Rachael McKelvey

• 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.

• Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty
• Interest Rates remain uninteresting
• Collins Dictionary word of the year
• It’s been a week for AI
• Will 2024 yield recession & a new government?

Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty
Oh it’s been a week in the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried with the jury taking just over 4 hours (which included a break for dinner) on Thursday early evening to find 31-year-old Bank-Fried guilty on 7 counts of fraud and conspiracy.  Nearly a year after FTX was declared bankrupt means  Bankman-Fried could rack up a sentence of up to 110 years.

After a monthlong trial prosecutors successfully argued he acted simply through greed which caused the biggest financial fraud in US history, one to many speculative investments, generous donations all while using customers money to prop up his hedge fund. Bankman-Fried himself, rather unconventionally, took to the witness stand assuming he could no doubt talk his way out of things, but neither the prosecutors or the judge were impressed with his inability to answer a simple question.

Closing statements from the defence claimed the immortal line “poor risk management is not a crime” shortly followed by “bad business judgements are not a crime”. Prosecutor Danielle Sassoon was flawless throughout but her closing argument was a little bit of a chefs kiss urging the jury to reject Bankman-Frieds assertion that his former colleagues were implicating him in return for lesser sentences stating “He was the one with the plan, the motive and the greed to raid FTX customer deposits – billions and billions of dollars – to give himself money, power, influence,” Sassoon said. “He thought the rules did not apply to him. He thought that he could get away with it.”. All eyes now turned to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan who will determine his sentence at a later date.

Interest Rates remain uninteresting
Interest Rates remained unchanged by the Bank of England Thursday which saw the London Stock Exchange jump. The Bank of England held interest rates at the 15-year peak of 5.25% mirrors the policy decision taken by the US Federal Reserve the day before and European Central Bank the week before, which once again the majority of the Monetary Policy Committee voting in favour of holding the rate.

They were expected to be held in all honesty simply because its too soon to think about rate cutes and anyone who thought they would do anything different is dreaming, I’m looking at you Iain Duncan Smith. The economy is moving at a snails pace, but its moving and the job market is starting to cool but this does mean that householders will be facing higher mortgage rates for longer, with economists warning a rate cut is unlikely within the next 12 months.

Despite this, the rate hold seems to please the markets, with sterling holding firm against a softening dollar, 10 year bonds rising and on track to have their best day in the last month and rate sensitive sectors such as real estate and homebuilding also seeing share prices rise quite considerably with most sectoral indexes actually ending up higher and leading with some really positive corporate earnings, looking at you BT group with your second quarter earnings ahead of forecast.

Collins word of the year
I don’t think it will come as any surprise that this week Collins Dictionary named “AI” word of the year, it’s strangled hold on 2023 has been quite firm, usage of the world has quadrupled this year. Managing Director of Collins Alex Beecroft (great name) said “we know that AI has been a big focus this year in the way that it has developed and has quickly become as ubiquitous and embedded in our lives as email, streaming or any other once futuristic, now everyday technology.” 

Words of the year often seem to reflect the fixation of the time, last years winner was permacrisis following the rather interesting revolving door of prime ministers and general crisis in UK politics, the years before was NFT and unsurprisingly the year before that’s winner was lockdown. 

I think the contenders who missed out also help acknowledge the current zeitgeist, the rejects included “canon event”, “debanking”, “deinfluencing”,”nepo baby”, “greedflation” and “ultraprocessed” which I think might say it all about the current state of affairs. 

It’s been a week for AI
It has been quite a week for AI with Rishi Sunak hosting the UK’s AI safety summit at Bletchley Park on Wednesday with 100 world leaders, tech bosses, academics, researchers and Elon Musk. The aim of the summit was to discuss how best to maximise the benefits of AI while also manging the risk (but just remember “poor risk management is not a crime”) Musk warned AI poses “one of the biggest threats” to humanity stating it as an “existential risk: because humans for the first time were faced with something that is going to be far more intelligent than us”. 

No great surprise this was held in the UK as according to the latest Artificial Intelligence Index from the Standford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence scepticism about the benefits of AI is highest in predominantly western countries such as the UK, Germany, France and even the US.

The other AI news of the week is that this week saw the Beatles release “Now and Then”, their final song after they used AI to recover just John Lennon’s vocals from an old noisy cassette recording after 45 years, all four Beatles appear on the track and it has been released as a double A-side single with their debut track from 1962 Love Me Do.

Will 2024 yield recession & a new government?
Busy week for The Bank of England voting on interest rates and warning that Britain may risk falling into recession next year after a “bleak assessment” that resulting in “slashed forecasts for UK growth to zero”, forecasting no growth doesn’t seem too wild, the economy is moving incredibly slowly, and the job market has cooled. And while I understand the concerns at rate stagnation and a possibility of “potential recession” I’m a millennial who basically doesn’t know how to live without trying to hum louder than some sort of economic crisis going on in the background.

