than achieving. The important thing about fishing is not the catching of fish. It’s the apparent failure, the waiting, the hours in which nothing happens – that’s the real point of fishing. They are an oasis, a bubble, in which the fisherman can achieve something like zen – with the river, with the fish, with nature, with himself. This is why fishing is not called catching. The catching is an afterthought, it barely matters at all.
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