Cris Andrews Writer

Behind the Scenes at the Word Cup and Commonwealth Games

There's much more to a major international sports event than players, teams and the sporting contest. To put on an event on the scale of this summer's World Cup and Commonwealth Games, also requires  planners, engineers, logistics teams, designers, broadcasters, sustainability specialists and infrastructure experts. Major sporting events also need transport and energy solutions, and crowd management, security and communications strategies.

This idea examines the hidden systems and professional expertise that enable global events to operate successfully. Also, how innovations developed for elite sport often influence wider infrastructure and technology development and public-policy planning

This idea is applicable across a wide range of sectors - energy, environmental, engineering, technology, finance, communications, design, construction. It would also work for policy-focused publications, professional and trade journals. 

Nature-based engineering and climate resilience

Can nature-based engineering deliver resilient flood defences, restore ecosystems and enhance national resilience to climate and environmental risk?

This feature explores landscape design, ecosystem restoration and hybrid engineering systems.  It also considers whether regulations, funding and professional culture are keeping pace.

An issue-led, expert-informed feature suitable for engineering, environment, science, policy, business and sustainability publications.It uses expert insight and recent research to turn complex scientific, engineering and policy developments into clear, accessible editorial analysis. 

What defines a modern “main event” sport stadium?

Examines how and why those who run sports organisations are replacing historic venues with high profile, multi-functional stadiums. Why modern operators and authorities prefer infrastructure that is designed for global events, legacy use and commercial flexibility, not just the needs of the sports teams.

Explores how finance, design, engineering, construction and policy is reshaping stadium design. From crowd flow modelling and structural optimisation to climate control, energy systems and broadcast integration.

Strong fit for sport, finance, engineering, technology, design, construction, infrastructure and professional publications.

Fear, uncertainty and our relationship with unknown landscapes

The 125th anniversary of The Hound of the Baskervilles is approaching (September to December 2026) Conan Doyle’s most famous Sherlock Holmes story was set against the brooding Dartmoor moorland. 

This feature explores why remote and unfamiliar landscapes can feel psychologically unsettling. And how human responses to darkness, isolation and uncertainty in wild environments, often reflect broader patterns in how we interpret risk, unfamiliarity and change. It also covers why some people find wild, unfamiliar places stimulating or restorative.

In this article I'd combine insights from expert interviewees with my own narrative to translate complex ideas about perception and fear into clear, accessible editorial.

Highly flexible idea that can be positioned across a wide range of publications: science, psychology, environment and nature, culture & society, travel & lifestyle, history, general interest

Gambling Levy and the future of harm reduction funding

Explores how the UK  gambling levy will reshape the way harm-prevention organisations are funded, and what this means for how projects are designed, delivered and evaluated.

In April, UK government announced the provisional allocation of £25.4 million to support gambling-harms prevention and resilience initiatives.

This is a cross-sector idea suitable for thought leadership and expert-led features across professional and specialist publications including finance, accountancy, management, marketing and education.

Cricket’s Lost Characters: why, these days, do we have fewer unpredictable personalities?

Former Australian Test player, David Boon, once told me that cricket boards expect their players to be the sort of person that parents approve of when they decide on appropriate activities for their children. Boon was an ICC match referee at the time. As a player he holds the record for number of beers drunk on an Ashes flight from Australia to England.

This feature examines how modern professionalism, media management, franchise cricket and social media have changed the personalities that emerge within the game., The likes of Ian Botham, Fred Trueman, Dennis Lillee and other unpredictable, larger than life characters created their own stories. Has the modern game lost this, or do the more moderate, considered players of today, just tell stories of a different kind? Were characters really bigger and more interesting when Boon played and before. Or are modern systems just less tolerant of unpredictability?

Includes first-hand reflections on interviews with figures like Pietersen, Flintoff, Chappell, GraemePollock and of course, David Boon. And expert comment from former cricket administrators, academic experts on cricket and society, former players from the transitional era, sports psychology experts.

Suitable for sport, culture and society, psychology, media, heritage and general-interest publications. The piece combines narrative reporting, expert commentary and wider social analysis to explore how memory, identity, nostalgia and folklore continue to shape modern cricket culture.

Britain’s Big Cat Hunters

An atmospheric feature exploring the people who have spent years searching the British countryside for evidence of leopards, pumas and other big cats. Interviewees include former police officers and field investigators, cryptozoologists, rural witnesses and wildlife obsessives.

Rather than focusing on whether the animals exist, the piece examines why the search continues despite the lack of definitive proof. Also,what this reveals about folklore, belief, uncertainty, obsession and our relationship with landscape and wilderness in modern Britain.

Combines narrative reporting, psychology, folklore, environmental context and human stories to build a wider exploration of why mysteries endure, and why some people dedicate their lives to chasing them.

Suitable for culture and society, psychology, outdoors and countryside, wildlife, heritage, general-interest and long-form narrative publications.

Dog Owners, Boundaries and the English Park

A dog you've never seen before runs up to you in a park, tail wagging happily. You greet the dog with warmth and a few kind words, only to be confronted with a terse rebuke from its owner.

This is a behaviour-led feature exploring what apparently trivial encounters in public parks reveal about English social behaviour, emotional boundaries and indirect communication.  The piece examines how reserve, anxiety, class-coded ideas of 'proper' behaviour and attitudes toward public space, shape reactions that without deeper analysis, can appear defensive, awkward or passive-aggressive.

The feature explores  trust, control, social uncertainty and examines the way people negotiate everyday interactions with strangers. It shows how ordinary everyday moments can lead to a wider exploration of behaviour and modern public life.

Flexible enough to work as a long-form feature, behavioural explainer or culture-and-society piece, the idea suits psychology, lifestyle, wellbeing, behavioural science, general-interest and narrative non-fiction publications.