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I'm sure you can figure it out.

It's an unusual and notable name but you don't need to play guessing games because you have the notes, of course.

There were a few scattered references to the "SEC Chair", I recall... Mr JC himself, if I'm not mistaken.

(PS. I think these papers need a health warning... it was my very maddest phase. "Demented Jo" is what they say, isn't it? Still, that's why the permissions are restricted. Go figure. In my defence, I would just add that a couple of people were mocking me with "finger gun" executions that summer and had been doing similarly eccentric things for almost a year. Tra la.)

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This?

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That is a strange thing to want to know about.

I did kickboxing for years and enjoyed it. My PT and I were good friends...he even stayed in my attic for a while. A friend once said he'd heard a rumour the two of us were involved but we weren't and his girlfriend used to come and stay too. It was all great from my point of view, he was tidy and helpful, we were friends, I was fit, the boy was delighted—a relative golden period. Later he got married and went overseas—suggested it might be easier to make ends meet outside London. (I suspect the London gyms are pretty exploitative, btw, in terms of their cover charges.) Eventually I heard he'd been involved in an accident, which seems very sad.

What was odd about it? Not much at all that I recall. There was an awkward incident when I recommended him to an elevated City character and they didn't hit it off at all (to put it mildly). The City Chap took against him and complained to me after meeting him just once. I thought that was...unnecessary. But I didn't think it was surreal or eccentric. Anyway, later I introduced him to staff members and they did hit it off. I'm not sure whether any of them stayed in touch.

J was very big on gurus (Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Dale Carnegie...) and encouraged me to write a daily diary setting out goals and gratitude lists and things. The whole exercise as defined by some of the books he recommended was quite prescriptive and they typically specified that one should include very assertive financial goals in the list. We talked about this quite a bit. J's general idea, I think, was that increasing one's ambition in any direction would somehow increase one's drive and self-discipline in the gym—I forget how it was supposed to work but, then again, perhaps it did! I'm a bit of a slob now and, look, no diary!

So, I don't really have an odd vignette but it does remind me of two other things that happened. My commuting friend once quizzed me about whether I kept a diary and I said "no" because I didn't think the lists qualified as such. She gave me a bit of a look and I felt, I dunno, briefly challenged and wondered if somehow she knew about the lists. (This was long before the world got crazy and I started making notes about anything and everything.) 🤷🏻‍♀️It's the tiniest thing, I might have been mistaken and there are stronger examples of odd links between two ostensibly unconnected parts of my life.

The second thing is that I felt set up to try and pretend to an ambition I didn't really have in a thing—let's call it a performance review—at my other place of work. I started to feel this odd anxiety around pressure to express or feel more ambition—particularly financial ambition. But, two instances don't make a trend and I still mostly think it was just an unfortunate coincidence.

Still, one half of the Duo told me around that time I was the most "ambitious" (or was it "competitive"?) person he'd ever met. I was stupefied, literally lost for words. That is figuratively like Paula Radcliffe accusing Katie Price of being the most obsessive athlete she's ever met. No. To his OWN knowledge, the only thing I wanted was the flexibility to work overseas in some capacity. I was the person trying to escape the City, deprecating the idea of being a judge, turning down pay rises to focus attention on staff salaries, refusing offers to take up networking arrangements, turning down the boondoggles, choosing not to apply for GC jobs because things had been a bit "traumatic" and expressing huge reluctance over the benchmark thing. I was the person literally using the words "I'd just like get away from here as soon as possible". He could only possibly have meant it in a constitutive sense: "If I keep saying this, you will become competitive and BE the ambitious person I have in mind." So, I guess it was three instances...

Well, that is unless you count that weird time a bloke invited me out to lunch in 2016ish and offered to help me find a "real salary" of £500k if only I would marry X. The conversation actually went: Him—"What is your dream job?" Me—"Are we including wild, unreal dreams? Him-*nods* Me—"Then probably Head of Legal at the IMF or World Bank—something in Washington, anyway." Him—"Hmm. Well we should see if we can get you a real job, with a salary of £500k or so. Me—*nonplussed* Him—"And, do you know? I think you will [marry X]." Me—"Um, no, actually I really don't think I will." Him—"Oh I think you will." (Or something almost identical to that.) And then, please note: I. Did. Not. Make. Any. Move. To. [Marry. X.] 🤷🏻‍♀️(Also, please note that being able to put your finger on an ambitious fantasy for the purposes of engaging conversation is not the same thing as being competitive or driven.)

