Rachael McKelvey

• FTSE 100: let’s hope life begins after 40
• BYD the worlds top selling electric carmarker
• The price increase in the Red Sea
• 2024’s changes in cost of living
• Obscene levels of pay inequality

FTSE 100: let’s hope life begins after 40
The FTSE 100 turned 40 on January 3^rd having started life replacing the FTSE 30 in 1984 and continuing to be the main benchmark of the UK stock market. It’s definitely not been easy being a Millennial, we were all blindly optimistic and on the up and up till the late 90’s and the FTSE 100 was no different, with absolute abundance of momentum growing and growing from 1000 listings to just short of 7000 by the turn of the millennium.

But true to the Millennial experience it was kind of downhill since then having experienced a ‘once in a lifetime’ event at every single formative benchmark of life stages, leading to stagnant growth and apathy, and yes still talking about the FTSE 100, and from that just an inability to keep up. At the point the internet was kicking off the FSTE 100 has always failed to attract technology firms which have been the driving force of this last 20 years, and even now tech firms would rather list anywhere but London.

Only 26 of the original 1000 still remain and even then many of them have undergone significant face lifts and remain unrecognisable, The high fliers of the years of the index have been the staple consumer products with Unilever and Associated British Foods among them but the selling of those products hasn’t yielded the same results with Sainsbury and Marks and Spencer performing poorly as more competition entered the market. It’s not great surprise the two worst performers are NatWest and Lloyds.

I think I speak for more than just the FTSE 100, I really hope life does begin at 40, even for Millennials.

BYD the world’s top selling electric carmaker
Can we acknowledge the elephant in the room here please? Because the headlines on this have been annoying, they have painted the picture that this is binary outcome, that Tesla have done badly and China’s BYD (Build Your Dreams) have pulled off some astonishing feat to be crowned victor of EV makers. When in fact both BYD and Tesla have outperformed their own expectations in Q4. 

That said, in the final quarter of 2023 BYD outsold Tesla by 42,000 units for the first time ever. It’s worth noting that the price point of BYD vehicles is significantly lower than a Tesla and they sell typically to their local market, they have significant state support and made the very clever move of acquiring a car manufacturer after having perfected the battery, so everything is done in house, which makes the enterprise perfect and able to manufacture at reasonable cost. 

Still this coming year BYD are looking to become a big player in International Markets, they also produce hybrid vehicles that often act as the gateway drug before people tend to go full electric and BYD intend to target Europe. They hope to release 3 further models into the market this year and announcing their intention to build a plant in Hungary. Watch this space. 

The price increase in the Red Sea
It’s predicted that the reported attacks in the Red Sea are going to mean a price increase in essentials on UK shelves this year, cargo ships are being forced to undertake extra nautical miles, around 3,500 of them, at a cost of £1.6m in additional food, fuel and wages PER TRIP based on the time involved to ensure that we have tea, meat, fish and wine on our shelves. 

The UK, US and other allies have called for an “immediate end” to the attacks on the container ships in the Red Sea which are being conducted by a state backed rebel group in the area. To date there have been 25 attacks on ships since November and the means of attack are intensifying and escalating. 

While destruction and pirating might seem a thing of the past and stories but the threat on the high seas is very real, the thought that slavery is a thing of past is the opinion of someone who doesn’t understand what really happens at sea. 

2024’s changes in cost of living
It’s hard to know quite what is going on, according to Economists it’s likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates twice this year. Inflation is likely to drop within “touching distance” of the 2% target and to stimulate some growth, but the energy price cap has increased by 5% this month to £1,928.

It is also expected that rail fares will rise again in March by 4.9%, April will see the impact of the decisions taken next month on Council Tax, unless you’re in Scotland and this is frozen till 2025, TV licensing may also increase in April and that is also the months where most utilities rise by inflation, yes I am looking at your mobile phone bills.

All this being said the current predictions for the energy price cap at its next review in April is due to fall to £1,660 and those costs that have not been formally announced could go down as well as up. Wages are increasing across the board, the National Insurance drop came into effect on Saturday but the tax thresholds have been frozen to 2028 so combined with the benefits to people pockets might not be as much as people think, but in a cost of living crisis every little helps.

