Josh Spero
LightNews LightNews
banner
joshspero.ft.com
Josh Spero
@joshspero.ft.com
11K followers 900 following 3.7K posts
Wealth editor, Financial Times. I like swimming, classical music and cryptic crosswords. he/him 🏳️‍🌈 josh.spero@ft.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
joshspero.ft.com
You may remember over the summer I was photographed by Changke Li, a student at the London College of Communication in fab trousers (1). Her concept was I was walking down the street when my wig blew off. Final picture just landed (2)
A smiling bearded man wearing inflatable black rubber trousers which make me look like a pair of scissors Taken from a high angle: me walking down the street as my wig blows off; in front of me is my shadow and the shadow of the wig
November 6, 2025 at 7:59 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Louvre suspects:
McDonalds advert showing chicken nuggets under the slogan It’s not theft, it’s a flavour relocation
November 6, 2025 at 7:41 PM
joshspero.ft.com
on.ft.com/4nD0ABu
“It’s so nice to support a politician who is too young to have been friends with Jeffrey Epstein,” says Gianmarco Soresi, a stand-up comic who hosted the October rally in upper Manhattan.
November 5, 2025 at 9:12 AM
joshspero.ft.com
Made a costume but too tired to go to the party 😂
Smiling bearded man wearing a clear pyramidal hat and a white T-shirt with an empty plinth drawn on underneath a plastic tunic with a jagged hole cut out
October 31, 2025 at 8:59 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Apparently this is sexually suggestive, per Bluesky. Thanks, I guess?
Screenshot showing a label has been applied to this picture
October 27, 2025 at 9:17 AM
joshspero.ft.com
Off to Florence in January — all recommendations welcome, especially food and non-€€€ hotels
Botticelli’s Birth of Venus showing a nude woman standing on a gigantic clam shell, with my face eating a bagel superimposed on hers
October 27, 2025 at 7:57 AM
joshspero.ft.com
Scary stats about the black cab trade (my dad’s profession) in London: “Just 104 new drivers were given black cab licenses last year; that number was closer to a thousand less than a decade ago.” www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
Graph showing the declining number of black cab drivers from 25,000 around 2013 to 16,000 in 2025
October 27, 2025 at 7:51 AM
joshspero.ft.com
Screenshot of me muting the word traitors forever
October 23, 2025 at 9:21 AM
joshspero.ft.com
OMG Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” was inspired by something James Brolin said to Barbra Streisand. I am DEAD.
And then he said something one night that I'll never forget. We were lying in bed, spooning. He was holding me, and just as I was about to fall asleep, he whispered in my ear, "I don't want to fall asleep.' Drowsily, I asked, "Why not?" "Cause I'll miss you." What a beautiful, poetic thing to say. And it captured a moment of complete bliss... physical, emotional, spiritual. I told that story when Jim and I appeared on 20/20 with Barbara Walters in 1997, and the songwriter Diane Warren happened to be watching that night. She was so taken with Jim's words and thought the idea was so original that she was inspired to write a song and use it in the lyric: I don't want to close my eyes I don't want to fall asleep 'Cause I'd miss you, babe And I don't want to miss a thing. Performed by Aerosmith, "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" debuted at number 1 and became their biggest hit, selling millions of copies around the world. It was so gratifying to see so many people responding to Jim's words.
October 21, 2025 at 5:20 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Asked and answered, your honour
Two ads on a Tube platform. The left is for Jack Daniels and has the strapline: You don’t know Jack. The right is for the London Dungeon and has the strapline: Can you hunt down Jack the Ripper?