Oh, but hang on there was that other time... with the chap who gave us calendars and told me it was my moral obligation to identify my career "passion". Anyway, what I think I said that time—a little bit later—was exactly what I had begun to say very carefully to almost anyone who raised the subject of my career: "In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, self-actualisation sits at the top of the pyramid and it is not possible to ascend the pyramid unless one has first satisfied certain survival and comfort needs. I am, on that basis, in no position to discuss any career ambitions." Or, perhaps, I just fumbled it and argued about Maslow later when recounting the incident.

And then there were the two senior women who made separate appointments just to tell me that "women should be paid what they're worth, don't you think?" Anyway, I'm gonna stop here because, as it turns out, there were hundreds of those kinds of conversations and I'd forgotten about most them.

That's a sidetrack and a half! By 2017 I had a different PT, also very nice and... also not odd, that I recall.

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She was following his lead?

I don't know if, let alone why. I can tell you that she resented the other half of the Duo—feared him slightly and said so.

Er... well, some of these individuals in the milieu had a personal ambition to join the "Brotherhood" as late-stage employment, that's one idea. Otherwise... er, well, the Duo were keen on work experience in Beijing and I vaguely recollect she had some connection—or connection at one remove--to Hong Kong. That's pretty tenuous tho'.... practically non-existent, really. After June 2016 I would have said that they clearly both shared the same "Boost London" perspective but before that? Well, you would have to posit that they both understood Brexit to be either a desirable outcome (which she very much denied) or a probable one and, I dunno, it completely blindsided me.

Still, the fact remains that they are the two most prolific authors of eccentric vignettes...

No, I can't think at all.

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Purdah...

is the (mildly?) offensive name given to the pre-vote moratorium on political comment that applies to civil servants. There was a lunch on a different subject which I hosted in early 2016. It had been arranged with one of our funders at the suggestion of some of my many bosses. The guest of honour alluded to the possibility that the moratorium applied to grey-area NGOs and government interlocutors. His organisation was robustly commercial but he seemed to be saying he would observe some kind of moratorium. R and/or K, who were both present, expressed comfort with that idea. The lunch was very odd and the original pretext for the lunch was not, I think, touched upon. The whole exercise felt pointed but this was before I became aware of any code-pushing and I took that point to be a contender for a tacit agenda. (There was another pointed comment—one of two that I recall—about making money for speaking engagements. I had long taken the attitude that to do so would be to make a secret profit unless disclosed—although I have not always been clever and alert enough to do exactly the right thing in my life, I hasten to add—but there seemed to be some effort underway to widen a permissive window on the subject.)

So, following that lunch, I felt that I should observe the moratorium. The year before, it was a simple case that one member of the Duo spoke up and urged the entire organisation, in plenary, not to comment or engage with the issues—legal or political--and they concurred. That is what I meant by "we must do what we are told to do". I was not, tbc, referring to some kind of caving in on my part to improper government or commercial pressure.

Is that what you mean? Or are you just saying that my posts are controversial because, if so, then....🤷🏻‍♀️

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Yes, of course...

I always took it that the two of them shared—or bolstered themselves with—the attitude that the reputation of the old lady was a question of FS that justified anything and everything, both in abstract and on their part.

I"m sure there are some appropriate analogies from history.

What is ironic, I suppose, is their ties to the political left when it is an inherently authoritarian attitude. I have always, in fact, called it "totalitarian" because it places an abstract idea—a state entity, if you like—over and above the needs and interests of all the individuals affected. And, when I say "all" I mean, not just the little worker ants like me who may be stomped on but all the stakeholders too. Of course, if you create a permission and forgiveness structure for any kind of behaviour (provided only that it is not "disruptive") what you get is the lifting up of corruption, selfishness, negligence and so forth and the slow erosion of everything good, like excellence and talent.

