Rachael McKelvey

• The Paperchase scandal continues…
• Netflix has absolutely no chill
• The 28 days of February
• The best fruit tea is hot squash
• International Snow Sculpture Championships

The Paperchase Saga Continues…
In out, in out, has Paperchase in Administration again? The news almost isn’t news anymore. It’s been a week for Paperchase, whose last decade has not been without scandal from plagiarism, advertising in the Daily Fail and the wake of creditors it’s left in the last 3 years.

Since the early 2000’s Paperchase has been on a wild ride, the buyout from Borders, the subsequent administration and closure of Borders in 2009. It’s new retail partners of the 2010’s and subsequent management buyout that did see new stores and growth but significant loses accruing in the background.

2021 and administration knocked on the door for the first time and less than six months after the previous buyout we are here again. PwC just need to dust off the working papers and they’re good to go again.

Paperchase has failed to secure any viable offers as part of the sale process to buy the business as a going concern (all of it, buildings, staff, name the lot) so now it can be stripped for parts. Tesco has entered the chat. Tesco has bought the Paperchase brand and its intellectual property and hopes to roll out products under the name as part of existing plans to build out their home and clothing department.

Netflix has absolutely not chill
It’s the announcement that Netflix has been warning users over for months and now is finally year, once every 31 days your device must log in on your home Wi-Fi network or you account will be blocked.

The start to 2022 wasn’t exactly Netflix finest year even by its own subscription count standards, but in the final quarter of the year it grew by 7.7m subscribers, reporting a lofty 8.9m growth for 2022 but now where near the height of the pandemic.

The launch of the Anti-Password sharing measures are in the hopes of boosting revenues to hopefully attract some of the estimated 100 million share log in users to become subscribers…sometimes when you are so popular there aren’t that many other things you can do to increase your revenue.

I’ve just renewed my existing budget for next year – how much on subscription services! So we don’t have multiple Netflix account monies for the few days a week I don’t live with our current account holder, good luck with the other 999,999 users!

The 28 days of February
February is an underrated month simply by its proximity to January and all the motivational dirge that January brings, chances are you’re not as resolved in February as you were in January, you’ve likely had a statement of some kind that quantified how much Christmas cost and it’s dark all the time.

But February is the kindest gift when you really think about it, 28 days short in a standard year and the return on investment for just making it through February is astonishing. It starts off standing way too close to January but by the end you have all the pre-emptive Easter goodies in the shops, you hear the birds sing, you might even start to see some snowdrops and other bulbs appear and sunset is closer to 6pm!

Hang in there, we are so close.

The best fruit tea is hot squash
There has been a lot of fruit tea chat going on this week, in real life, online, everywhere and my unpopular opinion is if you want a hot drink that’s not tea or coffee then you can’t go wrong with a hot squash, some form of blackcurrant based beverage to be exact.

I don’t know where you’ve been the last few months but we have had some cold snaps and with the price of heating (and eating) I think we’ve all be like I’ll just have another hot drink & put on another jumper…but you can’t drink endless tea and coffee, so what else is there? Herbal teas…again you can’t drink lots of those, hot water…which if you’re not a fan of water cold it doesn’t get better just because you boil it, so that leaves the humble fruit tea.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some nice fruit teas that exist but the best fruit tea is hot squash. Fruit teas tend to be over marketed and therefore over priced, smell great but taste at best like different coloured water and at worst a little like jazzy coloured pond water (I’ve drunk a fair bit of pond water in my time, I am qualified to say this)

Last week I lamented the abandoned Sports Direct mugs in office cupboards up and down the land, because when I want a hot squash I want a pint, not a cup. I said what I said.

The International Snow Sculpture Championships
Please can we talk about International Snow Sculpture Championships, this house love hates the cold, we are both allergic in our own ways to the cold (Raynauds) but he loves to ski and I like swimming in cold water.

The winners of the 32^nd annual International Snow Sculpture Championships held in Colorado were announced last week and they are SO good. 12 teams from eight countries battled it out for just short of 100 hours, starting on the Monday and finishing on the Friday, 24 hours a day, in freezing temperatures to turn 12ft 25 ton blocks to snow into art ready for judging and display.