What a backdrop for a general election and a US presidential election hey? The current chancellor Jeremy Hunt, ever the optimist, stating “the best way to deliver prosperity is through sustainable growth” it will be interesting to see what, if anything, they can deliver to entice the electorate to vote in their favour again. The middle of the year recession prediction either means they optimistically head into a spring election just as it begins to bite or they really roll the dice and aim for later in the year where the possibility that things really will be stinging the electorate.

Current watch:  Pain Hustlers – I’d like it noted that I made it through a film, maybe it was the concussion, maybe it was the company but I would like it noted that I made it through a 2+hour film and it was a corker.

The premise is broke single mother stumbles across and amazing opportunity in pharmaceutical sales but she has to bend the truth to get there and bend it even further to stay there. Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Andy Garcia and the ever amazing Catherine O’Hara are just so well cast.

While entirely fictional, the film is based on real factors in the Opiod crisis and there was a fentanyl-based drug company that did race similar real-life consequences for the types of schemes the film portrays it is actually based on a novel by Eva Hughes. It’s a darkly comical in places and wildly illuminating in others, I would recommend.

Current read: Do Less: Be More – How to slow down and make space for what really matters by Susan Pearse and Martina Sheehan – If anything recently everything has been screaming at me to slow down a lot, don’t fill every minute with ‘doing something’, being busy is not a bad of honour but actually detrimental to my health and doing more doesn’t ever actually meaning achieving more. This book explores how to do less and achieve more with 21 very practical exercises that will help you reduce the amount of hours you work but remain just as productive, how to take things off your to-do list and why its important to be bored as a way of making space to spend your time doing the things you love instead. The tagline for this book is “If you’re someone who says: ‘I’ll wait until I have nothing to do until I do nothing,’ then this book is for you!” and it really is.

Most Impactful Listen: Unhedged: Sam Bankman-Fried takes the stand – This podcast was recorded just hours after closing arguments in the fraud trial of Sam Bankman-Fried where the former founder of FTX crypto exchange had testified in this own trial. Reporter Joshua Oliver joins the team to talk about the trial, why and how Bankman-Fried took to the stand, how hard it is to find a smoking gun in white-collar criminal trials these, the excellence of prosecutor Danielle Sassoon and just what it’s like to hear your own name in testimony. For a short record it packed a punch.

Any excuse to talk about coffee!
First I have the coffee and then I do the things, except in this last week…a small head injury and few wonky blood pressure readings have meant that I have been at least a week caffeine free and feeling quite feeble and apparently there is some science in that. 

Researchers from the National University of Singapore have found that a cup of tea or coffee a day keeps you stronger into old age, and the sample size wasn’t small, there were 12,000 participants aged 45 to 75 over a period of twenty years and the outcome was that drinking tea or coffee during those middling years was linked to a reduction in physical frailty in old age!  So I am hopeful that doubling down I’m doing in my late thirties will mean I hit my middling strong, the magical power of coffee knows know bounds, it is linked to reduce risk of early death and some diseases (and the jitters). 

The research team added that “further studies are still needed” to “investigate if these effects on physical frailty are mediated by caffeine or other chemical compounds”. Which basically sounds really promising that 2 cups really might be the answers. So yes please, get the kettle on.

Even shop lifting is now stealing to order
This week has seen Ministers have unveiled a new police taskforce to tackle a rise in shop lifting, but why now? In the year to June 2023 there were 365,164 lifting offences reported to the police, that’s over a 1,000 reported offences every single day a day which is up 25% on the previous year and double the rate of 2019.

The British Retail Consortium say the problem is costing £1 billion a year to tackle, with a lot of that money spent on crime prevention methods including security staff, but also single entry and exist systems as well as body cameras for staff, alongside incentives to change merchandising layouts in stores placing the items of higher value closer to the tills, locking away baby formula and fake packets on shelves.

The rise in shoplifting is partly fuelled by the cost-of-living crisis. Local shop keepers are saying they have noticed an increase organised crime gangs who are stealing to order. The chair of John Lewis has also raised concerns about safety of works in the face of “organised gangs” saying it is “not an exaggeration” to describe the trend as an epidemic. She added that it “feels like in the last year we have moved from putting an extra six eggs in the shopping basket you haven’t paid for” to “organised gangs shoplifting to order in a way I find profoundly shocking”.

 

Level up, but not like that!
I wrongly thought the concept of “levelling up” had been scrapped but this week I learnt there is still a Department for Levelling Up and their view of implementing the four day work week in local authorities without adjustment to pay would not be value for money for tax payers and that it feels so passionately that it has threatened consequences on any English council that proceeds to adopt a four-day week.