But I still find it almost impossibly hard to imagine why they thought their own input was justified. It was quite evidently wrong, from first principles, and necessarily damaging to their primary obligee(s)—of which my little organisation was the very least consequential. And so, they would have had to say to themselves: "We are doing this thing for utilitarian reasons, knowing that it is wholly misaligned with our nominal duty. We are doing it in service of the most important principle of all and we—although outsiders and not in charge—are the only ones that can do it effectively." That, of course, raises the questions why they thought they were called upon and what talents or insights they thought they were bringing to the table. I would hazard that there are no good answers to those questions but that they thought their political and other institutional connections gave them insight into the all-importantness of FS and that their qualifications made them indubitably suited to create a forgiveness structure. And what a diabolical structure it was.

But that is essentially what happened in April 2013 and that is what many of the subsequent dinners and visitations etc were about.

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Are we playing a game?

"Conspiracy theories"? I'm pretty sure that's my rellies. 'Nuff said.

I have a million anecdotes but...well, these Peeps are of me & mine. The gist of it all is just code pushing, anyway. It was sad because code-pushing is a particularly egregious form of gaslighting and no one quite understands how very much I hate it. I mean, it's the moment when implicit trust disappears isn't it? Until now (2017)—one might say--we were family but today we've somehow become people on opposite sides of a toxic and unacknowledged secret. I think that's just very, very sad. I suppose it's something like the sadness one would feel on uncovering evidence of a spouse's affair.

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Someone else I didn't know...

Only this time, I literally didn't know her. I was only in the room with her once. What can I say?

I'm going to preface my tiny contribution here by saying that I spent all my time feeling sorry for her. Which is weird in all the circumstances of our respective positions, but I heard the gossip and (I hope) she did not. The backroom refrain was that she "knew nothing", "couldn't keep up" and "was not up to the job". I want to be absolutely clear: I did, and still do—by some 100%—chalk this up to the misogynistic and racist milieu in which we were all swimming. It says everything that those sharing this view were not just administrators but analysts and that I did nothing except wince internally. It was, essentially, the classic try-hard white boy's means of bringing a successful woman of colour down to his level. And, I say that confidently without ever being much inclined to don the social justice political garb of identitarians. I heard no gossip about her departure but assume that there would have been some. My natural inclination, as you know, is to attribute the toppling of any valuable talent to the diabolic machinations of the valet but I have absolutely no evidence for that view beyond the obvious fact that the scurrilous put-downs would probably not have spread unless he allowed them to.

But you want the eccentric vignettes and I remember only one, and even that, not very well. A board member suddenly said something that suggested knowledge of her personal thinking and viewpoints... private thoughts, if you will. It was a moment in passing and I remember it not at all... I only recall the impression it left on me. But, it was at roughly the same time as he said that he was "visiting" another woman in the institution on a daily basis. I found that latter comment absolutely flabbergasting. I just kept thinking that it was horrendous from almost any perspective you like—from my perspective as someone who should have been properly TUPE'd, from the company perspective given the obvious conflicts of interest and the regulator's concerns about legacy cosiness, from the broader institutional perspective given that she worked for an organisation that should (more than any other) make its own decisions and, of course, from the separation of powers perspective. (In the latter case, I'm afraid, I did form the view that she was a little out of her depth and that worried me, too, IAtCotC.)

That's it. Sum total, I think.

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Oh no. Those days are long over.

We’re gonna be talking about the Robin Hood App—using, downloading and communicating about it—on the company and institutional dime.

Personal knowledge, it cuts both ways, Baby.

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How much was attributable just to browsing history?

I don't know. Some things, I think, were not. Quoting my diary back to me was not...but that was later on.

You should know, however, that one thing I did in 2017 on the institutional wifi in my breaktime was a comprehensive search for a Hebrew tutor on behalf of a third party keen to learn Biblical Hebrew. In the end I could only source Modern Hebrew tutors and we went with that (and it was a great success, btw). It might explain quite a bit. I cannot be certain whether I was using the recreational wifi—possibly not. (I may have decided it was a de minimis, one off activity that no one could object to.) Of course, when I entered into correspondence with prospective tutors I would have done so via my personal email but the first contact is always made via the online platform, isn't it? Anyway, I always found there were not enough hours in the day and it was efficient to do some things over lunch rather than at home in the evening. (I might add, however, that this fact—the search for a tutor—was also a matter of common knowledge and passing reference in my particular little corner of the building—no internet tracking necessarily needed if there is gossip across silos.)