Obscene levels of pay inequality
Let’s just end on a super depressing note, this is not a test, but if you’ve made it this far then chances are this already caught your eye, but according to The Trades Union Congress analysis by Thinktank High Pay Centre has discovered ‘obscene levels of pay inequality’. I for one am shocked, she says glaring awkwardly straight to camera. The wholly unpredictable outcome of their investigation is that FTSE 100 bosses will have earned more money by 1pm on Thursday 4^th January 2024 than the average UK worker will earn in the entire year, which by the way is £34,963! I for one could not be more shocked, obviously! The disparity is apparently thanks in part to the cost-of-living crisis, ongoing labour strikes and well the massive flipping pay gap between Chief Execs than the labour force.

For various complex reasons, that include the Conservative Government, Brexit labour shortages and inflationary pressures across the board, workers median pay has increased 6% since March 2023, but CEO’s pay has risen by a further 3% on top.

The report is an interesting read and calculates how long it would take other top earners to out earn the median UK worker (Economics version of Laws the man on the Clapham omnibus) and you’ve got to laugh or you’ll cry, typically all done and dusted by 16^th January, at this point you feel some comparative sympathy for everyone else who fall into the top 1% of full time UK earners (those earning £145k or more) who don’t overtake us average Joes (sorry Joe) until the end of March, the 29^th to be precise! Did I mention how shocked I am?

Watch:  The Traitors – I absolutely loved series 1 (and the American version where Claudia is played by Alan Cumming), a simple programme based on a game, there is a castle, 22 players and the possibility of winning £120k in the ultimate game of trust and treachery. It’s on three nights a week in January and I will not be recommending anything else to watch this month because this is where my time will be going.

Read: London Zoo: Zoo does annual stocktake – London Zoo does an annual stock take of all it’s animals (the audit kick test as it’s finest) to share with other Zoo’s around the world to manage conversation and breeding programs and everyone gets counted. Came for the article, stayed for the photos!

Listen: Nudge: How Sainsbury’s and Adobe nudge customers – A deeper dive into how a behavioural science approach helped Adobe increase their retention, how Sainsbury increased their mobile app downloads but quite some number and how a Ramadan project significantly reduced food waste amongst families.

• Overweight and grazing
• Word of the year
• Math’s thinks Chester is the prettiest
• 10,000 more McDonalds
• Next years colour of the year

Overweight and grazing
In the same week that a new report published that Britain’s “weight problem” is costing almost £100 billion a year and the effect on national productivity is nine times bigger than previously thought, Waitrose Food and Drink report determined that British people are no longer eating three meals a day but choosing to graze, with 30% of the nation eating two meals a day and replacing the third with snacks and 10% saying they only eat one meal a day and graze on snacks for the rest of the time.

The report indicates that Hybrid working, and the increased pace of modern living has caused the dramatic change in eating habits and why Boomers still traditionally stick to three meals a day, that and food and drink brands most definitely target our stomachs and leverage social media at different times of day.

The most popular time of day for snacking has turned out to be after 3pm…this is my favourite time, along with 43% of those 2,000 questioned for the study. The next popular slot was midday to 3pm, which indicates people are skipping lunch. The executive director of Waitrose, James Bailey said that food inflation had changed how people were eating in all aspects of their lives, from time of day to what they are eating.

Word of the year
As the year draws to an end, it’s time for Oxford’s Word of the Year 2023 and with over 32,000 votes a team of language experts have hailed “Rizz” their word of the year.

Apparently 2023 was the year for personal and professional PR and its charisma that commands the attention…so enter internet slang rizz to distil that romantic appeal and charm into 4 letters. While the first usage in the corpus is dated in 2022, usage sky rocketed after actor Tom Holland in June told Buzzfeed “I have no rizz whatsoever. I have limited rizz” and the internet then went wild with the memes.

The other contenders included “prompt” which has seen dramatic increase in usage thanks of AI, “situationship” to describe informal relationships, “swiftie” to describe enthusiastic fans of Taylor Swift. Other words also in the mix were “beige flag” used to describe traits in partners that are neither good (green flags) or bad (red flags),”de-influencing” to describe the act of not encouraging people to buy things, “parasocial” to describe that thing you do where you follow a celebrity so much you think you know them and  “heat dome” to describe a specific weather phenomenon.

Maths says Chester is the prettiest
Through the power of Google Street View and the “golden ratio” a group of mathematicians have named Chester the prettiest city in the world, beating Venice who placed second!

