Having grown up watching zillions of re-runs of Friends on TV, I always felt that every coffee shop in the world ought to have a nice big leather sofa like the one in Central Perk. It’s somewhere for all those zany best pals to laze about, joking, teasing and simply goofing around. That sofa and armchairs are central to what the best coffee houses are all about, aren’t they? But wait a minute — maybe not! Earlier this week, I

Formula One’s global popularity is undeniable. With the cumulative TV audience peaking at 1.55 billion over the course of the 2021 season, it is no surprise that the premium motorsport has become a multi-billion-dollar business, bringing in fans from all corners of the world. Forbes estimates the total value of all ten racing teams to be around $18.8 billion, and global media rights are expected to be worth $1.4 billion by 2029. However, as the sport continues to flourish, one

I’m not a big football fan, though I do follow Brighton, to a degree. They are my local team, and back in the early 1980s, my dad used to take me to watch the odd game at the old Goldstone Ground — now a retail park. I also take a passing interest in statistics. It’s part of the job. And I have long had a suspicion that Brighton’s results are somewhat erratic. I think I can date this back to

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending day three of the final Ashes test match at the Oval. The sun was out, the conversation was flowing and the cricket was good. The only problem was the price of the beer (or cooking lager, as some describe it) — at £7.60, the venue’s offering is no longer the kind of thing that you can pay for with the loose change in your pocket. I’ve previously used this blog to explore

Back in 2018, I started my first work experience at a large Spanish insurance company. One day, a group of outsiders came to our floor to lead a conference about new ways of working. I will never forget the moment the presenter approached me and a colleague, both impeccably dressed in our smartest suits, looked us up and down and said: “You guys don’t have a clue what the movie is about — digitalisation has arrived!!” Not so long ago,

During a recent birthday trip to County Mayo, I spent an afternoon in McDonnell’s. The locals know it as ‘The Lobster Pot’, given the difficulties some face in leaving once inside. Newcomers are shaken by the hand and welcomed to Belmullet by Padraig, the affable owner, and the regulars ensure no-one stays a stranger for long. Like any honest boozer, there is no food menu. But there is food. At the end of the all-Ireland Gaelic football final,[1] fresh sandwiches

The world of economics and finance runs on equations, models, statistics, backtests and predictive analytics. It seeks out objective causal relationships that can be quantified and verified. The mantra “correlation does not imply causation” has been drilled into my head from an early stage. One of my first memories from undergraduate studies is learning about spurious correlations, like the relationship between stock returns and sunny days. [1] No prizes for guessing I was at a British university. Yet over time,

I recently went back to my hometown in Norway on holiday. Growing up in a country which is relatively cold, you’re not guaranteed warm weather for any length of time, so you need some other focus for the summer. For me and for most of my friends back home, the definition of summer is: strawberry season. For about two months of the year, Norwegian strawberries are sold at markets and stores all over the country. For these two months, it’s

The weather was great when I was last home and we enjoyed a couple of lovely family barbecues. You won’t know this, of course, but my dad considers himself quite the expert at the barbecue — as all dads do! That’s why he’s incredibly fussy about allowing his steaks a decent amount of time to marinade. Anything short of four hours and he’ll complain that the taste will be ruined. On the other hand, if my brother is in charge,

If, like me, you follow coverage of the war in Ukraine closely but aren’t an expert on Sino-Russian relations or a historian, you probably think Russia and China are best friends. After all, the bromance between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping has ‘no limits’, or so we are led to believe. I’ve grown to accept this narrative, although with a nagging feeling at the back of my mind that this isn’t as accurate a description as the narrative intends. So,