You might be starting something off here. Food-based acronyms 🤔 PASTA: Ponder Ayatollah’s statements thoroughly, always SAMOSA: Study ayatollah’s messages or statements, always

someone should have the courage to show Trump his or her palm and ask him to talk to it.

I'm still struggling to process the realisation that, in less than a month, the United States has put itself in a position where whoever is in charge of Iran actually has a stronger influence on whether the United States risks economic recession this year, than the US President himself.

Note that, taking stated Green values of pro-Net Zero and anti-poverty, three *clearly* better things to do than this proposed universal bailout could be: - Targeted relief at the poorest. - Give people cash instead. - Spend the money on solar/heat pumps etc. This is bad *on its own terms.*

All this focus on his outbursts is out of date: he may no longer be in control of when this ends, and how. For trading the market we've gone from TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) to PITAS (Probe Into The Ayatollahs' Statements). - www.ft.com/content/bc60... via @financialtimes.com

small pullback overnight in Asian equity indices ↘️, US & European equity futures also soft ↘️, oil & natural gas ↗️, precious metals ↘️, bond yields ticking up ↗️, $ index ➡️ we're stuck in a holding pattern, as US vs. Iran so-called peace talk agendas too far apart; the market has BS fatigue, I think

acoup.blog/2026/03/25/m... "There is a very real risk that this conflict will end with Iran as the de facto master of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf...That would, in fact, be a significant strategic victory for Iran and an enormous strategic defeat for the United States."

Skyla would like me to throw her monkey, also I can't have it even for a second

Honestly my first, second and third reactions to this projection are all just this: blimey.

Omg this starts well.

When do investors expected a US-Iran ceasefire to be struck? a survey here from Deutsche Bank

useful Substack identifying the UK productivity problem as more on the side of demand for innovation than supply of it open.substack.com/pub/jundu1/p...

Thanks, @gilesyb.bsky.social. Here is my newsletter this week on this very topic: open.substack.com/pub/macroeco...

I was at a meeting yesterday where the most passionately expressed opinion was "the UK needs to channel more money to the SME sector, that is where all the growth is", and I felt I needed to put the data out there, again

"At this point, were Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for being allowed to develop nuclear weapons, nobody could be sure Trump would turn it down. If Iran made him the inaugural winner of the Cyrus the Great peace prize, those odds would improve."- www.ft.com/content/2656...

Rare photo of Russian warship part way through Ukraine's submarine conversion service.

POD O CLOCK me and @robarmstrong.bsky.social , both a bit sniffly to be honest, on: -why do investors listen to the president? -nobody knows anything -although some oil traders got hella lucky? -Short kings -British compliments open.spotify.com/episode/3aUJ...

"The Republican who previously held the seat had won by 19 percentage points in 2024." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Wondering what leverage in negotiations looks like? Australia's new FTA with the EU provides 16,830 tonnes of tariff free access for beef. Australia's FTA with the UK, completed with a desperate Johnson administration, provided 35,000 tonnes tariff free, rising to unlimited over 15 years.

pca.st/episode/8894... The @newstatesman1913.bsky.social podcast with @phillipspobrien.bsky.social is extremely good on the irrationality of war, the similarities between the invasion of Ukraine and bombing of Iran, the motivation of building a legacy....

open.substack.com/pub/aleximas... Really useful discussion of an accessible model for this question

Big row developing between two of Reform's leading public figures:

housing is more expensive now, but also a lot safer. this kind of home was considered cream of the crop in the 1980s

"Just two weeks ago, the president declared the war with Iran to be “very complete, pretty much”" ... and every syllable out of the president’s mouth turned out to be nonsense" by TACO-meister @robarmstrong.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/16c1...

Whether it’s conditioning or reflex but there is way too much attention given to STIR positioning/pricing especially in instances of extreme market machinations (such as war etc) It’s invariably always just one big momentum trade

"Tehran is deeply distrustful of a president who has twice launched attacks against Iran while negotiations were supposed to be ongoing and has insisted on the regime’s total surrender." www.ft.com/content/8c43... Important corrective to anyone's optimism from yesterday. Still takes two to tango

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS HATTER

Poem of the day from the East Anglian Daily Times.

Bleak House (2005) had the best cast of any adaptation ever and it's not even close en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleak_H...

"If they're not awful and bloody, then they're not the right ones" @gilesyb.bsky.social spoke to us about the difficult choices still facing the Government, as we discussed the aftermath of the Spring Forecast. Subscribe to our podcast here 👉 buff.ly/lJaDs3C

thecritic.co.uk/suicide-of-a... "call it idealistic but I just don’t think a book that claims to defend British culture should be so short on eloquence, wit, scholarship, poetry et cetera"

I do think the Guardian should know better than to equate the base rate with "UK Mortgage Interest Rates". It is no wonder people get confused about economics when they start getting told that the BOE is setting "mortgage rates"

I am beginning to wonder if this is a big error. This is not 2022, there isn't a gallon-load of demand-fuel in the system, history doesn't always repeat or even rhyme. Policy needed tightening then becaus NGDP growth was way outside its good range. Now it is where it should be ...

if Claude means I don't have to visit the ONS website ever again I may actually break down with emotion

Is there a way to donate to get new ones yet? This shit will not stand

The ghost bankers haunting the City - www.ft.com/content/49b4... Nice melancholy read

UK STIRs now pricing in almost 4 rate hikes by year end at 95bps currently:

What's the perfect GIF for your BlueSky persona?

Wouldn’t it be funny if they all just read the writing on the wall, realised the game was up, quietly cracked on with other stuff like making money, and the UK just drifted back into the EU orbit as though the last 10 years were just a nightmare we woke up from?

Danish PM rides Trump Greenland row into election resurgence - www.ft.com/content/a6ca... There's definitely a lesson somewhere buried in here for the UK Labour party but, darn it, I just can't work it out

"So far, there is little sign that either Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, or Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, want a new fight over Brexit, which is now widely unpopular with voters, including among many Leave supporters." www.ft.com/content/b031... In a day of otherwise rubbish news

Having failed to secure the Snickers or M&Ms that were my original objectives, sources tell the Washington Post I will now be refocusing all energy on extracating my hand from where it is stuck inside the vending machine and restoring said machine to the working order it was in prior to my arrival.

How can this go on for another 3 years?

"Bunch of guys obsessed with Ancient Sparta can't beat the Persians at sea" was probably one of the known-knowns, come to think of it.

the human body was not designed to know what the worst person in the world is doing every fifteen minutes

Is this the outline of a deal?

At some point even the most brain dead supporters of the instigator of this war will ask what he meant about Iran's forces having been obliterated. Surely.

Ok, is this a B1 bomber?

Disturbing piece on the religious hypocrites launching their assault on UK politics- giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... my spin not that of its peerless author @henrymance.ft.com