Team Germany-Bavaria won with “Sub-Zero-Gravity”. All the pieces are absolutely breathtaking but I think my favourite was Lithuanias entry “Warn(m)ing Clouds Intersect, it won Bronze Place and Artists Choice Award, it can be seen in this nice news article.

Current watch: Searching for Sheela – I first heard about Rajneeshpuram on 99% Invisible when the episode aired in 2015 about a utopian city built from the ground up on ranch land in Oregon by Indian philosopher Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and Ma Anand Sheela, his secretary. With devoted imported citizens the dream became a reality until it all started to fall apart one allegation at a time from murder, sterilization, the worst domestic bioterror attack in history and a firebombing all linked back to Rajneeshpyram. Netflix in 2018 released a documentary Wild Wild Country that bought what I already knew about the scandal inside Rajneeshpyram and the part that Sheela played.

Sheela fled to West Germany but was extradited back to the US and was convicted of attempted murder and fraud along side some other charges, she served 39 months of her 20 year sentence and on release moved to Switzerland and bought two care homes supporting disabled senior citizens. This hour-long documentary follows Sheela on her first trip back for India for many years to promote her autobiography, she visits her old home and goes to events to talk about how people need to move on her past.

Current read: Say it with Charts – Gene Zelazny – Learning that doesn’t feel like learning, or a fun refresher. Written as workbook this is your one stop guide to visual communication. I had reason to pick it up this week just to reaffirm the basic concept of how to put my message in visual form and create a persuasive powerful chart and I forgot how useful and fun I find this book, with work projects and solutions to test your knowledge and just written like you’re in this together problem solving. It’s on its 4^th edition (2001), with a lovely little splash on the front that says “Covers New Technologies and the Internet” but despite being 20 years old, it still holds up today.

Most Impactful Listen: The Diary Of a CEO – Davina McCall: How To Overcome ANY Trauma & Live The Life You Deserve – My memories of Davina are Streetmate in the late 90’s and Big Brother from the 2000’s and then I feel that Davina went full on diet culture and then there was the ill-timed tweet on the disappearance of Sarah Everard that just meant I had mixed feelings and I just wanted to find out a little more about her. I don’t think there was anywhere left to hide, this interview is so vulnerable and insightful. Davina talks about her childhood, her battle with addiction, what made her get into TV and where her positivity comes from. In the last guest question section, she addresses the mistiming of her tweet and while we will never be the kind of friends we could have been during her Streetmate days, I feel like I understand a bit better where she’s at and I’m happy for her.

• Burgernomics: The Big Mac Index
• Are podcasts a convenient excuse to read less?
• Women in the workplace
• They joy of homework
• Professional standing

Burgernomics: The Big Mac Index
The Economist bi-annual update to the Big Mac Index has dropped this week which is one of the best pieces of data analysis in the world, bar none. The Big Max Index is a price index established in 1986 as tongue in cheek way of explaining the purchasing power parity of two currencies. The Index tests the theory to what extent market exchange rates results in the same goods costing the same in different countries.

The McDonalds Big Mac is available in most parts of the world and is priced based on local economic factors, wages, ingredient costs, advertising spend so it really does exemplify purchasing power.

It was never intended as a legitimate tool for exchange rate evaluation, but the world loves it, because its easy recognisable and accessible and it sort of works. It not only works to calculate an implied exchange rate between two countries, it can also be used to analyse whether a currency is under or overvalued.

This year’s results imply that the British Pound is currently undervalued by 12.9%, with a Big Mac in Britain costing £3.79 and US$5.36. The most overvalued currency by 35.4% is the Swiss Franc and consistently the most undervalued currency by a whopping 65.6% is the Egyptian Pound, with a Big Mac costing less than US$2. I have no idea what flights cost but let’s go!

Are podcasts a convenient excuse to read less?
I caught this article in last weeks FT about whether podcasts have become a “face-saving” mechanism for non-readers under the pretence that podcasts are educational.

I used to think audiobooks were cheating, but I’m a grown up now with responsibilities in a chaotic world that expects me to show up perfectly absolutely everywhere and while I consider the physical act of reading print important enough to find time to do it, others simply don’t have that luxury or are even able to so if a podcast is an easier way to accessing inaccessible material then you know what, fill your boots.

