In this engaging talk, William Black reveals the best way to rob a bank from the inside. Black is a former bank regulator who’s seen firsthand how banking systems can be used to commit fraud and other tricky tactics that can threaten the international economy.
Category Archives: Organisation
Booko’s Valentine’s special: If you love it, learn to repair it.
Love is certainly in the air this week with it being Valentine’s Day tomorrow. But the day of love doesn’t just have to be about showing your love for people, you are allowed to love your favourite things in your home too.
This week we want to show you that you can love your home and the treasures you have inside in it for years and years, and we have found the books that help you to do just that. Sometimes our belongings can become a little worn, or our love of them fades as they no longer look how we would like them to. Fear not, there is good news, you can change things with a little elbow grease. The books we have found help you to explore your inner eco warrior and DIY skills showing you how to recycle, reuse and repurpose the treasures we already have in our homes along with some fabulous titles that will help you love the planet too.
Sustainable Home by Christine Liu
The Sustainable Home is an inspirational and practical guidebook to maintaining a more environmentally friendly household. Sustainability enthusiast and zero-waste advocate Christine Liu takes you on a tour through the rooms of your home inside the living area, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom all the while offering tips, tricks and 17 step-by-step projects designed to help you lead a more low-impact lifestyle. Whether its by making your own toothpowder, growing your own herb garden or up-cycling old pieces of furniture, there are numerous ways, both big and small, to make a difference.
Live Green by Jen Chillingsworth
Many of us are already doing what we can to adopt a greener lifestyle. We recycle, try to reduce our waste and plastics, choose organic food when shopping, eat less meat and opt for environmentally friendly cleaning products. Yet we often wish we were doing more and it can be overwhelming to know where to start. Live Green is a practical guide of 52 changes, one for each week of the year, you can make to your home and lifestyle to reduce your impact on the environment. Tackling all areas of your life from your cleaning routine, home furnishings, food shopping, fashion choices, natural beauty and Christmas, this book has all the ingredients to help you achieve a more sustainable year. From making your own eco-friendly cleaning products, buying vintage furniture, making your own moth repellent and improving your natural beauty regime to creating a capsule wardrobe and creating your own ethical Christmas decorations. Discover how to get the most out of life by living with intention. Live simply. Live Green.
The Nordic Home by John Arne Bjerknes
John Bjerknes is a partner and design director at Nordic – Office of Architecture and his writing conveys his vast experience within design, development, and planning of small and large-scale construction projects. Given its unique focus on organically integrating people with nature using sustainable techniques, Scandinavian design currently occupies an important position in the architectural and interior design worlds. Nordic Home captures this exciting trend by showcasing 45 case studies exemplifying the best of Nordic architecture and interiors. It is a seriously beautiful book with inspiring interiors.
The Art of the Natural Home by Rebecca Sullivan
This book is perfect for those interested in sustainability, natural products and mindfulness. It’s all about taking the time to create your own homemade products, from face masks to floor polish and from medicinal honey to massage oil. Taking inspiration from her grandmother’s generation, Rebecca Sullivan has put together this thoughtful and appealing manual to caring for yourself and your home. Traditional methods are resurrected or updated to suit the modern home, using simple, natural ingredients. The first part of the book is dedicated to the Home, and covers cleaning products for every room, ideas for pickles and preserves, and tips on everything from natural laundry treatments to how to grow your own cocktail garden. The second part covers Health and Beauty, and includes bath salts, make up, serums, perfumes and even beard oil, as well as healing remedies such as burn salves and herbal teas. This inspiring guide is a must for anyone interested in living a simpler, more purposeful life.