The cities were ranked based on the highest percentage of buildings adhering to the “golden ratio”, expressed as 1:1.618 which is a determined set of proportions that has “captivated mathematicians since ancient times”. It’s the ratio most observed in flowers and shells and is considered inherently beautiful in the natural world.

Chester is one of the most historically significant cities in England and boasts a 1,000-year-old cathedral, Britain’s largest amphitheatre and the countries oldest race course and a whopping 83.7 of the buildings analysed met the golden ratio, beating Venice by 0.4% and London by 1.3%. Little old Chester hey!

10,000 more McDonalds
McDonalds is thinking the unthinkable in its new targets for development, loyalty and cloud technologies with the aim of increasing stores across the globe by 10,000 by 2027, bringing its total store numbers globally to 50,000. Only 900 of those stores are looking likely to be in the States, with the focus of the expansion in developing markets China, Japan, India and Brazil who are in line for 7,000 new restaurants. These 10,000 new stores equate to a new McDonald’s opening somewhere around the world every 4 hours and 23 minutes, which is wild.

The restraint giant also wants to increase membership to its loyalty programme in the same time frame as it turns out those members spend twice as much as non-members even with their new menu. The introduction of phone ordering and in restaurant screens in fast food stores has seen an increase in the amount of food people are willing to order and I am definitely guilty of that, would I order a side burger or extra doughnut if I has to say that out loud to person? Absolutely not. Do I do it when I just have to tap items on the screen, yes I do!

Next years colour of the year
I’m a big fan of Pantone, there was a time in my life where the only redeeming feature of my role was the pantone book on my desk and the ability to use my brain to work out the required repeat for cutters and plates for printing.

Pantone have chosen to end 2023 on a high and unveiling its colour of the year for 2024, Pantone 13-1023 Peach Fuzz which can only be described as a soft peach-beige (sounds delightful) but according to Pantone reflects “our desire to nurture ourselves and others”.

“In seeking a hue that echoes our innate yearning for closeness and connection, we chose a color radiant with warmth and modern elegance. A shade that resonates with compassion, offers a tactile embrace, and effortlessly bridges the youthful with the timeless. said Leatrice Eiseman, the executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, in a statement shared on the company’s website.

The colour chosen annually is selected by a group of the institutes members from various industries and backgrounds across the world who all come together to decide what they think the next year will bring based on colour psychology, research and mood of the global zeitgeist and so far so good, the colour of the year for 2023 was Pantone 18-1750 Viva Magenta which echoed a dark and richer barbie pink tone.

 

Current watch:  Fisk – I would appear if I had to pick a favourite genre it would apparently be Australian Comedy, they are witty and dry and I just seem to love them. Fisk is about a lawyer Helen Tudor-Fisk who returns to Sydney after her career and marriage have fallen apart. Helen is played by Comedian Kitty Flanagan who plays the role in just the most awkward funny way possible delivery laugh out loud lines alongside cringey awkward moments.

The show is ultimately rather clever in it’s approach to sexism, ageism and the social expectations of women. Season 2 has just dropped on Netflix and I am excited to see what happens next for Helen at Gruber & Gruber and whether she continues to feel that she’s “not really a dead people person either”.

Current read: Over Sharing – Jane Fallon – Some more fiction for this year, I think maybe my brain has reached that end of year need to wind down already. This was brilliant, funny and cutting in equal measures. I think you like and dislike all the characters in equal measure throughout the book and end up back at liking them all. The main protagonist is Iris, a forty something kitchen fittings salesperson whose life crumbled, because of one women, or so she thought. In her journey to bring down the now social media influencers perfect life she discovers that all might not have been how it seems. The book takes place for three people’s perspective of the same situation and it was a fun read that I would recommend with a blanket on rainy Saturday afternoon, which is all the kinds of Saturday afternoons we have.

Most Impactful Listen: Trendy: Oh Come, All Ye Faithful: religion, politics and values – This was really more interesting that I thought it would be, these two are a really great pair for getting into the why’s behind things. They ask are we now a secular country, who still goes to church and how much faith plays a role in running the country and determining policy. The why’s behind them and the cultural shifts are fascinating in a I’ve never linked those two things before but that makes perfect sense kind of way. I found the bit about education and the impact of religion eye opening, given that I’d also listened to The Bunker: Different class: A proles’ guide to the elite private schools that churn out our leader which acted as the timely reminder about the origins of private schools and how they were all founded to support the most disadvantaged in communities not just kids of rich parents.

