People are doing weird things to their eyes
Steel and coffee.
Hello,
I hope the defrosting is going well (if you happen to be in the UK). I think I’m a seasons man. It’s all well and good having sun 365 days a year, but it’s nice to have the ceremonial first wearing of shorts. If it was sunny the whole time, we wouldn’t be able to complain about how it’s too hot and discuss how excited we are about autumn in about three months time.
Anyway, The White Lotus finished this week and I’m still a bit undecided about how I feel about it. As ever, the characters were class but I didn’t completely get some of the storylines. I’m not actually sure what the impact of Laurie’s mad night out was, and the incident on the boat seemed a bit gratuitous to me. I get that Saxon went through the wringer a bit on that holiday, and his whole identity was called into question, but did it need to be that? What was Lochlan’s whole deal as well? Unclear on his character, apart from being a humongous wet flannel. Maybe that was it.
My main takeaway is that Thai rock or ‘ไทยร็อก’ is quality. Kuen Kuen Lueng Lueng - Ironman with Thai vocals, go on then. If you're’ unwinding this afternoon, you could do a lot worse than this playlist of 60’s-70’s Thai Psychedelic Funk/Groove/Rock.
Piper nooooo,
Hugo
Chief Weather Officer
The Business of Stuff
P.S. Sorry if you don’t live in the UK or watch The White Lotus
The Stuff
It’s all gone Pete Tong at British Steel ➖ - the company is currently owned by Jingye, a Chinese company, but it’s not making any money so they’re threatening to close it and the government has sprung into action. It will probably be nationalised which fits with the whole onshoring, independence vibe we’ve got going on this year. The issue is it’s bloody expensive to make steel in the UK.
More pigs impacted by the tariffs 🐷 - the second swine victim is Peppa Pig’s parent company, which sells a lot of its wares in the US and gets it all manufactured in China so quite frankly have no idea what its sales are going to look like this year. Shares sank 10% on Friday thanks to its little conundrum.
The company planning to put a data centre on the moon 🌚 - Lonestar Data Holdings of Florida popped a data centre the size of a hardback book on the Athena Lunar Lander, which is currently heading to the moon and all seems to be going well. The appeal of the moon is there’s unlimited solar energy, loads of space and no neighbours who don’t want a massive warehouse next to them.
CFOs are increasingly getting the top job 👩💼 - there’s traditionally been a bit of reluctance to put the finance folks in charge as they’re seen as being risk-averse and a bit too spreadsheety. A survey at the end of 2023 found however, that one third of CEOs in the FTSE 100 had previously been CFOs, up from 21% in 2019.
Prada is buying Versace for $1.36bn 👜 - there has been speculation for months that the deal was going to fall apart thanks to the tariffs, but in the end, it just resulted in a €180m discount. Versace is being sold by Capri Holdings, which also owns Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo. Prada has been enjoying rare success in an otherwise struggling luxury fashion industry recently.
People are going mad for Eastermas 🐣 - the UK is putting an increasing amount of energy and money into Easter. Eggs still form a big part of spending, but people are now buying crackers, wreaths and trees. I think it’s social media that drives this stuff. Posting a massive pile of eggs just makes one look like a glutton, but a table dressed all nicely in Eastery stuff is aesthetically pleasing
Netflix is experimenting with using OpenAI to power its search functionality 🔎 - you’ll be able to search by mood or with more descriptive prompts that might speed up the process of trying to find a film that suits everyone’s tastes. It does, however, depend on the streamer actually having some content that people want to watch hidden in its catalogue. The feature is already being piloted in Australia and New Zealand.
Bain Capital is buying HealthEdge for loads of money 💰 - a number of private equity deals are going on in the software sector at the moment, which has been affected a lot less by all the tariff and market chat. HealthEdge is being sold for $2.6bn with Blackstone exiting its controlling stake. The main products are software for health insurers, which covers 110 million people in the US.
Coffee prices are getting ridiculous ☕ - the Swedes are stockpiling, and espressos now cost the same as a pint did a few years ago. Prices have been pushed up by speculation in the coffee market and dodgy weather. They’ve gone down recently due to concerns that the tariffs will curb demand. Lots of sellers have started using cheaper beans to try and keep costs down for consumers.
Lots of people are getting surgery to change their eye colour 👁️ - good old TikTok has started a trend of people undergoing fairly dangerous surgery to get different colored peepers. Come on, guys, love your eyes. They are probably the organ I would least like to have surgery on, it just doesn’t seem worth it when they can’t really be that ugly can they? Like, everyone’s eyes are pretty cool as they are.
Quote of the week
“Uh we’re not goofing off, we’re creating musical fusion.” - Dewey Finn, School of Rock