Podcast covers every genre, in every conceivable way, history but make it funny, You’re Dead to Me, education that’s also equally as stupid, No such thing as a fish, advice on modern life that is both funny and refined Help I Sexted My Boss, want to know if that self help book can really help By The Book , and every other podcast I could mention but won’t.

The medium isn’t for everyone and that’s okay, you don’t have to be smug about it. “But people are starting to conflate it with the hard grind of learning” …and that’s okay.

Women in the Workplace
I’ve had a lot of conversations recently about women in the workplace and you think the world might get somewhere in your life time and then Government Ministers think the best way to support mothers back into the workplace is a letter writing campaign, I can only assume there will also be an update to legal tender laws where these letters can be used in exchange for childcare and presented to an employer for guaranteed non prejudiced flexible working?

While this government continue to trip over their own feet, I find it absolutely astounding how little evolution there seems to be in making room for women in the workplace, admittedly we have not been there as long as men to work it out vs a lifetime for our male colleagues. The 2022 Women in the Workplace study from LeanIn.Org and McKinsey the largest comprehensive study of the state of women in corporate America, highlights that women are drastically underrepresented in leadership and leaving in droves, there is a “broken rung” that’s holding women back from being promoted to managers and if they are promoted face a series of assumptions they are still the least qualified in the room. Can’t imagine why a mother would swap precious time with their child in their early years for that.

The joy of homework
This week my current foster dog & I got to spend some time with a Dog Behaviourist and now have a protocol designed to help my current four legged pal cope a little better in the big outdoors and I am excited!

It’s so hard to see him not be able to enjoy everything the world has to offer because he just doesn’t know what to do with himself in certain situations through no fault of his own.

After agonising for hours on the website about what toys he might like to assist his training, they finally arrived and before the parcel was even fully opened, he had picked his favourite, the first…so I am super pleased I agonised over the rest of the contents – it’s a good job he’s cute.

We now start some very specific and dedicated, 100% fun play indoors everyday with this toy before we graduate to the next phase…I do not need asking twice to play to the exclusion of all other things with this little man, in fact it’s a highlight of the day!

Professional Standing
In a week that has seen the Minister for the cabinet office subject to an independent investigation for his tax affairs, alongside the the current Deputy Prime Minister; and the former Prime Minister now all subject to independent investigations into their behaviour I’m sitting here a little confused how these things aren’t actively routinely checked.

To be anywhere near financial services I’ve been DBS checked regularly, I must disclose my financial holdings and interests regularly and those of my partners regularly even though we are in no way legally or financially connected to each other, but we do live/work in the same house more often than not.

I am not saving lives, I am not setting standards for the nation to live by and I am not protecting vulnerable individuals in any way, so why are we all held to different standards of account? I’d have lost my job and my career at even a hint of some of the allegations against those in the roles above and I am not the only one, I look across my close friend group and I’ve no doubt they’ve had to meet a standard regularly to continue in their positions.

So yes, to those asking if anyone really care about the individual affairs of certain individuals in positions of power, we do. It should be part and parcel of the ability to hold those roles.

Current watch: Panorama: Dogs, Dealers and Organised Crime – My gosh this was an excruciating watch, Sam Polling went undercover to examine the relationship between organised crime and breeding dogs, specifically bulldog breeds. The episode shows the cruelty and negligence the designer dog trade results in and while it’s a truly hideous watch, its important to see what goes on behind that cute dog picture you might see on social media and how you like really does perpetuate the perceived desire.

Current read: Quiet Girls Can Run the World: The beta woman’s handbook to the modern workplace by Rebecca Holman – My first book from the library! I am very much a Beta gal, probably more so than the author! Pragmatism, collaboration, quiet, that is my jam. This book is full of anecdotes, interviews and case studies exploring the role of women in the workplace today, we’ve only had 60 years to work out how to get the job done and be successful. I’ve found reading this book oddly comforting, a timely reminder to lead your way because you can’t be what you can’t see and maybe our generation of Beta leaders may never make it to the board room in a world that only acknowledges more masculine qualities in female leaders, but it won’t always be that way and we’re paving a way for those behind us to take that next step on.

