According to the World Bank, agricultural production must increase by 70% by the year 2050. Why? The primary reason is demographic – there will be more people in the future and they will want something to eat. The second reason is consumption – more people are switching to meat-based diets, especially in Asia. The third reason is bio-fuels.

Result? A global land grab (AKA “long soil”). The value of land is set to increase dramatically in the future, especially in Africa and Latin America. But buyers beware. Land isn’t just another commodity. Land is tied up with notions of nationalism. It is semi-sacred in most regions.

Expect purchases of land by foreign nations (especially sovereign wealth funds) to soar over the coming years but also expect protectionist backlashes.

A study produced by Thomson Reuters last month says that China should pass both the US and Japan in the number of patent applications made by next year. In 2009, China made 403,000 patent applications, putting it in third place after Japan. The US topped the rankings with 474,000 applications.

Is this an issue? From an overall standpoint no. The more scientific and technological progress the better. From a national GDP or technology competitiveness point of view yes. Patents are a good measure of innovativeness and there are also correlations between the number of patents and the number of Nobel Prize winners, so this will impact on national optimism and the feel-good factor generally.

There are lots of scenarios here. One is that China falls over and turns inward economically. Another is that China starts to top lists like this, becomes the world’s #1 economy (by 2030 or 2035?) and other nations, such as the US, turn inwards economically and lash out politically.

Remember tough guys? Men like Steve McQueen and John Wayne – strong silent types that got the job done. Recently we’ve had SNAGS – Sensitive New Age Guys, Metrosexuals and Ubersexuals  – men who are fragile and flawed.

These guys have been feminised by society. Their hands are manicured, they cry and don’t know how to fix a car when it breaks down. Indeed, the only solid things about new age guys like Johnny Deep and Leonardo Decaprio are their hair-care routines.

Perhaps the reason that real men have disappeared – or that society has become gender neutral – is that real men scare the pants off us. Feminism says that women can do anything that men can do but according to Harvey Mansfield, a US conservative theorist, this is patently untrue. According to Mansfield, men are far more likely than women to stick their necks out for an idea or a cause and men have a far greater taste for physical and intellectual combat.

This means that men are far more likely to start wars and torture people but it also means that they are more likely to invent things or knock ideas down that don’t make sense. Whether you agree with this or not, it’s certainly an interesting area for debate.

Perhaps there is a long and bloody battle to be fought in societies where women are behaving more like men and men are acting more like women. Some people would like to see this situation partially reversed with women returning to a level of female modesty and men becoming stronger and more gentlemanly.

I think I might have worked out why people are anxious and it has almost nothing to do with the economy. People are anxious because they don’t know what’s coming next. It’s not reality but uncertainty and volatility that’s the problem. People want a view of what lies ahead. A narrative if you like.

If instead of trying to individually predict the future we could collectively decide which direction we’d all like to travel in, I think the world would be a better place.

This first image is of the world’s tallest buildings – in 1884. Note what the buildings are for and who owns them (most are churches and most are in Europe). Contrast with the second image, which is the world’s tallest buildings now (more or less). Again, note who owns them, what they are for and where they are. BTW, I’ve forgotten who sent me the first image. Own up and I’ll credit you!

One thing I’ve noticed recently is the culture of me. Individualism has taken a nasty turn whereby people now feel that they are at the centre of the universe. Hence, rules created for the benefit of society as a whole no longer seem apply to them. They are special. Equal access, equal opportunity and equal outcome for everyone – regardless of perseverance or talent.

This has been going on for a while but it seems to have become more pronounced in recent years. Worse still is the flip side, where people refuse to tale responsibility for their own stupidity. This is individual power without any kind of individual responsibility. For example, if we trip up over an uneven pavement we look for blame everywhere except where it belongs. We get in touch with as seen on TV lawyers that work on a no won no fee basis to extract as much payment from the pavement as possible via the local council. Anything, in fact, apart from actually looking where we are going in the first place.