• London to New York on waste oils
• British Baked Beans
• Who can be a billionaire?
• Now That’s What I Call…a cracking 40 years
• More Class-action for Christiano Ronaldo

London to New York on waste oils
This week saw Virgin Atlantic successfully complete the first transatlantic flight powered by sustainable aviation fuel, which is fuel primarily made from waste oils and fats, including cooking oil! The flight left from London Heathrow to New York’s JFK at 11:30am UK time on Tuesday 28^th November.

Flight100 operated by by Virgin Atlantic, but the brainchild of quite some partnership with Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Imperial College London, University of Sheffield, ICF, the Rocky Mountain Institute and the Department for Transport alongside some hefty Government funding, demonstrates that greener flight is possible. The flight has been confirmed as the world’s first 100% SAF flow by a commercial airline across the Atlantic.

This is quite some moment for the industry, who to date had only managed to launch flights without passengers on a blend of alternative fuels making up 50% of the required power. On board the historic flight was the Transport Secretary, still to my great surprise, Mark Harper who said: “Today’s 100% SAF-powered flight shows how we can decarbonise transport both now and, in the future, cutting lifecycle emissions by 70% and inspiring the next generation of solutions.”

British Baked Beans
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should, but we did it anyway! The first British-grown baked beans were canned this week in Lincolnshire, the home of sausages no less.

Why is the first ever commercial crop of British-grown haricot bean so historic, because our climate is so awful they don’t usually grow here, but after 12 years of work at the University of Warwick scientists developed three new varieties of the beans seed that were bred to cope with a cold and damp climate and this harvest proves they are candidates for large scale planting and harvesting, they did however fail to crop in 2022 due to the summer heatwave, so they sounds perfectly British in that regard.

Eric Holub of the University of Warwick who helped pioneer the new beans tried some of the first cans and said “They’re tasty. They’re delicious. They’re really very edible,” with the growing farmer Andrew Ward hailed the moment of canning as “an absolute milestone” stating that “as a nation, we import too much food…to be able to produce something that we consume in such great quantities in this country, is just unbelievable.”

The British-grown baked beans are not available for sale, this is all just a test run to can, with most of the seed of this year’s crop being used for next year’s harvest, does this mean that beans will not always mean Heinz? 

Who can be a billionaire?
This week Swiss bank UBS ruined all our deluded hopes and dreams by announcing that the next generation of billionaires will get there by inheritance and not work stating that of the 137 people who became billionaires in the 12 months to April 2023 53 of them inherited their money from intergenerational wealth.

I know, you’re thinking Rachael that maths doesn’t maths because that means 84 of those billionaires are therefore “Self-made”, and yes, based on this arbitrary metric yes…but the nepo babies inherited a whopping £150.8 billion and the self-made only made $140.7 billion.

While collectively they represent a very small proportion of society at all whole, it does mark a strange moment in history, for the first time in the 9 years this report has been created by UBS that “the next generation of billionaires accumulated more wealth through inheritance than entrepreneurship”. The number of billionaires has jumped in reason years across the globe by 7% to 2,544 people and their combined wealth increased by 9% to $12 TRILLION, that’s four times the UKs GDP, which is obscene.

Benjamin Cavalli, the head of strategic clients at UBS Global Wealth Management, said: “This is a theme we expect to see more of over the next 20 years, as more than 1,000 billionaires pass an estimated $5.2tn to their children.”

Now That’s What I Call…a cracking 40 years
The compilation album legends “Now That’s What I Call Music” celebrated its 40^th birthday, starting out in the UK on 29^th November 1983 (oof, that’s a little too close to home for me) with the simple mission of “anthologising the biggest chart hits of the day” and I think we can all agree 40 years later with 116 editions and over 120 million lifetime sales that they smashed it. Apparently, it also means that the average household owns four Now albums…any household I’m counted in exceeds this average.

I joined the now family in the 30’s on both tape and later CD, they handily released twice a year in the summer and that Christmas, so hello handy birthday and Christmas presents for young Rachael. In the days of illegally taping the charts of the radio before CD’s and streaming and curated playlists Now That’s What I Call Music did all that for you.