Most impactful listen: The News Agents: Nicola Sturgeon on Gender, Starmer and Prince Harry – Lewis Goodall travelled to Holyrood to sit down for a long chat with Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, and Leader of the Scottish National Party. Despite your feelings on her politics it’s hard to deny her presence in British Politics, she joins us with being on her fifth Tory Prime Minister and I always listen in interest when she speaks in slightly longer form than we get to see her portrayed in the media. Lewis talks to the First Minister about her political career, the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, the next general election and the strengths and weaknesses of all those in the revolving doors at number 10. The quick fire round on this one made me laugh out loud. It took me back to Alastair Campbell Living Better in Lockdown interviews where Nicola was a guest and spoke with such humanity

• Jacinda Ardern “I no longer have enough in the tank”
• HMV returns to profit!
• Let us eat cake!
• Did you feel blue on Monday?
• Finding some new enthusiasm

Jacinda Ardern “I no longer have enough in the tank”

Jacinda Ardern this week announced she will stand down as New Zealand Prime Minister on 7th February, during her really authentic speech in Wellington she explained she had hoped to remain in post over the summer until the next election but had not been able to find the energy and the heart to continue.

Ardern said ‘I am leaving because with such a privileged job comes a big responsibility. The responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead – and also when you’re not.’ What a display of leadership, the likes we rarely get to ever see modelled in our lives and even rarer on the political stage.

While its fair to say the legacy left by Ardern is that you can be a power leader and lead with compassion but the price for that is considerable toll, a toll far more considerable as a women in a mans world.

HMV returns to profit!
HMV has returned a profit for the first time since it was bought out of administration in 2019 by Sunrise Records’ C$1.5m who now operate the remaining 114 stores. HMV saw its operating profit hit £2m, with over 60% growth in revenue and gross margin.

The return to profit is thanks mostly to an increase in vinyl sales which surpassed the sale of CD’s for the first time since 1987 and I think the rather clever vinyl exclusivity marketing artist are making part in their releases.

I still love a flick through the displays in HMV, it’s how I spent most of my youth, the part of my first real pay check was spent in HMV and my Business Studies A-Level course work was about the impact of the return in popularity of vinyl. There was a solely vinyl record store in town and my project showed there was demand but not supply, new artists needed to press records as well as burn CD’s if this shop ever hoped to survive. Sadly, it did not, but I’m excited about the prospect of getting old and returning to flicking through music from my youth on vinyl.

Let us eat cake!
Professor Susan Jebb professor of diet and population health at the University of Oxford was obviously feeling brave this week announcing to the world that “Bringing cake to office as harmful as passive smoking” and that “workers should think twice before bringing unhealthy treats into the workplace which might tempt colleagues.”

Professor Jebb also happens to be the current chair of the Food Standards Agency but the FSA were quick to assure the public the comments were made in a personal capacity and did not reflect FSA policy or the view of its board.

While its hard to disagree with Professors Jebbs comment about environment and that if there isn’t cake to eat during the day then typically most people wouldn’t eat cake it’s also January and cold and I firmly believe that anyone who brings cake to the office should be put on a plinth and sprayed gold.

A solid tip to eating less office snacks is if they are not homemade or foreign and unavailable in local shops then you absolutely don’t have to have one because Mr Kipling will not be offended, but if they fall into either of the categories above then they’re calorie free anyway so why not!

Did you feel blue on Monday?
So the third Monday of January for the last 19 years has been affectionately referred to as ‘Blue Monday’, this sweet day only just an adult, eligible to vote, get called for jury service, get a piercing and now no longer eligible for free education has also been debunked that I do not understand why the media keep making a thing. IT. IS. NOT. A. THING.

‘Blue Monday’ only exists because Sky Travel asked a psychologist Cliff Arnall in 2004 for a “scientific formula” to explain the January blues, and while the “formula” takes into account all the reasons why January both sucks and blows a bit, the weather, the return to work, the fact your December credit card statement is landing but you know what the antidote to potentially the most depressing day of the year? It’s not a marketing campaign designed to make you book a holiday.

I think the wonderful Joe Tracini has it right when he says that while we are better at talking about mental health we talk about it in terms of here is something to fix it, not in the real way we need to have the conversations and I think things like ‘Blue Monday’ are just a great example of that.