October 20, 2025 at 5:00 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Young George Condo was a smokeshow! (Ignore Drella)
Black and white photo of a handsome young man with dark floppy hair being hugged by Andy Warhol, ghostly pale with blond hair
October 20, 2025 at 8:52 AM
joshspero.ft.com
Your timeline is blessed with a triple-m German word (voice module)
Stimmmodul
October 17, 2025 at 3:48 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Commonwealth tree? Looking good, Dalston
A tree thickly hung with large bright flags
October 17, 2025 at 7:58 AM
joshspero.ft.com
on.ft.com/4hgVV6W How Vladimir Putin’s history rant in Alaska nudged Donald Trump closer to Ukraine
There are some signs Putin may be aware the Alaska talks could have gone better. “It’s not funny,” he said, when asked earlier this month if he had explained the history of Ukraine to Trump.
October 17, 2025 at 5:49 AM
joshspero.ft.com
Martin Wolf back in the comments (under a very positive review of Nigerian Modernism at the Tate) on.ft.com/42F542Z
Win one for the Gipper 51 MINUTES AGO Creative bankruptcy and talent vacuum being championed by the freaks at Tate Modern. Martin Wolf, FT FT 10 MINUTES AGO Why should anybody take this idiotic remark seriously?
October 12, 2025 at 4:12 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Garbo talks! Tbf Garbo never shuts up
TV screen reading Breakfast talk with Josh Spero, FT wealth editor
October 9, 2025 at 7:41 AM
joshspero.ft.com
In the creative industries/the media and want to mentor? @artsemergency.bsky.social is looking for enthusiastic professionals
Although we have lots of great potential mentors, we are still short of applicants in the Merseyside region and we could do with more applicants in London working in the following career areas: - Gaming and animation - Fashion design - Broadcast journalism - Visual arts: illustrators / people with illustration experience or any experience relevant to character design - Performing arts: musical theatre performers or people with experience in the musical theatre industry - Film & TV - on screen - Architecture and interior design
October 9, 2025 at 6:04 AM
joshspero.ft.com
YEF!
Two hoardings with words on placed next to each other to make nonsense: SAUARE IS TAPTER IN A AND YEF REIT
October 8, 2025 at 8:04 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Exceptional commenting
LondonLad: Yes! Chocolate prices have gone a bit wild. And for addicts like me a fix has become expensive. I find the 70-85% cocoa ranges the most palatable and am amazed how many countries produce fine cocoa. Coffee and chocolate are my only two remaining pleasures in life. Give me a break! gks42: give you a kitkat?
October 8, 2025 at 1:30 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Finito! Only 650,000 words to go
A copy of volume three of Proust
October 7, 2025 at 12:23 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Yes, looks good on.ft.com/47cA5ho
An incredibly complicated flow chart of money from OpenAI to and from companies including Microsoft, Nvidia and Meta, basically showing that some of the flows are circular
October 7, 2025 at 11:40 AM
joshspero.ft.com
What a great nugget about the Vermeer show www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/10/06/b...
Braunschweig’s Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum refused to lend its Girl with a Wine Glass (1659-61), arguing that the city’s schoolchildren “should have the chance to see the actual painting”. The Rijksmuseum then offered “buses to drive the students to the Amsterdam museum, so that they might view no fewer than 29 Vermeer paintings—this was declined”.
October 6, 2025 at 1:29 PM
joshspero.ft.com
How Trump cornered Netanyahu into signing up for peace
on.ft.com/47caogU
when Netanyahu finally made it to the White House on September 29 - days after Trump had already presented his peace plan to Arab leaders - the president handed him a phone receiver and listened in as Netanyahu humbly apologised to Qatar's prime minister.
October 6, 2025 at 5:44 AM
joshspero.ft.com
I'm still waiting for the stiffy. I'm sure my thick invitation card to the British Museum's Pink Ball later this month - blush-coloured, ornately calligraphed - has got lost in the post. A pity, as I'd love to witness that august institution's inaugural take on the Met Gala, New York's premiere catwalk-slash-fundraiser.
October 4, 2025 at 6:45 AM
joshspero.ft.com
Peninsula chefs can also work with residents' vets to "create bespoke ... menus that support" the dietary needs of their pets.
October 4, 2025 at 6:38 AM