There is a lot of weird and wonderful history in the Now history, starting out as a joint venture between EMI and Virgin which is how they got immediate access to the best and biggest songs of the day, the first track on the first album was Phil Collins You Can’t Hurry Love, Madonna has never featured yet Girls Aloud have made it 13 times in a row, the ultimate number of appearances goes to Little Mix (28 times) and apparently Now 43 was their first edition released on MiniDisc (whooo). It’s this stuff I get really excited about and the BBC’s music correspondent Mark Savage covers it all, in this fantastic article Now That’s What I Call Music turns 40: Forty facts about the compilation giant

More Class-action for Christiano Ronaldo
Christiano Ronaldo was served with a $1 billion class-action lawsuit for endorsing worthless NFTs as part of his promotion work with Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange.

The suit which has been filed in Florida argues that the football star “promoted, assisted in, and/or actively participated in the offer and sale of unregistered securities in coordination with Binance,”, the moral of this story being don’t sell Non-fungible tokens of yourself that you likely know investors will lose money on.

The world of NFTs is bonkers, the concept of the digital ownership of one of a kind verifiable asset that are tradable on the blockchain when anyone can screen shot anything with a click of an item in their pocket is just nuts, yet here we are. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, Ronaldo is still doing promotional work for Binance on Twitter, now known as X, and he joins a raft of other celebrities who’ve faced similar challenges, including Kim Kardashian who received a whopping fine in excess of $1 million last year from the SEC for similar promotional activities.

Current watch:  Mae Martin: SAP – Thankfully, nothing to do with System Applications and Products in Data Processing, if you know you know, if you don’t be thankful you don’t know. I love Mae Martin and SAP is Martin talking about how the world is a little bit mad and how that madness shapes you in ways you sometimes don’t even realise. It’s hilarious and awkward in parts but in that totally relatable way. It felt oddly comforting in its imperfections, I know it won’t be everyone’s style but the tangents the stories go on and the delay to the punchline along with the Anglo Canadian accent but I just loved it, Martin has quite a back catalogue to watch and if there is one thing I would draw your attention that’s floating around on the internet it’s the moment where Brett Goldstein comes on stage and kisses Martin…which they later went on to say in response to what it’s like kissing Brett Goldstein “I love kissing Brett Goldstein. Who wouldn’t? The jawline and forehead of a superhero, the heart of an angel” and basically that’s how we should all be kissing and be kissed just fyi.

Current read: The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper – Hallie Rubenhold – This book was incredible; I don’t know why I’ve waited this long to read it. While these women were the victims of Jack the Ripper, this book shares the experiences of Victorian womanhood, the knife edge from survival to poverty and powerlessness against constant abuse. They all lived incredible lives and the only thing they had in common was the year they died, despite the narrative around Jack the Ripper the truth about these women and how they came to be victims of a notorious serial killer. Historian Hallie Rubenhold paints a detailed and captivating picture of these women’s lives and sets the record straight, there was no commonality, they were not prostitutes, other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I couldn’t stop reading and just as I came to the end of one story I wanted to find out about the next incredible women. No greater service to correcting history for Mary Ann, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane.

Most Impactful Listen: Diary of a CEO: The Coffee Expert: The Surprising Link Between Coffee & Your Mental Health! James Hoffmann – I feel conflicted, this one should be a one to watch as much as the most impactful listen, but this is very niche. Non coffee drinkers this one should be for you, but I would understand if it’s not. James Hoffman sounds like the smoothest cup of coffee, and he could read me in a bedtime story but even if his voice is not your thing, I’d struggle if you didn’t find him incredibly knowledgeable and interesting on all thing’s coffee. James won the World Barista Championship in 2007 and posts all manner of coffee related content across social media, he has temperature probes and spreadsheets and there isn’t much he doesn’t know about coffee, without judgement. He is also an author of some excellent and beautiful books about coffee. In this episode he talks all things coffee, how he went from not being a coffee drinker to an expert, where to go for the best high street coffee, why coffee costs what it does and the best way to make it and how he learnt to communicate that passion. I looked at how I have been starting to rush through my morning coffee process and it really made me slow it down and reignite the lockdown love for the perfect brew time.

• (Un)Equal Pay Day
• It’s been a week for Sam Altman
• What’s in the price of sugar?
• The outlook is grim
• Black Friday like its 2022

(Un)Equal Pay Day
Wednesday 22^nd November 2023 marked #EqualPayDay, the day based on the gender pay gap that women in the UK stop getting paid compared to men for the rest of the year, so between now and the women, if a man offers to pay for something just let him.