Finding some new enthusiasm
I had my first 1:1 swim coaching session of the year where I have every part of my swim analysed, what my feet were doing (good), where my heels were in the water (good), my body position (good), my head position (good) and most importantly what my arms where doing (not good – octopus in a string bag).

I like to treat myself to these every 6 months or so, just to check in, strive for continuous improvement. The experience is always invaluable, whether you’re a seasoned swimmer or a total newbie, swimming is not one size fits all, while the mechanics are the same they look very different in different bodies, you also don’t know what you’re doing in the water until you can see it yourself or have it explained to you. Having this session, the support of a very knowledgeable coach and the feedback and suggestions on how to address the concerns I have with my own swim.

I have been rescheduling this for nearly 6 months now, I had an awful year in the pool last year…in that I wasn’t consistently in it. But this session left me feeling more confident, has lit a little fire and left me incredibly excited about how this year might turn out.

Current watch: India: The Modi Question – Part one of this BBC documentary aired on Tuesday that examines the relationship between Modi and the attitude of the government towards India’s minority Muslim population. This episode starts at the beginning of Modi’s political career and shows how the foundations have been laid for the rise in fascism in India under Modi. This is a fascinating, well sourced and important documentary, India is the largest democracy on the planet with great influence and a key ally to many nations. Part two airs this week, see you there.

Current read: The Art of Career Change for Introverts: How to stop chasing the wrong jobs, utilise your strengths, and build your ideal career by Rebecca Healey – Relatable content for any introvert who is having a mid-career crisis (It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me) and while there is nothing ground breaking or out of the box in this book any introvert knows it’s nice to have a conversation without having a conversation. This book is a nice mix of prompted introspection and takes you on a step-by-step journey down a thought process that might resonate and provide the mental floss you need to feel a little less unstuck and maybe make some steps to help you be more yourself at work.

Most impactful listen: The News Agents – Armando Iannucci on the prince, politicians and being a ‘spare’ – Armando Iannucci joined Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel to discuss Harry’s book, the current state of politics and the similarities between the attack on democracy in Brazil and the January 6th riots. They cover the what and the why, offering an insightful perspective, a dose of cynicism and the odd laugh thrown in. Armando Iannucci created The Thick of It, Veep and Alan Partridge and if you don’t love any or all of those things, we cannot be friends. 

• The good in social media
• How does your brain think?
• FTX has found $5bn in liquid assets
• How much for Beanz?
• How do you do all the things?

The good in social media
I’m too old for TikTok and really should delete it, but occasionally it throws up a brilliant thing that is so many things. This week an 82 year old Navy Veteran managed to retire after a GoFundMe raised £89,000 ($108,682).

Imagine working till you’re 82? The GoFundMe was set up by Rory McCarty who owns a company called Bug Boys and he has 300,000 followers on TikTok from sharing the bugs he finds at work. Rory posted a video of him and Warren to his account that was viewed over 3 million times.

Warren is the third Walmart employee able to retire thanks to the generosity of TikTok users…so really my mindless scrolling could change lives at some point!

How do you think?
Off the back of this weeks most impactful listen I’ve been spending the week thinking about how I think, I have aphantasia, a blind minds eye, meaning when asked to visual something – I can’t, its blank. I only “know” I am thinking of the object. So it turns out being an aphant means I use a range of cognitive skills differently to those who see things in their minds eye.

Until this week I would have told you I have an internal monologue, but actually thinking about how my brain works I now know that I don’t, there is no running commentary, there is no range of voices, I am not even sure there is a voice, there is no back and forth. I just think things and I can range of thinking a lot of things at once and never not think about something but I am able to think of nothing…Silence.  

But this doesn’t mean I don’t have an imagination or that I can’t be creative, it just means my brain does it differently. It’s been fascinating to work out how I get somewhere and then ask a hyperphant how they do it. Fascinating.

FTX has found $5bn in liquid assets
At a court hearing on Wednesday this week just gone, lawyers representing FTX declared they had found cash, securities and liquid crypto to the value of $5bn and was asking the court to allow a quick sale of 4 subsidiaries, 2 US regulated companies and FTX units in Europe and Japan, to raise funds to repay creditors.

