Rachael McKelvey

• So that was Christmas, what have I done?
• Covid data to end in new year
• Trumps Tax returns
• Warmest year on record and technically a white Christmas
• Going gluten free and staying gluten free?

So that was Christmas, what have I done?
Do you reflect on the years just gone, have you reflected on 2022? I have always previously thought I did, but this year by taking some time to reflect and answer some specific hard questions I realised I’ve never really done it before, on any level, personal or career.

We are not all created equally and I find free writing really hard, but specific questions that I have to wonder what you mean by asking that, they get my pen flowing. It was a really powerful exercise that made me realise that some things have had bigger impacts than I thought and those I thought did have the biggest impact did not.

It also made me look back at everything last year, my diary and all my photos, the good and the bad and what really struck me was how there was always something good going on, somethings I’d forgotten.

Covid data to end in new year
The Government plan to stop publishing its Covid R rate, hospitalisation, and death projection modelling later this month deeming it “no longer necessary” thanks to better outcomes from the virus because of the vaccines.

This just makes me think about data, I hope the modelling continues behind the scenes and it is simply the publishing that stops and if it’s only the publishing that stops then I hope it doesn’t stop scrutinising and re-examining its findings for errors, for bias, for assumptions. The best data sets are those that are visible, that pass the kick test, that can be used to replicate the same hypothesis over and over again.

Warmest year on record and technically a white Christmas
The Met Office declared 2022 to be the warmest year since records began in 1884 and despite the frost and snow defrosting at this end of the country long before Christmas arrived – did anyone else suddenly feel less festive? It was officially (technically) a white Christmas in the UK.

The Met Office confirmed a white Christmas for the UK after sleet was reported in Loch Glascarnoch in Scotland and Lough Fea in Northern Ireland.

Head of the Met Office National Climate Information Service Dr Mark McCarthy stated that “The warm year is in line with the genuine impacts we expect as a result of human-induced climate change,”.

Trumps Tax Returns
Six years of Trumps tax returns have been released by House Democrats, revealing he declared no table income in 2015 and 2020 and nominal taxable income in 2016 and 2017 so paid little to no federal taxes 4 out of 6 years but he paid more in foreign taxes than federal taxes in the first year of his presidency. Trumps comment on this? It “once again show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises”.

Hate the player not the game.

What’s your one thing that’s really two different things?
Following on from my one thing that’s really two different things about going gluten free and staying gluten free…Well I am going gluten reduced and hopefully staying gluten reduced. I’m not coeliac but I do have a condition that is greatly improved by removing gluten and I have concluded that for 2023 my life is basically just going to be a series of (pseudo)science experiments, what works stays, what does not goes.

In a world where everything good has gluten (and milk powder) in it, I am attempting to work out when it affects me the most and I think it’s in the evening, I think my ability to tolerate gluten and not fall asleep is best in the mornings and dips after about 3pm, so where I can make some easy substitutions in the rest of the day, its just a no after 3pm, which means I can still eat an almond croissant without having to be £10 for two from really expensive bakery. This is not a lie. Two almond croissants, £10.

Current watch: Suits – It’s Christmas and I just wanted some easy watching & apparently my other half hasn’t ever seen it. HOW? American (Filmed in Canada) legal drama is my jam, add in an eidetic memory and a gloriously ambitious, neurotic and talented staff, just a winner. It’s been lovely to revisit a series that I really loved so much at the time and to see its actually aged well.

Current read: Santa Grint (The Time Police) by Jodi Taylor – Taylor usually puts out a short story at Christmas, which is typically less than 100 pages and is just perfect to excuse yourself on Christmas day and curl up somewhere quiet and enjoy. I highly recommend all of Jodi’s work (I must ration my reading of them as I never not want to have one in hand). St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research investigate major historical events in contemporary time, but there are Time Police and this year they threw a Christmas Party!

Most impactful listen: Sweet Bobby from Tortoise Media – I became OBSESSED with the search for the world’s most sophisticated catfisher, and this was inhaled in two sessions with 8 hours sleep in between. I think reporter and host Alexi Mostrous makes a great point about the reception of this investigation with the younger generation and the older. I met my partner online so I get it.