Jemima Olchawski, Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society, said: “Fawcett runs the Equal Pay Day campaign on behalf of women across the country – but we shouldn’t have to. The UK’s gender pay gap has hardly moved on in recent years and this isn’t good enough.”

The data is calculated using the mean, full time, hourly gender pay gap and the gap has closed by 48 hours from last year and represents 0.2% reduction, based on this rate of annual growth the pay gap will close by 2051…delightful.

On average women taken home £6,888 less per year than men and lets be honest this is most representative of white women, obviously. The race equality think tank Runnymede Trust dug a little more into the data and found that that date is quite considerably back in the summer for women of colour.

It’s been a week for Sam Altman
Imagine being connected to Sam Altman on LinkedIn this week, it would read like a Craig David song, I’m almost hesitant to finish this up and schedule the post, who knows what could happen.

Tell me the world of AI is mad without telling me the world of AI is mad, I’ll go first. Sam Altman was fired as the Chief Exec of OpenAI last Friday over a failure to be “candid in his communications”. The Board took a weird unilateral decision to replace him with Twitch’s ex CEO Emmett Shear. So, Sam was gone, but not unemployed for long. Microsoft, who are significant investors in OpenAI, snapped both Sam and Greg Brockman who quit OpenAI not long after Sam was let go to head up their new in-house AI development team.

But by Wednesday Altman was rumoured to be returning to his role as Chief Exec at OpenAI after nearly the entire workforce threatened to resign unless the board bought Sam back and then all resigned themselves! 

So, it’s all change for the board of OpenAI, with the former co-chief exec of Salesforce Bret Taylor on board and former US treasury secretary Larry Summers. Adam D’Angelo stays, despite his role in Atlmans firing. As it stands, Altman is back, Brockman is back and all is the same at OpenAI. Altman returns without his seat on the board as Chief Exec, the fourth is five days for OpenAI

What’s in the price of sugar?
Another commodity price to watch (other than cucumbers – still keep watching the price of cucumbers guys) is sugar which this week has risen to its highest price worldwide since 2011. Increasing 55% in just the past two months, driven by low global supplies following the devasting dry weather in India and Thailand meaning the world now has less than 68 days of sugar in its stockpile to meet needs.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that sugar production will be down 2% this year against last year which amounts to a loss of 3.8 million tons, which is A LOT of sugar. Food insecurity is on the rise, sugar is vital to feeding developing nations that are already facing shortages in other staples including rice.

The outlook is grim
With inflation expected to fall quite dramatically below 5% and the Chancellor Autumn Statement tax cuts he hopes will “boost growth” the official growth forecast has been slashed. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has once again cut its forecast, down to 0.7% for 2024 and 1.4% in 2025.  It also predicts that living standards will not return to that of pre pandemic levels till 2028, reflecting a 3.5% drop, by their own words the largest reduction in living standards since records began…in 1950. How lucky we are. 

The OBRs summary was that the economy is more resilient than expected than back in March, but that growth will slow and interest rates will stay higher for longer to control inflation and I feel like this isn’t news and we hear this all the time these days. Public spending is just a disaster. Why can’t things just be nice again for everyone? Why are millions of people turning off their fridges to survive please? 

Black Friday like its 2022
The advice across the board was take deals this Black Friday “with a pinch of salt” but especially according to Which? Who found that just 2% of the deals available were the cheapest price in last years event. Which? analysed 208 of the deals available last year and found only 5 were the cheapest the products had been. The industry hit back saying that they make no promises that Black Friday deals are the cheapest price of the products all year, which given that there are January Sales, and summers sales and then winter sales is fair I suppose. 

Early indications of both online traffic and town centre footfall indicate that the deals have not been enough to entice shoppers to part with their money. Many retailers had predicted sales to be on par with 2022, but Fridays lunchtime view saw 5% less footfall in retail destinations off set only by a slight increase in online sales. John Lewis reported a 31% rise in sales of small electrical goods with air fryers and earphones leading the charge! 