The amount of shortfall between what assets the company owns and what is owed to creditors is still “not yet clear”.

The court also agreed to allow FTX to keep the names of its creditors secret for at least 3 more months to protect the sensitive commercial nature of the information, FTX were hoping this would remain protected for 6 months but this was challenged but US trustee and the media that the public has the right to access judicial records, just as in any other legal case.

This just gets weirder and weirder and more interesting, future accounting students don’t know how lucky they are on this one!

How much for Beanz?
A little bit like the Big Mac index for currency, the price of Beans has recently become a  useful real indicator on the impact of inflation, while I doubt anyone who shops for food hasn’t noticed the impact of inflation on the weekly shop this week has seen another price increase of Heinz Beanz.

Heinz has raised its price of a can of Beanz for the second time in less than a year. The first time saw a very public spat with Tesco that saw baked beans and ketchup stripped from the shelves after Heinz stopped delivery for a number of weeks.

The food industry is under incredible strain due to increased production costs from ingredients to energy and packaging and there are only so much you can absorb without having to increase your retail price.

Will Tesco revolt again? Will other retailers also pull a face? Given the reported increases in like for like sales and increase in revenue over the Christmas period, I hope not, but only time will tell.

PS: Branston beans are better.

How do you do all the things?
It’s been a week on this end of the screen, how about you? Why are best laid plans never enough? Why do they speak so clearly to my brain in a way that really disincentivise me from wanting to make plans again and strongly cheerlead just winging it when I know that doesn’t work either?

Now I have done it once I am hoping to be able to do it again better, I took too many things to do with me, I over estimated how long things would really take – hi Thursday traffic I am looking at you, I didn’t prepare enough in some areas and overprepared in others.

Did I only take too many things to do because I didn’t plan enough on the other things and if I do that this week did I then actually pack the correct amount of things to do? How do you know? How do you do all the things?

Current watch: The Good Doctor  – I am somehow so behind on life I had no idea that season 6 had arrived in the UK! I absolutely adore The Good Doctor, just the perfect medical drama. Freddie Highmore as Dr Shaun Murphy is just a delight, he plays a young autistic savant surgical resident at San Jose St Bonaventure Hospital. Shaun uses his extraordinary skills to save lives and challenge norms. I highly recommend you start at the beginning S1, Ep1 to watch Shaun and the team develop and grow, but even if you have only time for one episode, just pick one. Representation matters, you can’t be what you can’t see.

Current read: Wheel running in the wild – I don’t always reads books, I read anything. A friend kindly drew my attention to this paper from the Royal Society of Biological Science from 2014. A Dutch scientist placed a running wheel outside and saw that it was used wild mise and other wildlife just for fun! The paper is just a joy to read, THERE ARE PICTURES. Some animals used it intentionally, they even did it when there was no reward or incentive to do so. At the urban test site a significant number of the mice who used the wheel were not of an age to know there was ever a food incentive to bring them to the wheel. It was such a wholesome read in the background of the bonfire that is most other news right now!

Most impactful listen: The Case of the Blind Mind’s Eye – The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry – If you close your eyes do you see things, or are you aphant like me? I literally see nothing and didn’t realise other people saw things until I was in my mid to early 30’s! In this Episode Adam and Hannah speak with a neurologist a psychologist (who also see’s nothing!) and a Philosophy professor about the recently named phenomenon of a blind minds eye and how it impacts all aspects of cognitive behaviour. A podcast that felt like a sympathetic hug.

• Learning maths until you’re 18
• Joining the library
• Sam Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty
• The cost of winning at all costs
• New Year, new nothing

Learning maths until you’re 18
Like most I was confused how seemingly out of the blue this announcement came and given the backdrop it was proclaimed against quite how rather out of place it seems. I also have to grapple with my own feelings about maths and school. My maths teacher quit 6 weeks before our GCSE exam having not taught us the syllabus, we all got downgraded to the intermediate paper (highest grade possible a B) and on still learning things as we were walking into the exam hall I only got a C. It still haunts me.