• Have you ever survived a digital detox?
• Paying tuition fees to listen to David Cameron.
• How to wind down into the Christmas break
• Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX
• What’s your one thing that’s really two very different things?

Have you ever succeeded at a digital detox?
I’d like use my phone less but after the infamous separator (I used to have an iPod in 2020) became an integrator it’s really hard to let it go, I have recently spent some time in the presence of someone who needs phones turned off and it’s been quite nice once a week to just not be available for 2 hours.

I’ve always had the limit the time you spend on apps function on and recently extended that out from the working day to all day every day, but this week I’ve taken the apps off my home screen, I’ve put them all in a file on an odd tab in the hope that maybe some extra steps will just make me think twice. I’m not sure I’d survive a digital detox, but I would definitely consider a less smart phone in future.

Paying tuition fees to listen to David Cameron?
I’d be very interested to see the student numbers for NYU Abu Dhabi’s new course “Practising politics and government in the age of disruption” taught by non the less than former British Prime Minister David Cameron, it feels a bit like sitting in on a lecture from Exxon Mobil about the best way to preserve sea birds in and oil slock

I’m not entirely sure Cameron practised politics and government in the age of disruption, more started a chain reaction for absolute chaos and then snuck back to public life like butter wouldn’t melt, and that’s not even considering Greensill Capital – the biggest lobbying scandal of a generation that we just don’t talk about because everything is worse.

But who am I kidding, if it was on and I’d paid for a different course I’d absolutely 100% sneak in at the back and eye roll profusely.

How to wind down into the Christmas break
I wholeheartedly believe that yoga makes you a nicer person but practising with Yoga Christine is like the cheat code for the final boss the minute you set foot on your mat. I had the absolutely pleasure of attending her mini retreat this weekend and the theme was how to transition into the festive break.

How is that the most obvious things are the hardest to see? The analogy was that we all get to Christmas Eve and perform and emergency stop and wonder why we struggle on Christmas day to relax with white knuckles and whiplash, the trick is to use this week to mirror, signal, manoeuvre and gently pull up to Christmas day by taking time and care for ourselves.

And it seems too obvious I don’t know how I never really twigged that before.

Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX
Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested and denied bail in the Bahamas this week and is facing some serious criminal charges for widespread fraud (what multimillion pound business functions on QuickBooks!) for the goings on at FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange he founded in Hong Kong in 2019 before moving it to the Bahamas in 2021.

He is likely to agree to extradition back to the US, to face the 13-page indictment with 8 counts including wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud.

While this feels all very Fyre-festivally, the industry will still be talking about this in 10 years time, crypto might have reached the end of the road and blockchain has some real reputational damage to hedge.

What’s your one thing that’s really two different things?
I basically think my entire life is made up of one thing that are really two very different things. Reading books and buying books are two very separate hobbies, doing crafts and buying craft suppliers are two very different things, the me that does the food shop and the me that cooks the meals are two different people.

Turns out going gluten free and staying gluten free are also two very different things, especially at this time of the year. Why do gluten free wraps smell like playdough and taste like rolled out playdough, it seems unfair.

Current watch: Pepsi, where’s my jet – The Netflix docuseries of the story behind the court case Leonard v Pepsico, Inc. Everything in the 90’s was EXTRA and the adverts were no different. Pepsi wanted to shove it to Cola, the more Pepsi points you got from purchases the more cool stuff you could have, for a cool 7 million points you too could have a AV-8 Harrier II jet…or could you? John Leonard, aged 21, convinced 5 investors to help him get the points and he sent that claim straight into Pepsico. I love the law, but honestly, I love the bit behind the cases that you don’t see more. This docuseries is well worth a watch.

Current read: Enough: An Imperfect Antidote to Perfectionism – Vix Anderton – Another book that came recommended, a lovely little book you can read in one session about how perfectionism shows up in all our lives whether we realise it or not, a beautifully gentle guide to make you think, help you understand and compassionately take you on the journey. I think this would resonate with even the most reluctant of readers.