Current watch:  Louis Theroux Interviews…Pete Doherty – Never a fan of the Libertines or Babyshambles or Pete Doherty in the early 2000’s but addiction fascinates me and there has been discussion of this documentary in the office and then I sort of knew I had to watch it. Pete is living the quiet life in Normandy and since the Pandemic interrupted his access to drugs, he has been endeavouring to change his life, now clean from crack and heroin and married to his long-term partner with a new baby, it feels like Louis has met him at a real turning point in his life. I found the whole documentary oddly captivating, the way he talks about everything that happened, the odd juxtaposition of the man in front of you today versus the man in the headlines and you can’t get much more rock and roll these days than starting your one off reunion gig with an ice bath and tequila!

Current read: Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing – Matthew Perry – It’s safe to say I didn’t quite know what to do when I heard about the death of Matthew Perry, Friends is still a massive part of my life and Chandler Bing is arguably the longest crush I’ve ever had. I’d held off reading Matthew’s autobiography because I knew it would be everything and I wasn’t ready. Well, the time was right. It was perfect, a lovely companion from the week. I didn’t want to put it down, for all the reasons. It’s honest and without barrier, he talks about his family, his pursuit of fame, and of course Friends. Both the onscreen and off-screen parts of that time in his life, his addiction and the paralyzing loneliness that strung it all together, but actually what struck me most about this book was the hope throughout it all, in his own words. I’m so glad I waited, it seemed a fitting way for me to honour one of the best Friends.

Most Impactful Listen: Money Clinic with Clear Barrett: Understanding economics: why it matters for your money – Every wanted to understand economics a little more, especially now in the current context? Then this podcast is well worth 30 minutes of your time, Clear hosts a panel with Sarah O’Connor FT columnist and associate editor currently on book break (which sounds amazing) and Susannah Streeter head of Money & Markets at Hargreaves Lansdown and they talk all things inflation, growth (the dreaded pie analogy explained), interest rates, mortgage rates, student debt, investing and taxes with some really interesting questions from the audience at Bristol Economics Festival.

• Generosity across the globe grows
• Putting people back behind the tills
• Stagnation nation
• Lights, camera, action (again)
• AmsterDAMN British tourists

Generosity across the globe grows
It’s not all doom and gloom, but I can understand why you might think that, but this week the Charities Aid Foundation released their World Giving Index for 2023 and the old finance business partner for 2 very different donations office dies hard, it was always interesting to see how the land was laying, especially in times of other factors of economic uncertainty and kind of reminds you people are good.

The key findings of the report are that the increased giving seen during the pandemic has endured, even as the cost-of-living crisis starts to bite, a whopping 72% of the worlds population supported others, which equates to 4.2 billion people putting their hand in their pockets, helping a stranger or giving their time.

For the sixth year in a row Indonesia ranks as the most generous nation, followed by Ukraine (yes, that one) and Kenya, the UK didn’t make the top ten most generous countries, we made 17th, but we did rank 3^rd for donating money from their pockets, 58^th for volunteering and 112^th for helping a stranger, which tracks)

The metrics on why people give are interesting, migrants give more than nationals, religion and life satisfaction also play significant roles in people’s desire to give. The policy change recommendations are really straightforward and would make a massive difference to giving in the UK, but alas, we do not live in those times.

Putting people back behind the tills
Never did I think I would get to have a self-indulgent moment about Booths on the blog, I am living for this. For those unfamiliar with Booths, it often gets hailed as ‘northern Waitrose’ but it’s so much better than Waitrose, it’s not full of southerners for a start and secondly the customer service is just beyond compare. I hate food shopping and check outs and am self-service till I die unless it’s a Booths.

Who as it turns out have accounted this week, they are axing almost all of the self-service checkouts in favour of returning to fully staffed tills at all bar two of their stores to enhance their customer service following customer feedback. The company stated “We believe colleagues serving customers delivers a better customer experience and therefore we have taken the decision to remove self-checkouts in the majority of our stores.

The family run business operates 28 stores across Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cheshire after opening their first store in Blackpool in 1847 with the philosophy to “sell the best goods available, in attractive stores, staffed with first class assistants”.

Stagnation nation
It’s no great surprise that off the back of 14 raises in interest rates by the Bank of England that the UK economy has failed to grow at all between July and September, despite the economy still doing better than expected. The figures from the Office for National Statistics said the latest growth figures showed a lacklustre picture across all sectors of the economy.

