Welcome to the Colette Podcast. My name is Claire Lehman and I am editor and chief of Colette.

Colette is where Free Thought lives. We are an independent grassroots platform for heterodox ideas and fearless commentary.

Our podcast is a team effort and is jointly hosted by myself,

associate editor Toby Young and Canadian editor Jonathan Kay.

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Hi, I'm Toby Young, one of Quillett's London-based editors.

Matt Ridley is a British journalist and businessman who's best known for his writings on science, the environment and economics.

His books include the Red Queen, Genome and the Rational Optimist. Matt joined me on the Colette Podcast to talk about his latest book how innovation works.

But before we got onto that, we discussed the coronavirus and why so many Western countries seem unprepared

for a viral pandemic on this scale.

He spoke to me from his house in Northumberland where he's currently self-isulating.

I'm sitting in my linen covered which I've turned into a recording studio because tomorrow

I'm recording my book.

Yes I saw a picture of your homemade recording studio on on Twitter. It looks

very impressive. Just duvet. But it's great. I could sort of live in here. You know, it's sort of

quiet.

First of all, tell me how you are.

Symptum-free?

I'm symptom-free and completely fine,

...