Most impactful listen: How To Academy: Tim Harford Meets Adam Grant The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know – A chat from early 2021 between two giants about individual rethinking and collective rethinking and why you should always think like a scientist! The smarter you are the harder you might find to update your beliefs, a podcast well worth your time.

• ChatGPT isn’t quite ready to take over the world but that doesn’t’ mean it won’t try
• The weather outside is weather
• The Edinburgh Reforms package of financial deregulation.
• How many World Cups do you have left?
• We are now entering “No, that’s for Christmas!” season

ChatGPT isn’t quite ready to take over the world but that doesn’t’ mean it won’t try
The internet is awash with people thinking the end is neigh because ChatGPT can write you an entire novel, this entire twitter thread was quite compelling in the case of fiction but for anything that requires a shred of truth? That’s the truly terrifying bit.

A tool that can make misinformation credible simply by the act of repetition, that doesn’t check its own work and delivers in an authoritative tone. Ooof, that’s quite a thing, isn’t it?

Against a digital landscape that already touts mistruths as fact and a world where the inherent biases in data sets get compounded consciously and unconsciously, how much can it really learn about the world from essentially looking at itself in the mirror?

The weather outside is weather
I am British after all…Isn’t it cold has been basically the conversation starter for the last week, because to quote the greatest line from “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”…”The weather outside is weather” and yes I sing it all the time, rain or shine.

But seriously in the last two weeks I have a photo of a red admiral butterfly sunbathing on the wooden tortoise in our local park and now I have a phone full of photos of inches of snow. While the beauty of living in the UK has always been mild weather, I’m not sure you can argue that

The Edinburgh Reforms package of financial deregulation
The 9th December saw the current Chancellor of the Exchequer *checks notes*, still Jeremy Hunt, announce a set of reforms designed to drive growth and competitiveness in the financial services sector and my gut feeling is we should all be a little bit concerned.

Following the financial crisis of 2008 and the impact of Brexit I am not sure that making the new statutory objective of the FCA “international competitiveness” really fits with their goal of regulation, where competitiveness is already implied. We shouldn’t be in yet another deregulation race to the bottom to promote short term growth. I feel like everyone needs to rewatch The Big Short.

(Solvency II, Senior Manager Regime changes and bankers’ bonuses take up a whole different part of my brain. and is a whole other discussion)

How many World Cups do you have left?
My earliest memory of a World Cup is being sent out from a lecture theatre for talking while England were playing in secondary school, I’m not sure how that was meant to be punishment, but it was when I first started to calculate how many World Cups I had left in my life.

Being held only once every 4 years you are born with a finite amount of World Cups. Adjusted for the currently life expectancy of 80.90 years for a female in the UK I have 20 World Cups in my lifetime and 2022 marks the halfway point.

Is 10 World Cups enough to see football come home? Surely we should make home a bit more appealing?

We are now entering “No, that’s for Christmas!” season
We have officially entered the “no, that’s for Christmas” phase of December and while we traditionally don’t do Christmas in our household – it’s quite possibly nearing a decade since I’ve put a tree up but one thing, I can get on board with Christmas about is THE FOOD.

This is the second weekly food shop where a few items for Christmas have been added to the delivery, this week it’s been jars and freezer goodies, so far I have held the initial seminar explaining the items that should not be used because “they are for Christmas” and I eagerly await the first utterance of “no that’s for Christmas!” of 2022.

Current watch: Liar – Without wanting to give the entire plot away because it is so worth a watch – Joanne Froggatt plays teacher Laura and Ioan Grufford plays renowned surgeon Andrew (When he played Pip in Great Expectations in 1999…be still my teenage heart) when paths cross beyond just hello at the school gate neither realise quite how far the consequences of their date will ripple out. It is a gripping thriller where truth and consequence are constantly examined from both sides.