Later on, when I was spending time with my more news-related hobbies, I stuck rigorously to the recreational wifi and my own devices. I did look up ISIS satellites repeatedly, trying to distinguish between Dutch and US-Canadian initiatives.

This has been an unmitigated tragedy for me and mine but the idea that a lapsed Anglican single mother from Tunbridge Wells may have unwittingly entered into a world of codes and death threats by dint of the fact that a very young family member developed a overwhelming passion for the Aleph Bet song on YouTube (brings back memories to this day...) while she was simultaneously pursuing an interest in space technology has me smiling ruefully today. It's all very "Burn After Reading" isn't it?

But also WTAF???!!!!! was that particular institution doing with its recruitment and hiring policies...not to mention its surveillance practices?

What. The. Actual. Fuck?

PS. The aforementioned tutor mentioned Galgalatz radio and "Alexa, play Israeli Radio station Galgalatz" was a popular instruction in our house for years. Or, no, hang on, I may be projecting this onto our lovely tutor when really it was just coincidence. (Sorry, interpolation. I just assumed the most natural explanation without dwelling on a detail I didn't think would be important.) Actually, I think it was the only station we could make work via the Alexa app—that's it. We cycled through the few Israeli stations available trying to make an instruction work and found that it was much harder than cueing up French radio. We had to add extra words in to the instruction and got very frustrated. This was about 2017-2019 and the only station we could get to work even half-reliably was Galgalatz, so we stuck with that. Anyway, for sure, I literally only discovered that the station was affiliated with the IDF in or around 2021. I then initiated a switch to a different station but still feel very ambivalent about having done so because foreign language radio listening entirely dropped off as a result. The point really is that all this was just in the privacy of my own home. But, when the Ghouls went through a phase of asking what radio station I listened to—to which the consistent but baffled answer was "Magic Radio", because true—I retrospectively interpreted it as having something to do with Galgalatz. And, again, like how? But it was all of a piece with everything else, from dead birds, through the way the word Lebensraum tracked doggedly across my devices in flashing black and red, to a hot-tempered quiz about whether I would choose to restore the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran (eh?) and quite a bit more—a story I'll tell in whole one day.

PPS. If, by any chance, you are coming to this story for the first time—which I don't think you are--please bear in mind that, although Hebrew was the greatest overall success, I also supported basic or introductory tuition in a dozen or so other languages including Greek, Arabic (MSA and Egyptian), Russian and several others that I hesitate to mention for data privacy reasons.

#Youtube

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I didn't know her at all...

...and she didn't know me at all. End of. She talked a bit about culture vulturing when we met. I didn't talk and didn't share. That's the beginning, middle and end to it. Or it was, until 8 March 2020 when she came in and told me—with all the horrible, familiar undertones of a knowing subtext—to "cheer up" because "you and I are getting paid very well, aren't we?" She also conveyed or implied the usual suggestion from the high-falutin types that the people whose morale was really suffering were employees. (I'll assume that thesis has been thoroughly debunked by now, if nothing else.) That precipitated some kind of stress-related breakdown on my part as a result. I screamed and cursed my lungs out in my own kitchen for hours, then I got very ill, then we found ourselves in the middle of a pandemic. I would say that there was a direct line to my resignation and subsequent stress-related physical symptoms but it was, very clearly, only the accidental "last straw".

The gist of the screaming was "I've spent 3 years under siege, fearing for my life, shutting down my entire life piece by piece, being accosted by strangers, being pretend shot to death at work, dealing with eccentric ganging-up on the one hand and inexplicable scorching humiliation on the other. If you know anything at all about me, you know there is not one person I can turn to or lean on and that my private life is lonely and a bit fraught. Now, unseen manipulators are sending in random people to convince me that I'm fine." The neighbours must have been intrigued but they said nothing. Her "getting paid" comment was eccentric and inexplicable—neither true (in relative context) nor her business. She would have had to go and find some info from somewhere, which is an odd thing in itself, and then, well... she would have known that I had no institutional pension and/or legacy benefits. I've vaguely wondered since whether she meant "we're all making a profit on your personal, private, market sensitive info, aren't we?" but obviously I still hope and trust that would be a wild, vicious slur on my part. The point is, I don't know her, I didn't get a particular "vibe" and I have no way to interpret what she did or said.