I was not great at exams, nor dealing with the panic at that age and while I do agree with Simon Pegg in many ways that the world needs more of the softer unmeasurable skills I also come back to the joy in maths, how maths is actually fundamental in creativity and expression but also the bedrock to most things, enter Hannah Fry and Marcus du Sautoy whose life’s work is showing just how creative and how applicable maths is.

So my real feelings on this aren’t as polarised as I first though, they come back to the fundamental belief that education needs reforming, children should be taught things of value, applicable to real life, in a creatively and fun way, whether its maths, sciences or English and the door should always be left open to pursue further education without barrier.

Joining the Library!
I joined the Library this week, I know I know, the last thing I need is more books and while I am inclined to agree, the library is so much more than books.

While signing up, there were conversational language groups happening in the meeting space downstairs, I recognised Spanish and German from two of the tables, there was also someone who was learning to read, there were books, there were computers, there were tables and chairs, there was warmth, community and non-judgement.

In a world where it feels like there isn’t time to use these local services, there is always a way. In joining the library I also joined Borrow Box, an audiobook app where I can borrow an audiobook right to my phone, for free.


Sam Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty
So Sam Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges over the collapse of FTX and the 4 week trial is set for 2^nd October, the judge also protected the identities of the two guarantors of his $250 million bail bond.

Bankman-Fried at age of 30 is facing 8 charges including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities and securities fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and campaign finance violates as a result of the collapse of his crypto exchange. I think it might be an uphill battle after the former CEO of Alameda Research and cofounder of FTX both pleaded guilty to wire fraud in November and have agreed to co-operate with US authorities

This trial is already set to be anything but ordinary, due to the possible 1 million creditors left behind in FTX’s wake the prosecutors have also told the court they will notify victims via a website rather than individually as normal.

The cost of winning at all costs
I eventually gave up following the elections for the Speak of the House, probably just over the halfway mark in the rounds of votes, I think its dangerous to want something that badly. I know Kevin McCarthy has been wanting this is whole life, but I don’t know if that makes you good for the role or not. Based on recent events closer to home I think I can speak on behalf if just about everyone that we all wish Liz Truss hadn’t wanted to be Prime Minister at all costs.

McCarthy made light of his success at the 15^th attempt, following the appeasement of members of the Republican party with a number of concessions, were these in the best interest of the party as a whole, were they really the right thing to do, or just the thing to do to get what he wanted? Time will tell on McCarthys fitness to lead the house and further test my hypothesis on winning at all costs.

New Year new nothing
If you’re doing dry January, chances are you gave up by the 5^th and I do believe if you’ve resolved its next week that you might give up. I’ve never been much of one for resolutions but this year I have decided to set an intention.

Just a single word by which I can measure actions and intentions and see if they resonate with my single word of choice. I am hoping this word will guide me when I can’t decide because it will either fit or it won’t and it will also keep a focus to create some change for the better without having to declare a want to be a different person or achieve a specific thing…those things will happen if my word of choice helps me make the decisions to get there.

Current watch: Limitless With Chris Hemsworth Run, don’t walk to Disney+. An absolutely phenomenal series. Chris Hemsworth is on a mission to live better for longer and takes on six unique challenges supported by top scientists that test his mind, body and soul to the max. I learnt, I laughed, I cried and now I really fancy trying Navy Seal drown training. It really make me think of the ways I could find to live better for longer, with some very practical take aways even for those of us who don’t play Thor part time.

Current read: How to Make the World Add Up by Tim Harford This has been in my TBR since release, I get the FT weekender solely for Tim’s column, I listen to More or Less and Cautionary Tales and I always like to re-read his books. How to Make the World Add Up is an indispensable guide to thinking twice about numbers and headlines using ten (plus one golden rule) to understand the numbers, how they are presented and what they really might be trying to tell us. I think I might really be a frustrated not quite clever enough economist, but even without that interest this is a fascinating read in world of disinformation and quick attention grabbing headlines.

Most impactful listen: Lost At Sea Another binge listen where the BBC investigate the disappearance of a fisheries observer 500 miles off the coast of Peru. Journalist Rachel Monroe walks you through the seven-part investigative podcast to find out what happened and how a ship can return to port a month later without someone on it. I found myself hooked and absolutely fascinated by the work of fisheries observers and how juxtaposed they are to life on the high sea.