Alex Duff – författare

With the world’s economies impacted by coronavirus, billions are feeling social, environmental, and economic injustices. The call for a new, more just, more distributive economic story and system is louder and more urgent than ever. The Wonderful Circles of Oz provides both the framework and solutions for navigating towards an effective circular economy – the gateway to an abundant, autonomous, and democratic future.

Widely regarded as one of the world’s most engaging circular economy thought leaders, Ken Webster, together with creative writer, Alex Duff, use a storytelling approach based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to offer a new, accessible, and compelling narrative about the future direction of our economy.

‘The harder you work, the more you’ll improve your lot.’ That’s the simple story we’ve been sold over the last 40 years to justify how today’s economy works. Yet extreme inequality, the devastation of our natural world, and the erosion of our communities tell us this economic story resembles a work of fiction and the way our extractive economy operates is not fit for purpose. Still a restoration narrative, a satisfying story about our future and how we’ll get there, is slow to emerge. Using allegory, commentary, and reflection, this book helps speed the shift from an extractive economy of materials, energy, and finance to one based on an effective circular economy, which builds wealth as a stock of solutions accessible to all.

The Wonderful Circles of Oz goes beyond tired debates (capital vs labour and market vs state) and blends fiction and non to effectively communicate the need for macro-economic system redesign. Exploring complex change and containing echoes of modern monetary theory, this book is a must for business professionals, students, and anyone with an interest in the circular economy.

With the world’s economies impacted by coronavirus, billions are feeling social, environmental, and economic injustices. The call for a new, more just, more distributive economic story and system is louder and more urgent than ever. The Wonderful Circles of Oz provides both the framework and solutions for navigating towards an effective circular economy – the gateway to an abundant, autonomous, and democratic future.

Widely regarded as one of the world’s most engaging circular economy thought leaders, Ken Webster, together with creative writer, Alex Duff, use a storytelling approach based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to offer a new, accessible, and compelling narrative about the future direction of our economy.

‘The harder you work, the more you’ll improve your lot.’ That’s the simple story we’ve been sold over the last 40 years to justify how today’s economy works. Yet extreme inequality, the devastation of our natural world, and the erosion of our communities tell us this economic story resembles a work of fiction and the way our extractive economy operates is not fit for purpose. Still a restoration narrative, a satisfying story about our future and how we’ll get there, is slow to emerge. Using allegory, commentary, and reflection, this book helps speed the shift from an extractive economy of materials, energy, and finance to one based on an effective circular economy, which builds wealth as a stock of solutions accessible to all.

The Wonderful Circles of Oz goes beyond tired debates (capital vs labour and market vs state) and blends fiction and non to effectively communicate the need for macro-economic system redesign. Exploring complex change and containing echoes of modern monetary theory, this book is a must for business professionals, students, and anyone with an interest in the circular economy.

A no-holds-barred exposé on the financial transactions of the world''s favourite sport

The transfer fees clubs pay to sign top players now top €4 billion a year but much of the money has been flowing out of the game. A small group of wealthy investors including Russian oligarchs, English racehorse owners and a former billionaire gold miner have seized the opportunity to enter this booming market.

Some have moved in on the territory of banks and lent money to clubs in exchange for a share in fees generated by Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and dozens more of today''s stars. Others have acquired obscure teams to get a piece of the pie.

Even as the global financial crisis sent fortunes tumbling this select group found a profitable place to park their money. The size of the transfer market has continued to rise –- it increased seven-fold in value the last two decades, more than the FTSE share index.

Between them, these wealthy investors have amassed hundreds of millions of euros in profits. At the same time, they have managed to stay out of the spotlight the world’s most popular sport brings.

Football’s Secret Trade follows the money along a trail very few know about, from nondescript offices in the U.K. and ramshackle stadiums of South American clubs you have probably never heard of to offshore bank accounts in the Caribbean. Warning – you won’t see a major transfer deal in the same light again. 

A no-holds-barred exposé on the financial transactions of the world''s favourite sport

The transfer fees clubs pay to sign top players now top €4 billion a year but much of the money has been flowing out of the game. A small group of wealthy investors including Russian oligarchs, English racehorse owners and a former billionaire gold miner have seized the opportunity to enter this booming market.

Some have moved in on the territory of banks and lent money to clubs in exchange for a share in fees generated by Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and dozens more of today''s stars. Others have acquired obscure teams to get a piece of the pie.

Even as the global financial crisis sent fortunes tumbling this select group found a profitable place to park their money. The size of the transfer market has continued to rise –- it increased seven-fold in value the last two decades, more than the FTSE share index.

Between them, these wealthy investors have amassed hundreds of millions of euros in profits. At the same time, they have managed to stay out of the spotlight the world’s most popular sport brings.

Football’s Secret Trade follows the money along a trail very few know about, from nondescript offices in the U.K. and ramshackle stadiums of South American clubs you have probably never heard of to offshore bank accounts in the Caribbean. Warning – you won’t see a major transfer deal in the same light again. 

The fascinating and unknown story of the Tour de France''s ever-changing relationship with money and power - and the enigmatic family behind it all.

It started with a cash drop by an English spy in occupied Paris in 1944. Reserved for Resistance groups during the war, the money reached Émilien Amaury, an advertising executive, who was tasked to help France return to a free press once liberated. He soon launched a newspaper empire that - unbeknown to him - would own the rights to run what would become one of the greatest sporting events in history.

Le Tour, once a struggling commercial phenomenon, began to rise in popularity across much of western Europe in the glum years after the Second World War, lifting the mood of the hungry and despondent French. But with the increased interest in the event, exacerbated by the creation of television and the internet, came several cultural threats to national heritage. Multiple attempts to wrest power and profits from the latest generation of the Amaury family - who still own the race and take tens of millions of euros home in dividends - have followed, but not without a fight.

Fast-paced and fastidiously researched, Le Fric illustrates how moments off the bike at the Tour de France are every bit as gripping as the battle for the yellow jersey.

In 1978, when Alex Duff first went to watch Brentford, players would go on midweek pub crawls near the Griffin Park stadium. Sometimes, in no fit state to go home, they would crash out in a terraced home where one of them lived opposite the stadium gates. The next morning, they clambered into a white van which one of them would drive to training, stopping on the way for a bacon sandwich and cup of tea at a greasy spoon café. Brentford had once played in the top-flight but now, idling in the third division, were a second home for players and supporters, but there was neither the ambition nor money to revive their best days. They bumbled along until in 2005, fed up with trying to make a profit from a club with an ageing stadium in an unfashionable west London suburb, owner Ron Noades agreed to hand over the business to supporters on the condition they take over responsibility for their £5.5 million overdraft. One of the fans, an Oxford University physics graduate called Matthew Benham, was making millions of pounds from professional gambling and threw in a £500,000 lifeline to help keep the club afloat. Initially, as a sort of academic challenge, he began figuring out if he could employ the mathematics which he used in beating the bookmakers to improve the club''s performance on the pitch. Smart Money is the story of how a scientist with an inquiring mind was set loose in a backwater of professional football, and how he turned a modest, little-known team into a competitor in one of the world''s most-watched sports leagues.