That vignette aside, the most characteristic thing was simply the constant push on ESG. That was perfectly explicable IRL without any resort to conspiracy theories or "green" codes but it became personal in the sense that I gradually gathered the impression that the drive was not to make the whole organisation do the ESG work (which was the right outcome, given my wholesale lack of expertise or interest) but to make me do it personally and put my name to it. I had a vague unease about that* but I am perfectly happy to be told I was mistaken. I also vaguely wondered if it tied into the bit where a couple of members of staff went Musk-Tesla-crazy but I put that down to fashion and just being Millennials.

She was introduced to me by one of the strange platformers at TR who always seemed to have an angle and to be pushing code while basically picking my thoughts (I lay no claim to brains). Other weird platforming by TR included the woman whose presentation reminded me very strongly of Kimberly Guilfoyle (or, rather, vice versa) and who subsequently moved to California, and a bloke who wanted to talk Crypto to no obvious end and who was definitely pushing code.

In my own mind, I've vaguely written in a marital connection to the BBC and British Intelligence. I was, however, profoundly disengaged and have no idea whether those details were interpolations from my own schema or whether they are, indeed, remembered facts.

And that is all. *shrug* As I said, she didn't know me and I didn't know her. She mostly seemed nice enough.

*It was one of only a very few times when I wondered about being "groomed", "shaped" and "vetted" for a different job. That is why I told every senior person I could think of that I didn't want anything to do with what I guessed might be a planned career path. Most ardently of all, I didn't want to remain in the Group (cult?) but that is—i can see in retrospect—a difficult thing to communicate because the Group is, in manifold ways, both an implicit and explicit assumption they make. I'm sure they will confirm (because true) that in my final 6 resignation phone calls I said that they were "the very last people I would want to have any influence over the direction of my career" but whether they would acknowledge all the ways in which I said the same thing gently, moderately and politely in bilateral contexts before that—often while taking the blame on myself and my emotional fragility—I don't know. They certainly should.

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On the politics...

I would just reiterate that vis-a-vis committee management my constant mantra was "there is room for diverse voices at the table", "we are neutral" and "it's our job to do what we are asked to do". I simply do not know what else to say. Where in what I wrote or said on behalf of others or qua representative do you find a sliver of rhetoric? I do not think you do. It was impossible to ignore the fact of greater uncertainty but in my care to remain neutral, I feel like we almost did. Post June-2016 I gave several early talks, including in Paris, on the uncertainty ahead. In most cases I assumed that I had been invited in my personal capacity on the basis of expertise but, in any event, i made it clear that views were personal. Please note that any role I may have occupied involved 1) providing some level of education on risks; and 2) addressing those risks with suggestions for solutions. There were other—more glamorous—speaking opportunities, including a panel with Nigel Lawson, that I turned down EXPRESSLY because it would embarrass the old lady (to whom I formally owed nothing) if people heard me contribute to a political discussion and did not fully grasp the nuance of my position.

My own office was divided in two, like the country, but oddly enough it was divided cleanly along researcher vs administrator lines. Those that supported Brexit made their position known. I made my personal position known. That was all in passing. What was not in passing, however, was the clear fact that, at the time, 70% of our work focused on Brussels. Nothing could therefore alter the need to pivot quickly or the organisational risk of (eventual) falling demand. What I said at the end of June 2016 was that there would be more work in the near future and a risk of less in the long term. I gave a half day leave to absorb that message and then we got on with the job. No one could possibly say different.

