I’m knee-deep in biomimicry research for a National Geographic Green feature and am a latecomer to Buckminster Fuller’s rich, imaginative, daring work. I don’t think I’ve ever veered away from my objective quite so much before, distracted by so many fascinating tangents, when researching. I even found myself learning about yaw angles yesterday.

Back to Bucky. He wanted to make people look at the world and life differently. In 1970 he wrote “I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing—a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process—an integral function of the universe.”

Probably seen as a bit bonkers and undoubtedly in a league of his own, he believed a small change could make a huge difference and his gravestone reads “Call me trim tab”. That metaphorical tag has gone on to inspire myriad projects, leaps, dares and moves, not least the recent Plastiki voyage around the world. It’s certainly got me thinking.

nb – I took the picture of the public phones above inside the UNESCO HQ in Paris. Retro designs of unknown origin…