The squabble has arisen as a result of South Cambridgeshire Council who have extended their four-day work week trial, originally part of wider trial run last year by 4 Day Week Global, following its success in all the obvious places but also in those vacancies that have been harder to fill and retain. The councils deputy leader made a pointed comment this week stating “We…are looking to be innovative exactly as…[the levelling up department] demands. But apparently it’s the wrong sort of innovation”.

Apparently the Government is still supportive of and employees right to request flexible working, and there is new legislation on the way to make this a right from day one of employment but apparently just making things nicer for everyone in such a different working landscape to 20 years ago is just a step too far.

 

Apparently its not good to talk
Ofcoms latest Telecommunications Market Data Update shows just how anti social we’ve all become!

As a nation we are spending less and less time on the phone, with 1528 million less minutes being spent on landlines and 3.34 billion less minutes being spent from mobile phones. A whopping 60% of mobile users prefer to use messing services to contact people rather than voice calls or text, with data volumes up 27% and text messages down by 15.5%. Apparently it is no longer good to talk (IYKYK, welcome along you’re as old as me).

I fall into the “elder millennial” category and I can confirm none of us love to talk, except recently I’ve started much preferring it, but still only with allowed friends and by pre-arrangement over a non text based messaging service so maybe I am proving the point. 

Except there is one thing professionally, if its urgent pick up the phone. I was recently chased for something that was apparently late by email, it was not late I just didn’t know this person needed it. I was chased twice in a 90 minute window and I can honestly say I did not check my emails that day for about 4 hours, because you know what…if its urgent at worst drop me a message on Teams and at best give me a call, that’s when calling is useful. 

The Barbie Movie Effect
Hand straight up I still haven’t seen the film, but you’ve got to have been living under a rock to not know that the Barbie movie came out in July with some absolutely sensational marketing around it, the partnerships, the out of home advertising, the in home advertising, you can’t have missed it and neither did Matell, the toymaker behind the original Barbie doll. 

This week the company reported a16% year on year increase in gross billings for Barbie toys which boosted over all sales by 9% year on year to $1.9 billion, yielding a 27% growth rate in the company’s dolls category which is huge, but how do they keep the momentum? With more franchises of popular toys on the way, that’s how and you can understand why! 

The Barbie movie itself has equally impressive statistics becoming the highest-grossing movie of the year and taking in over $1.4 billion across the world at the box office. Ps: Can’t wait to the Polly Pocket film.

Current watch:  Sue Perkins: Perfectly Legal – Such joy! Sue Perkins goes around South America to experience some of the most utterly bizarre but perfectly legal weird stuff. From getting shot, to joining a death cult and nearly getting hurt at Mexicos national firework festival. It’s very easy to watch, win, and the people she meets along the way are wonderful (apart from the donkey guys, they’re weird and that’s uncomfortable, skip passed it) It’s a little bit mad but it’s quite something and although Sue Perkins doesn’t have to put herself in such extremes to make a good travel show, somehow there isn’t anyone else I’d rather watch do drugs in the desert.

Current read: Cat Lady by Dawn O’Porter – I had a rare opportunity to escape the chaos around me, enjoy a beautiful view & just read, all day so of course I picked fiction, the kind that ruins you and puts you back together over the course of the book. The main character Mia plays the part people expect without flaw, she is a good wife, a diligent and real stepmother, she gives everything in her career but actually it’s not who she is and through a series of events outside her control the life she has carefully crafted to suit that narrative crumbles and she has a choice to continue to live her life for others or risk living it for herself. This book is funny, it’s life affirming, it’s as clever as it is silly, it leans into the fact it takes a village to live a life but that the village you need might not be the village you expect you need. I couldn’t want for a better companion for my day.

Most Impactful Listen: WorkLife with Adam Grant – The Three Big Myths of Mentoring – Well, if this wasn’t just what I needed to hear at just the moment I needed to hear it. Adam Grant specialises in Organisation Psychology and I’ve found a lot of value in this work, this episode of his incredible WorkLife podcast digs into the science behind what makes a good mentor ,and it’s not what people typically think, how to build an effective mentor-mentee relationship and helps unpick some of the stories we tell ourselves around our possibility and potential. The podcast explores the relationship between Sophia Chang, Korean-Canadian hip-hop trailblazer and Michael Ostin head of A&R at Warner Music and what that 36 year relationship has looked like for mentee and mentor. The podcast also explores the benefits of reverse mentoring and the impact this has had at Virgin. I have been blessed with finding the right mentor for the moment in my life and I am forever grateful for their advice and support and this podcast got me thinking about what I am looking for and what I can offer at the next junction.