are going on a road trip. I can’t wait. By the time you read this I’ll have started my journey to Saudi Arabia (followed by a few days in Doha where I’ll be giving a talk). The point of the trip is to write about Lieutenant-Colonel Abdulnasser Gharem, a man who is, as well as being a senior military officer, Saudi Arabia’s leading contemporary artist.

Following a recent Christie’s sale he also became the most expensive living Arab artist. One of his works broke the record for the most paid at auction for an Arab artist (who is not dead).

So Gharem is a soldier and an artist. A quick question: apart from Rubens (diplomat + artist), Vermeer (wine merchant + artist), Vasari (biographer + artist), Kandinsky? (lawyer + artist?) can you think of other artists who have combined two careers?

Here’s a glimpse of the POPse hq on Exmouth Market, courtesy of David Wilcox:

stands for pop-up social enterprise think-tank, more or less. I’m taking part in it throughout this week. More details here. The ‘pop-up’ part of the title refers to the fact that we will be based in what was until recently an active commercial space. Like any pop-up shop or enterprise POPse plans to take over – on a temporary basis – a redundant property. In this case, the former Subway sandwich shop on Exmouth Market.

As with any pop-up venture the lifespan of POPse is going to be short. Come Friday 13th POPse will vanish into the night, leaving, we hope, a bank of provocative ideas and critiques. It begins today. Hope to see you down there.

last night from my talk in Lincoln – which was fun, I like Lincoln – I caught a bit of Tony Livesey on 5 Live. It was coming up to midnight and they had a feature on what made people happy. Of the four people to call in two of them said that it was the small groups they belonged to that made them happy. One of these was a running club, the other a book group. Someone should write a book about this.