Or how about those individuals that are more than happy to take the spoils of capitalism when the financial markets are moving in the right direction but expect society to socialise their losses when it’s not. Not that it’s all their fault. Far from it. Bankers are the scape goats du jour but what about the idiots that borrowed the money? That’s you and me folks.

An idea that appears connected to all this is the thought that we all deserve a big slice of the pie – even if we do absolutely nothing to justify it. Everyone desires a prize. Lazy kids demand A-grades even when they haven’t done the work. Narcissistic teens demand fame even if they have next to no talent. Egotistical politicians upset if they don’t win leadership contests and self-indulgent CEOs get payouts even if their share price has collapsed.

Time to turn things around. Let’s have a commonsense revolution. Let’s get kids doing things that are really difficult once in a while. Let’s make people do things that are potentially painful mentally and physically. Let’s re-introduce school sports days where individuals come second, third and last. Let’s build up mental and physical resilience so that when something really nasty does happen we are prepared. Above all let’s link payouts to performance but recognize that luck pays a part. And when we fail, which we all do, let’s quietly accept it and not try to attribute blame to someone else.

Life, it seems to me, is ultimately about knowing how to deal with disappointment, because for most people that’s exactly what happens in the end.

A good Twitter posse is better than a Google algorithm. Discuss.

(With apologies to Bruce Nussbaum at Business Week).

Did a radio interview with the guys from Monocle about the new book today. I thought this was the first interview but I remembered after that I did a pre-record for the BBC World Service last week. I’ll post a link in due course.

If you are in or around London on the 21 October I’m doing a free talk at the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce) at lunchtime (roughly 1.00-2.00). The event is currently sold out but I’m told that if enough people put their names on the wait list they’ll use the really big room.

Image is of me at the RSA a few years ago talking about my previous book. At that time I held the record for the most books sold at an RSA event so it will be interesting to see how it goes this time around.

Funny but I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to talk about. OK the book but which bits? Should I use images or just talk? Does the new map make any sense? I’m tempted to open it with the story about a six-year-old asking his mother whether he should put bread in the toaster landscape or portrait. We’ll see…

This has nothing to do with the new book.

Having been absent from England for a while there are a few new things around, some of which I don’t fully understand. Health & Safety hysteria is one example. Tony Blair’s tax situation is another. Argos I’ve never understood.

There’s also something called Wild Swimming. The last time I noticed it was called going swimming or taking a dip. Now it’s been re-branded by bohemian media types as “Wild Swimming”. It’s got its own websites; its own book and (of course) its own TV show. Wild? It’s making me livid.

I slightly get it. It’s some kind of romantic throwback to Victorian bathing that appeals to the trendier middle-class members of the RSPB and the National Trust. Those “don’t tell me what to do” and “I can walk anywhere I please” types that have missed out on the extreme sports boom due to bad knees and a fear of heights.

Wild swimming is perfect for these out-to-prove-a-point people. It’s real, authentic, intense and has a definite edge over the Tooting Bec Lido – but only in the sense that Cath Kidson and Boden have an edge over Debenhams and the Grattan home shopping catalogue.

It’s also slightly stupid. Who in their right mind would want to go for a swim in the freezing cold waters that surround 90% of Britain for 90% of the year? If the cold doesn’t get you a Panamanian supertanker probably will. As for swimming in a river you must be joking. I’ve seen one clean river in Britain in my life and even that eventually turned out to have a dead sheep floating in it upstream. It had probably been hit by a half-submerged shopping trolley or had died from drinking water that contained agricultural chemicals from a near-by field.

Hopefully this lunatic idea will have evaporated by next year but if it hasn’t my advice would be to get on a plane to the warmer waters of the Mediterranean. After all, that’s what package holidays were invented for in the first place.

Members of the Outdoor Wild Swimming Society can post hate mail on the comments page below.