Could I have disguised my views on Brexit in every interaction? Of course—don't assume that because I hate manoeuvring, I'm wholly unsophisticated—but if you imagine for one moment that I valued my career or salary, frankly, more than the global position of the UK, you are wrong. I simply see it the way I do—I see Brexit as a land grab for four valuable freedoms which had, up to that point, been owned by every British child. I saw it as a surrender of our stake in the most important historical peace project ever undertaken. I saw it as the wanton trashing of the UK's preeminently valuable and expert stabilizing influence over regulatory laws that were being made, in effect, for half the world. I had the opportunity to observe first hand how talented British professionals were being discarded and how part-British families in Brussels were torn asunder by the sudden upheaval. And, I recognised quickly that an FTA in the hand with one's neighbours is worth much more to SMEs than one in the bush with unreliable partners far away.

If you prefer to think of me as self-serving then recall that whatever I may have invested in my future was immediately disinvested. Or, to put it another way, there was no career to sacrifice because I did not want to be a part of the post-Brexit public sector.

To your point, however...what I think was happening is that the LT of whom you speak was grinding through some weird kind of "sting" of his own devising that occupied a large chunk of his rather misplaced attention. It's a minor point but he was the one trashing the then Prime Minister and the Brexit vote. Later he did the same with the very entryists he'd clucked over like a Mother Hen. He has an acid tongue and he used it regularly to denigrate both high falutin politicians and regular wage earners behind their backs. I did not join in—partly because I do not enjoy private takedowns but also because, as I say, my role required impartiality and the entryists deserved my protection.

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You heard different?

Well, ask yourself who had the experience of registration, who was likely to see through things through that lens?

Or, ask yourself who had insisted on the 2013 spin-off and who had stepped up to insist that it was a good, simple and productive idea that would (ha!) give me no problems?

Or, ask yourself who might have been in a position to form the view that, somehow, registration would make a difference to contributors.

I am not—and never was--among any of those people. No part of any transition was ever my idea. I will continue to feel proud that I managed a series of difficult transitions that were thrust upon me as well as anyone could have, given the pressures and the squeeze, but each new hurdle was an anathema to me. My personal preoccupations were overwhelmingly with my feelings of being trapped, both geographically and figuratively. If I was not doing the job perfectly it is precisely because I was thinking about funding tactically but not thinking about anything strategically. It was NOT my spin off. And, it was NOT my registration—notwithstanding I was, of course, the figure at the centre of the storm as soon as an attempt was underway.

I might add that the very fact of to whom responsibility should properly be attributed—as well as the problem that it caused for those who subsequently wanted to "Lobby for London"— was seemingly acknowledged by the Leadership in 2019 or 2020 when one of the instigators was momentarily upbraided for having done something that should never have been done. *shrug*

I keep saying this but politicking, ambition, power plays and strategic positioning are normal, even if they are emphatically not my cup of tea. *double shrug* Death threats and laughing at mental distress are not, in contrast, normal.

(Also, now I come to think of it, I'm slightly insulted that you would think that I would think it was a good idea. *levity intended, perhaps* It never was, but... well, I was at the mercy of the aforementioned contributors. And, after it happened, I can honestly say that I was the only one fighting to abide by the applicable regulatory strictures. Looking back, the whole thing seems even more shameful and embarrassing now than it did at the time but that is because I have lost trust in others. At the time, nearly a decade ago, I thought it was perplexing—I was "nonplussed"—but I implicitly trusted those who said they were trying to manoeuvre round the obstacles thrown up by the old lady and find a way to keep going. The truth, though, is that they had more influence over each transition—including the whims of the old lady—than I did.)

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Trump and the Profit-Hungry Caterpillar

During his presidency, Trump embraced Caterpillar Inc as a symbol of American manufacturing might, but did his fixation hide a darker story of favoritism and corruption?

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"Trump speaks my language"

The deeply troubling Trump-Duterte partnership that undermined human rights and US interests—Inside Trump's 2017 embrace of the bloodstained anti-democratic Duterte.

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Trump's Controversial Pick to Lead the MSHA—A 2017 Retrospective

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A Crisis Hidden in Plain Sight: Texas’ Troubled Record on Youth Justice

A system failing Texas youth: my in-depth report details the long, sordid history of abuse and neglect plaguing the state's juvenile justice system—from sexual abuse to toxic punishment cultures. Despite reform vows, has leadership turned a blind eye?

#Texas #greg abbott #Justice #youth #prison reform #corruption #scandal #child abuse #violence #neglect #immigration #immigrants #detention #operation lone star #crime