A Family Guide to Waste Free Living by Lauren Carter
Tackle our ever-growing waste problem with all the information, advice, budget-friendly recipes and projects you’ll need to start reducing waste in your life. A Family Guide to Waste-free Living makes it simple and sustainable for families to eliminate waste in the home, at work and out in the world. This is a practical and inspiring resource for anyone wanting to live more sustainably. When it comes to waste-free living, Lauren and Oberon Carter really know their stuff. In 2015, they decided to get serious about minimising their ecological footprint, successfully reducing their energy consumption by more than 60 per cent and transitioning to living completely waste and recycling free. They have written this fantastic guide to help and encourage other families do the same. A Family Guide to Waste-free Living provides a roadmap for anyone wanting to reduce their waste. It is packed with information and offers practical and achievable solutions for eliminating waste in the home, at work and in the world. Inside you’ll find simple activities for the whole family instructions on building waste-free kits for around the house and out and about. You’ll also find a plan for creating change by advocating to government and business. Tackle our ever-growing waste problem with all the information, advice, budget-friendly recipes and projects you’ll need to start reducing waste in your life.
Waste Not by Erin Rhoads
‘We need to talk about waste. Shrink-wrapped veggies, disposable coffee cups, clothes and electronics designed to be upgraded every year: we are surrounded by stuff that we often use once and then throw away. Each year Australian households produce enough rubbish to fill a three-bedroom home, including thousands of dollars worth of food and an ever-increasing amount of plastic, which takes hundreds of years to break down and often ends up in our oceans or our food chain. But what to do about such a huge problem? Is it just the price we pay for the conveniences of modern life? What if it were possible to have it both ways – to live a modern life with less waste? That’s where Erin Rhoads, aka The Rogue Ginger, comes in. Erin went from eating plastic-packaged takeaway while shopping online for fast fashion, to becoming one of Australia’s most popular eco-bloggers. Erin knows that small changes can have a big impact. In Waste Not she shares everything she’s learnt from her own funny, inspiring – and far-from-perfect – journey to living with less waste.
Enjoy!
The Best Books to help you become organised in 2020
It’s January, the traditional time of year where we all vouch to become a little more organised and mentally prepared than the year before. And because it’s 2020, the start of a brand spanking new decade, the desire to do so is even more heightened. You’re in luck, we have found some fabulous new titles on the market that all aim to get our diaries, lives and minds in order. To be fair, a few of these titles are a bit older than the last month (but their lessons are so en pointe that we just had to include them). Righto, get yourself comfy, pop the kettle on for a cup of tea because these books are about to really challenge you to make the best of 2020.
Get Remarkably Organised by Lorraine Murphy
Lorraine Murphy is one of Australia’s leading entrepreneurs and founder of The Remarkables Group and in this books she asks some pretty straight-shooting questions: Is your life chaotic? Are you hungry for advice on how to live calmly, happily and productively? The cornerstone of success at work and at home is being organised and, with Lorraine’s help, you can achieve this by forming excellent habits in a way that’s easy and fun, not stressful. This book is an inspiring look at the organisational lessons Lorraine has learned during her entrepreneurship journey through study, trial and error; the strategies she has developed and the habits she religiously follows. As well as coaching you through specific challenges, you’ll discover 14 informative and approachable chapters with guidance on: The value of routine and habits, easy decluttering, tips for planning your week and managing your day, conquering distractions, the joy of hassle-free outsourcing, overcoming procrastination and even harmony at home. If you fancy giving this book a read this summer, be sure to check out Remarkability (I just finished that one and my copy now has yellow highlighter in each chapter as I devour her lessons).
The Feel Good Guide by Matilda Green
When Matilda Green, bestselling author of The Lazy Girl’s Guide to Living a Beautiful Life, found herself facing some hard times, she knew she needed to do something to boost her happiness and her self-esteem. But what? So she set out on a journey of discovery, embracing gratitude, mindfulness and meditation techniques, and learning how to be kind to others and to herself. In The Feel Good Guide Matilda pulls together everything she has learnt and shares her own experiences, in the hope that it will help others too. This practical resource, full of helpful tips and real talk, comes complete with an action plan in every chapter to get your own journey kick-started. As Matilda says, this isn’t so much about changing who you are as it is about loving who you are. It’s about celebrating yourself, embracing and being proud of the person you have grown to be, and finding the right tools to help you remember just how awesome you really are.
