by Crawford Spence* There is plenty of work out there on financial intermediaries. Most of this can be found in finance or economics journals and displays little evidence of its authors having spent any time with financial intermediaries at all. Rather, studies looking at asset managers or investment bankers tend to be carried out at […]
Books
Roger’s Thesaurus In order to grow, expand, widenhis lexicological corpus,Roger bought, acquired, purchaseda synonymopedia, a thesaurus. Soon, presently, without delay,he no longer ran out of things to say,speak, utter, express, articulate,give voice to, pronounce, communicate. This was all very well, fine, great,wonderful, super, terrificbut his friends, mates, pals found himboring, tedious, dull, soporific. So let…
Arriving in November, BBC's "The Art of Time Travel" is a Doctor Who concept art book that showcases 20 years' worth of concept artwork.
by Vijay Selvam* Bitcoin has failed. Seventeen years since inception, Bitcoin remains a solution in search of a problem. With its eyewatering volatility, it has flopped as an inflation hedge. The much-touted scarcity of its 21-million-coin cap is rendered meaningless in a landscape teeming with thousands of other cryptocurrencies, each claiming to be scarce in its own […]
I took delivery yesterday of some advance copies of the gorgeous new edition of ‘You Took the Last Bus Home’. In celebration of that, here’s the title poem … You Took the Last Bus Home you tookthe last bus homedon’t know howyou got it through the door you’re always doing amazing stuff like the time…
A few unconventional beach reads from the Conversationalist team.
by Jawied Nawabi* At least, since the end of WWII the world has advanced significantly in scientific knowledge, technology, and the institutionalization of universal human rights conventions, yet there still prevails enormous levels of inequality, malnutrition, and poverty in the world. With all our advancements in the social sciences in the past seven decades on how […]
5th of June 2025 In George Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother’s state of Oceania is perpetually at war. This never-ending conflict is not a conventional war to be won, but rather a tool of control. The paradoxical party slogan “War is Peace” is the key idea. Continuous war justifies continuous surveillance. Orwell’s novel vividly illustrates how … Continue reading 1984 Revisited – Robert Skidelsky and Attila Mesterházy Jr.
Doctor Who companion Sophie Aldred has launched the charity book Ace's Jacket: The Inside Story, with proceeds going to deserving causes.
Last week saw the release of ‘Sounds Made by Humans’, an album of ‘poem songs’ I’ve made with the brilliant Catenary Wires. The album is out now on vinyl and CD; it’s also available for streaming on Spotify and elsewhere, and can be downloaded. Some places where you can find it… BANDCAMP SHOPIFY ROUGH TRADE…