This morning's miscellaneous collection from the trumpet of news:
Chinese getting uppity about delay to Hinckley. Good, all for anything that pisses their government off.
UKIP, bless 'em, still can't organise a piss up in a brewery or a simple leadership election. Most credible candidate 'forgot' a driving conviction, may not have paid his subs, and submitted his application late. One of his opponents standing on a platform of referendum on the death penalty, charging prisoners £40k a year to be in prison, and cheaper beer. Outstanding.
My company's retiring CEO has said in the FT that he doesn't think we will shift our R&D facility in the UK because of Brexit as long as we can still bring in top scientists regardless of nationality. What could pose a threat is the fact that we haven't discovered anything there for decades that we can actually sell (though to be fair they did find our biggest selling ever drug. In about 1990). I have to bite my tongue when I see them all shuffling out of the labs for coffee at the same time, the temptation to yell "get back to work and find something useful" is huge.
'Sir' (temporarily) Phillip Green appears to be heading for a massive stroke, given his size and evident fury at the universe. Not only the BHS pension pot, but also his Arcadia group one in mega shortfall, along with BAE, GSK and GKN. Expect more to come, the hit on the Gilts market has been massive.
'Sir' Phillip is famously a resident of Monaco, with its zero tax for everything status, along with multiple other billionaires, Formula 1 drivers etc etc. Anyone ever been there? I went through once. It's hideous, just tasteless bling, horrible architecture (concrete block flats) and perma tanned surgically enhanced pensioners.The natural habitat of Flávio Briatore. I reckon Monaco does a great job of gathering up these people so we don't have to see so much of them.
I am totally unmoved by the Cameron honours list stuff. Who doesn't believe that this is based on patronage and favour returning? It doesn't devalue the honours given to 'ordinary' people at all in my view, because I can tell the difference between a kind dinner lady from Goole who has done her job for 40 years, and Samantha Cameron's hairstylist.