Mar ’24: A towering influence

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I’ve enjoyed March.

I managed to enjoy a few days’ skiing, despite less snow than any of us would like, in the Austrian alps.

Back at home, the sun has been getting stronger, and the evenings have been getting lighter – and now with Summer Time we will enjoy lovely late evenings for six months.

And I’ve been reflecting recently on a key influence in my life – the author James Clavell.

I remember as a child in the early 1980s being astonished that my mother could take on a 1300+ page book. Shogun, Clavell’s third key novel, had just been televised into a TV miniseries – the first western production ever filmed in Japan, apparently – starring Richard Chamberlain. I enjoyed the miniseries enough that soon enough I was reading the book myself – and I was gutted when, after those 1300+ pages, it finished.

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Feb ’24: Envyidia

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I’ve had quite a lot of culture to enjoy in February.

Aside from some travel for the Six Nations rugby, I’ve been to two shows – one in London’s Royal Opera House and one on the south coast.

Thanks to HMG for the subsidy

Both events were either full or practically full. Covid feels fully behind us now. But the prices have stayed with us.

A cultural lighthouse

I was struck by the demographic difference between these two nights out. I know, I know, the demographics of opera and concerts are not a fully reliable guage. But I was practically the youngest person in the audience at Poole’s Lighthouse concert hall, whereas I felt 2nd quartile old in London’s Royal Opera House. Is this a reflection of where the money sits – with retirees only in Dorset, and with well-heeled workers and tourists in London? A rhetorical question, for now.

Markets in February 2024

The USA stock market continued to be the main story in February.

Though if you were paying attention, the Japanese market has been setting new records too – the Nikkei 225 is up 20% Year to Date.

It wasn’t just Japan that’s booming, with Asia ex Japan up 4.5% in February itself. Over in Europe and Australia we had much less excitement; Europe ex UK was up 2.8%, Australia up only 1.2% and the misery-guts UK’s market rose only 0.5%.

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Jan ’24: A giant tax bill lands

FIRE v London1 Comment

One of several highlights for me in January was visiting Salisbury cathedral, which I did on an impulse while travelling back from the Coastal Folly.

My main frame of reference to the cathedral being those notorious Russian nerve agent assassins citing it as their reason for visiting England, something which to a Londoner had as much plausibility as as Putin’s claims that Ukraine’s Nazis started the war. I hadn’t taken seriously the idea that the cathedral might actually be a reason to visit England. But I would say I was wrong – it is stunning, and surprisingly moving. Photos really don’t do it justice.

Elsewhere in the world, the focus has shifted from the Ukraine war to the Gaza crisis – which has escalated to the Houthi shipping attacks off the Yemen.

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