All of our pessimism, no matter what our individual politics, just seems to glance off his passivity. Howling into the void but the void has an actual shape and a name this time.

Had been having a conversation earlier with husband v similar to one that it turns out was playing through Stephen Bush’s mentions: ok, I don’t like Starmer at all myself but why is he so extravagantly & widely hated? And now I feel like it’s become clearer to me:

As I reflect further on yesterday’s experiences I cannot decide whether it is a failure of tact or an admirable absence of hypocrisy that accounts for the restaurant at Malta’s National Aquarium having a dedicated sushi menu

yep yep yep

I have been grinding my teeth about this all morning. ‘Monitoring’ is not the same as ‘banning’ but is often the same as ‘counting’ and if you wanted to know as the regulator how effectively harm reduction measures that assume the absence of VPNs are working you may have to count the VPNs

I was told it was quicker at street level, but instead found myself in a completely different station called "Monument". A strange and savage nation.

The very last room had complete sets of Durer’s prints of The Small Passion and The Life of the Virgin. So unexpected, like I’d got on a bus and it was being driven by the archangel Gabriel. We didn’t make it to the cathedral in time.

Fellas you almost know - George Romney, Jan van Hermessen or fair ‘circle of/workshop of’ paintings of fellas you do know. Badly lit & unlabelled but still, nice. Much better than I expected without any warning

The first floor of the museum was like every cathedral museum you’ve ever been to. Here an alb, there a mitre, reliquaries both spooky and pitiful, monstrances. The second floor had a pretty good set of paintings by the third or fourth rank of European artists.

…but there is also the strange expectation that seems to be upon regulators now: they are responsible for selling the concept of new regulatory categories to entrepreneurs. Based on the likelihood of ‘systemicity’ it’s shouldn’t have absorbed as much regulatory brainpower as I know it has

I am not sure it is quite this. I think the path to here runs through Libra panic, the BoE’s desire for thought-leadership in the BIS, the perception that payment system operations should be primarily guided by monetary policy theory 1/2

Everyone! Just do NewBacs! Stop wasting your time with this stuff! Shame the agency that had responsibility for innovation in payment systems got dismantled just as some of them realised what the job was, really.

(Bluesky defensive posture activated) I do not actually see the world this way and neither I suspect does the very talented Cat

After the daring heist (+ intelligence) he dragged the stolen sachet back to the bowls & protective mats before eating (++ intelligence AND manners) so checks out