Higher interest rates are meant to reduce inflation, but it also means people reduce their spending because things are more expensive to borrow money and if you’re in a position to save that’s probably what you’re doing over spending right now, unless you to think existence is hard and you deserve a little treat for even the most basic of task. It’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me.

The Chancellor, the very safe hands of, Jeremy Hunt really wants to spin this into a positive and good on him, all eyes will be on his Autumn Statement in less than a fortnights time, where all eyes, specifically the those currently in his party looking for something to offer the electorate on the doorstep, will be on him to offer up some tax reduction somewhere. I suspect all will be disappointed as Hunt has made it clear that business tax cuts would take priority over personal tax reductions.

Lights, Camera, Action (again)
The writers strike is OVER! After 118 days of strikes a tentative agreement has been raised between SAG-AFTRA and Hollyood’s biggest studios and streamers meaning that as of Thursday this week just gone 160,000 members of the union can return to work with the three-year contract making “a long-term difference for the future of our members in this industry” said Sag-Aftras chief negotiation Duncan Crabtree-Ireland.

The deal approved with 86% of the unions vote is worth over a whopping $1 billion with an increase in basic pay for background workers, streaming bonuses for successful shows, more rights protection from AI, a greater requirement for makeup and hairstyling to include experts in diverse hair and skin types and for the first time the requirement to hire intimacy co-ordinators to support actors with nudity and sex scenes.

Actors are thrilled and with the Writers’s Guild of America strike that concluded in September it’s an exciting time to see what is going to be back with a bang with Deadpool, The Last of Us, Avatar and Mission Impossible all halted due to the strikes. But those are films and as such of no great interest to me, but it does mean The White Lotus can resume, which is brilliantly exciting with showrunner, Mike White, confirming that season three will likely take place in Thailand!
 

AmterDAMN British tourists
I cannot imagine why any country would not want brits abroad at all, said no one ever, Amsterdam appear to have successfully deterred British tourists with new figures showing that visitors from the UK were down 22% on prepandemic level of 2019. 

Amsterdam wished to reduced “overtourism” so stopped promoting the city and then actually launched a “digital discouragement campaign” called “Stay Away” that “focuses on nuisance tourists who want to come to Amsterdam to let loose, with all the consequences that entails.” Primarily aimed at the Brits between the ages of 18 and 35. The Red Light District is obviously a huge draw alongside the ability to drink beer and smoke weed. The adverts are brutal and well worth a watch. 

The campaign has also involved a cap on the flights into the city’s airport. This was implemented to improve the wellbeing of residents and the environment but also helps significantly reduce the amount of antisocial behaviour from brits aboard.

Current watch:  Fingernails – So apparently I watch films now, no one is more surprised than me on that one but someone says ‘Rachael, it’s a bit weird, I think you’ll really like it’. Well it was pretty weird and I did really like it, Jessie Buckley and Riz Ahmed are perfect for a slight sci fi romance. It’s not sickly sweet by any stretch of the imagination but it feels like love in an alternative present. The Love Institute tests to see if a couple is really in love by use of a fingernail bio sample, yes to determine true love the cost of admission is 1 fingernail, which probably seems a lot less low stakes than trying to work it out yourself. It’s clever and subtle and redeemed solely by the quality of acting.

Current read: How to deal with angry people – Dr Ryan Martin – Known on TikTok as ‘The Angry Professor’ this book provides 10 strategies for facing anger at home, at work and in the street. Rudeness has been on the rise so it’s no great surprise that anger and aggression are also on the rise, especially after the pandemic. The book is based on years of research and clinical practice and the book explores what impacts an angry personality and offers practical advice on how to deal with them, they can’t always be avoided. I found this book extremely interesting and likely very useful, probably for acknowledging the anger in others as well as probably myself. If there is anyone in your life that resonates with an angry personality, then this book really will help navigate those moments in your relationship.

Most Impactful Listen: The Bunker – Kicking and streaming: Can Spotify survive? – When you think about streaming services you probably think first about Spotify and you’d struggle to argue it doesn’t dominate in the music industry, but not only do artists struggle to make money from the platform so does the platform itself. Host Andrew Harrison is joined by music business and tech journalist Dr Eammon Forde to talk about the streaming platforms future. This was an interesting, almost forensic, analysis of the state of play of streaming services and the future, while Spotify is on track to meet its target of 1 billion users by 2027 is the model sustainable? Definitely worth a listen.