Things No One Else Can Teach Us by Humble the Poet
The rapper, spoken word artist, poet, blogger, social media influencer, and international bestselling author of Unlearn delivers unorthodox lessons for shifting our perceptions and learning to create silver linings from our most difficult moments. Every one of us endures setbacks, disappointments, and failures that can incapacitate us. But we don’t have to let them. Instead, we can use these events as opportunities for growth. In Things No One Else Can Teach Us, Humble the Poet flips the conventional script for happiness and success, showing us how our most painful experiences can be our greatest teachers. Humble shares raw, honest stories from his own life – from his rocky start becoming a rapper, to nearly going broke, to being the victim of racial prejudice – to demonstrate how a change in mindset can radically alter our outlook. This shift in perspective, one that stops seeing the negative and starts seeing the lesson or positive spin, is what no one else can teach us. We must figure things out on our own, often through difficult and heartbreaking experiences. Humble inspires us to create these silver linings ourselves, preparing us to better handle any challenges that may arise. From a breakup to going broke to losing a loved one, our hardest moments can help us flourish, but only if we recognise and seize the opportunity. By doing so, we will become more self-aware, grateful, and empowered. Simple yet profound, Humble’s message is clear. While we can’t control the vagaries of life, we have the power to control how we react to them. Things No One Else Can Teach Us reminds us all that we have the power within us to transform the way we respond to everyday challenges and ultimately be our best selves.
488 Rules for Life by Kitty Flanagan
488 Rules for Life is Kitty Flanagan’s way of making the world a more pleasant place to live. Providing you with the antidote to every annoying little thing, these rules are not made to be broken. 488 Rules for Life is not a self-help book, because it’s not you who needs help, it’s other people. Whether they’re walking and texting, asphyxiating you on public transport with their noxious perfume cloud, or leaving one useless square of toilet paper on the roll, a lot of people just don’t know the rules. But thanks to Kitty Flanagan’s comprehensive guide to modern behaviour, our world will soon be a much better place. A place where people don’t ruin the fruit salad by putting banana in it … where your co-workers respect your olfactory system and don’t reheat their fish curry in the office microwave … where middle aged men don’t have ponytails … Other rules to live by include: Men must wear shorts over leggings. The gym is no place for people to discover whether or not you are circumcised. That’s a private discussion for another place and time. Team bonding activities should be optional. Some people love it when management decides that an afternoon of bowling or paint-balling or (god forbid) karaoke will help everyone work better as a team. Others would rather be dead. Don’t ever mention your ‘happy place’. To me, this sounds less like a pleasant, fun state of mind and more like some kind of utopian wank palace you’ve had built in the basement.
What started as a personal joke is now a quintessential reference book with the power to change society. (Or, at least, make it a bit less irritating.) What people are (Kitty Flanagan is) saying about this book: ‘You’re welcome everyone.’ ‘Thank god for me.’ ‘I’d rather be sad and lonely, but right.’ ‘There’s not actually 488 rules in here but it sure feels like it’.
F**k No! by Sarah Knight
The latest no-fks-given guide from New York Times bestselling author of the international sensations The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**K, Get Your S**T Together, You Do You, and Calm The F**K Down. How to stop saying yes when you can’t, you shouldn’t, or you just don’t want to With 2 million copies sold worldwide, Sarah Knight’s bestselling No F*cks Given Guides prove that she’s the Queen of No: no to a single extraneous f*ck given, to unwanted obligations, overcommitting, and overcomplicating her life. For Sarah, saying no is easy. For the rest of us, it’s stress-inducing, blood pressure-raising, teeth-grinding hard. But it doesn’t have to be. F**K No! is filled with tips, techniques, and practical strategies that will arm you with not only permission to decline, but plenty of ammunition for doing so. An encyclopaedia of examples, a cornucopia of comebacks, a plethora of polite replies: if you’re looking to say no (and without being selfish, unlikeable, or mired in missing out), you’ve come to the right place.
Becoming – A Guided Journal by Michelle Obama
What’s your journey of becoming? Based on Michelle Obama’s bestselling memoir, this gorgeous journal features an intimate and inspiring introduction by the former First Lady and thought-provoking questions and prompts to help you discover, and rediscover, your story.
‘It’s not about being perfect. It’s not about where you get yourself in the end. There’s power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become.’ – Michelle Obama
Enjoy!