Current read: Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind – Nancy Kline – This book came recommended, despite being written over 20 years ago (1999) it’s served as timely reminder post pandemic that we don’t often gives ourselves time to think and in the ever rush of back to back meetings in a remote world that we probably also don’t give groups enough time to think either.

Kline lays out 10 principles of the “Thinking Environment” to create the conditions for the human mind to think effectively and creatively, it works on all minds no matter what the age. It was an engaging and warm read that has left a lot to reflect on.

Most impactful listen: Re:Thinking with Adam Grant – Why data don’t have all the answers with data scientist Andrea Jones-Rooy
Data skeptic and comedian Andrea Jones-Rooy data scientist joins Adam Grant to talk all things data, the joy and pitfalls of sharing data on social media, how science methodology is just comedy and why we should consider sharing methodologies over outcomes when sharing research.. I ooo’d, I arrh’d and it most definitely got me thinking.

• Economics 2nd #MeToo moment
• Spotify Wrapped
• Pen and paper or electronic lists
• FTX and Alameda Research
• 2021 Census: The most Godless place in England and Wales

Economics 2^nd #MeToo moment
Economics is having its second #MeToo moment, with seemingly little progress since 2018, with the efforts of the American Economics Association (AEA) seemingly only further accommodating sexual misconduct rather than preventing it.

The field of economics is dominated by men, specifically white men and the fact that women feel they can only speak out after the fact anonymously, and those women who can support and amplify their stories can only do so from the safety of a tenured positions says there is still so far to go.

Spotify Wrapped
‘Tis the season, you can’t have missed seeing the listening habits of your nearest, your dearest and internet strangers! Spotify’s ability to turn data harvesting into free marketing should really creep you out if you thought about it for too long.

Spotify’s dominance in music streaming services makes it the world’s largest with 450 million users at the end of its latest quarters with 60% of those users remaining on the free service. For those of paying for premium, thanks to Campbell Walker on Tiktok we now know how much music you need to consume per day in order to take money out of Spotify and give it to Artists – hint it’s probably quite doable.

Pen and paper or electronic lists?
I seem to be having a real shift in personality in the last 18 months, forever the separator…until the pandemic I carried and iPod Nano AND a smartphone, now I just listen to podcasts on my phone like most people.

Well, the same thing happened this week just gone, I needed a list…quite a hefty but quite specifically split list, I have a great small tick box notepad for just that…but could I bring myself to write in it? No. Did I make a spreadsheet with tick boxes and tabs and % complete in a shared document that I can access on my phone? Yes, yes I did. I even used it last week for task that I will have to do again once all the tabs are done but I can just uncheck the boxes and use it again. I think I’m converted.

FTX and Alameda Research
Well well well, the FTX plot thickens with the revelation that when one part of Bankman-Fried’s empire started to faulter they would just move the liability to the stronger looking firm, with Alameda sheltering FTX from $1bn losses and later FTX acting as a lender of last resort for Alameda. These loans appear to have been made primarily using FTX’s own token FTT as their source of lending, so when lenders left Alameda and FTT faltered the house of cards slowly started to collapse.

2021 Census: The most Godless place in Britain
I love it when ONS release data and this week’s data related to cultural identity and religion, a whopping 56m responded to the voluntary religion question, that’s a 94% return rate on Sunday 21^st March 2021! For the first time in Census records less than half the population of England and Wales described themselves as “Christian” but it still remained the most common response to the question.

So where are the most godless places in England and Wales & how do you measure godlessness? Over half the residents of Brighton and Hove (55.2%) reported as having no religion but a staggering 56.7% of respondents in Caerphilly in Wales reported as atheist!

Current watch: An Evening with Jon Ronson at the British Library – I didn’t manage to get a ticket in person, but I did manage to get an online ticket for a wonderful interview with Miranda Sawyer where he talked all things his career and what he is working on next. I absolutely adore Jon and find his work fascinating, I highly recommend anything he’s touched, including this interview with Krishnan Guru-Murthy.

