Jolyon is a retired City of London litigation lawyer who has lived on Mount Pelion in Greece since 2022. He practises Rinzai Zen, plays guitar across several traditions including Congolese rumba and 1930s jazz, and is writing The Stars of Samarkand, a historical novel set in Timurid Central Asia. He documents its making at The Stars of Samarkand on Substack.

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PHYSICAL

• Spyderco Dragonfly 2 penknife Non-locking, featherlight, legal to carry in most European countries, and the steel takes an edge beautifully. At tavernas in Greece, my friends always turn to me the moment something needs cutting: come on, where’s the knife? The rare object that manages to be both entirely practical and quietly perfect.
• Collings OM2H-T guitar I own twenty-three guitars, so nominating one is not a trivial act. Julian Lage was among the first high-profile players associated with this model — which is how I heard of it — and when I found this particular example in London, even the staff said there was something unusually good about it. There still is.
• Chuang Tzu: Inner Chapters (trans. Gia-fu Feng & Jane English) I’ve read the Inner Chapters almost every week since I was seventeen — I’m now in my mid-sixties. I own six or seven translations; this one earns its place through Jane English’s photographs, which capture the spirit of the Tao in a way I’ve never found elsewhere.

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DIGITAL

• Claude Code (via Visual Studio Code) I’m a retired English lawyer on a mountainside in Greece, writing a historical novel set in 1445 Samarkand. Through Claude Code I run an AI-powered publishing operation: a chief of staff called Archie coordinates specialists covering research, editing, marketing, and law. None of them exist in the conventional sense. All of them are indispensable. Full story on my Substack.
• Lost and Savage An Italian rides a Kawasaki W650 across Central Asia — the W650 was my first serious motorcycle, and the Silk Roads are my obsession. Quieter, stranger, and considerably more interesting than the usual motorcycle travel content.

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INVISIBLE

The chief element of happiness is this: to want to be what you are. — Erasmus

You could attribute this to Marcus Aurelius or Chuang Tzu and nobody would blink. Its universality is the point — not a cultural artefact but a simple, portable truth.

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04/29/26