Current read: Make Time: How to focus on what matters every day by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky – Want to get more done but have no idea how and constantly feel guilty for just not ever getting anything done? This is the book for you, design your day better! I really enjoyed the simplicity of this book, the non-judgement of the struggle between the Busy Bandwagon and the Infinity Pools and the real practical experimental element of making your day work for you. A really easy read with real life examples that make you feel motivated to perform your own experiment.

Most impactful listen: Annie Duke Thinks You Should Quit – Freakonomics People I (Mostly) Admire – Former professional poker player Annie Duke talks with Steve Levitt about quitting, why it’s not as bad as people think it is, why it’s so hard to do and how to do it sooner.  Quitting is a subject close to my heart, that for years was rooted in shame but now I see it as one of the greatest acts of kindness a person can do. A fabulous, inspiring and heart-warming chat between quitters.

• Higher Ed: Limiting overseas student visas
• Duolingo UI redesign
• Passion
• Is FTX the modern-day Enron?
• The Qatar World Cup

Higher Ed: Limiting overseas student visas
The Conservative party are so desperate to reduce immigration they’re seriously considering a limit on overseas student visas. An interesting take that University leaders and other politicians have rightly slammed. Overseas student fees keep universities solvent, fund research and contribute massively to economic growth.

The Germany Embassy in London took no time to sub-tweet that German Universities are offering a record number of courses in English and that it’s an attractive place to study and live because of the reduced cost of living. To which I say, show me where the lie is?

Duolingo UI redesign
Can someone explain why they broke Duolingo please & how I get my tree back? The launch of the path, or the ditching of the tree, is based on science and will guide learners on the most efficient way of learning. As an existing user I no longer have any idea where I am in my learning journey anymore, I’ve failed a spectacular number of lessons and really miss being able to pick how ambitious, or not, I am feeling when tackling lessons. I immediately took to Twitter to see if I could find the funny side (some excellent memes), I still have not (there have been some excellent memes).

Passion
I’ve had the most amazing opportunity in this last week to talk to people about how they got into doing what they are doing and taken great comfort in some common themes – it wasn’t the first thing they thought they wanted to do, it took them some time to find it and it typically came out of a moment (ideal and less than ideal) but that once they found it, it’s kept them learning and developing. A big thank you to everyone who has talked to me this week.

If you feel you have some time to spare and would be happy to talk to me about why you love what your do & how you found it, please do reach out. I promise to ask good questions.

Is FTX the modern-day Enron?
I didn’t want to get too excited last week, even though I secretly did….when John Ray III says the words “never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy finance information as occurred here” you know it’s possible that this is BIG. John Ray III worked on the wind down of Enron. Aspiring accounting students should be cheering there is a new case study for fraud, but accounting professionals wonder what obscure ill thought through legislation will hit the statute books because why fix the system when you can just legislate a knee jerk reaction.

The Qatar World Cup
I am not a football fan, but I do live with one, so IT IS ALWAYS ON, this tournament seems so conflicted for all of reasons. The World Cup in Qatar is surrounded by controversy, all the way back to how it became a host nation. With a current questionable human rights record, the working conditions and death of construction staff through to last minute changes that just mean even Qatar have failed in the mission to just make it about the football. But its bittersweet, for some nations it’s the first time they’ve qualified in a lifetime. I can usually go with the flow for the World Cup, but this time I just can’t get excited. Ps: Not to mention its winter in the northern hemisphere.

Current watch: Friends – It’s been a week and there will be more on that at some point, but this week I just needed comfort, familiarity and Friends and yes, I am that old, I used to wait to go out until Friends had finished. I used to have to wait for episodes.

Current read: When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress by Gabor Mate – With many friends reading the Myth of Normal, this book has been waiting in my TBR, as the owner of a few autoimmune conditions and the fascination of the mind-body link- and the role of emotions and stress in their make-up, this has been a fascinating if not slightly painful read on the costs of modern living.

Most impactful listen: Origin Story Culture War: Inside the rage machine – An insightful look into the history behind culture wars, explaining the modern fascination with defining everything as a culture war and why it makes such good political fodder.