By the Good Strat Editorial Team, Madrid, Saturday 28th March 2026
THE SUNDAYS RANTS – The Great Data Grift, LockedIn Lunatics and the Death of Sense – 20260222
Host: Good morning. Or afternoon. Or whenever you’re watching this on catch-up because you were too hungover to get up. Welcome to The Sundays Rants. Today, we’re discussing the absolute state of LockedIn, specifically the people who think posting five times a day about “AI-powered data stewardship” makes them important.
The Enduring Bond Between Wales and Zionism – and Its Bitter Unravelling
In the misty valleys of Wales, where chapel bells once echoed with the thunder of Old Testament prophets, a profound affinity for Judaism and Zionism took root. This connection, woven from scripture, sympathy, and the shared fire of small nations, has long pulsed through Welsh history. It speaks in lyrical cadences, alliterative and incantatory, evoking green hills and golden psalms By that rolled like the sea in miners’ lungs. Here, the Bible burned brighter than coal seams; children learned of Jerusalem before their own rivers, with Jordan flowing through hymns and Zion a living heartbeat.
THE SUNDAY RANT – The Great Data Grift, LockedIn Lunatics and the Death of Sense – Roundup
Right, so imagine this: it’s a Sunday in 2026, and somewhere in the digital equivalent of a greasy spoon café with flickering neon and a faint smell of burnt metadata, a group of data professionals have gathered round a table that’s less “round table discussion” and more “round table of the apocalypse”. They’ve had three coffees each, none of them decaf, and they’re absolutely livid about LinkedIn. Not the platform itself, you understand – though God knows it deserves it – but the absolute carnival of self-congratulatory lunacy that passes for “thought leadership” in the data world.
Fundamentals in Focus – Doing Things Deliberately – 2026/02/25
Sir Afilonius Rex: Welcome to this week’s Fundamentals in Focus, brought to you by the BBC, RTVE, NRD, CNN, S4C, FT Weekend and RTE.
This week’s panel consists of Annie Tusk, senior correspondent at The Guardian, Jilly Penn, columnist of the Financial Times, Martyn Jones of Goodstrat, the highly respected Alice Sauzgatillo of Spain’s RTVE, the veteran great, King Larry, and Juliette Brioche of Le Canard Enchainé.
The questions for today are:
- What do we mean by doing things deliberately?
- What should we mean by doing data deliberately?
- How can we ensure that rigid adherence to what we consider to be deliberate data capitalism is its downfall?
Agile at Scale is Bullshit by Design – The Guardian
Seven years on, the verdict is in, and it’s not flattering. Back in 2019, in a Brussels-fueled rant channelling the incomparable Bob Hoffman, I declared Agile at Scale the next frontier of IT bullshit: immature, ill-conceived, supercilious, and emphatically not agile. It killed communication with jargon, turned criticism into heresy, and mangled history by ignoring what actually worked. I called it a cultish Frankenstein of Scientology zeal, Vatican pomp, and authoritarian quirks – all wrapped in vainglorious slide decks.
Prometheus Unhinged – Social Media Is Amoral, Depraved and Degenerate
The discussion in “Prometheus Unhinged” critiques the realities of social media, revealing a shift from its initial promise of freedom and democracy to a landscape dominated by corporate control and oppression. Panelists, including Martyn Jones and Annie Tusk, highlight the paradox of platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, which prioritise profit and conformity over genuine user empowerment and free expression.
Prometheus Unhinged: A Vital Wake-Up Call in the Age of Digital Feudalism
In an era where our every scroll, like, and share feeds the insatiable algorithms of Silicon Valley overlords, a bold new talk show has emerged as a beacon of unflinching critique. “Prometheus Unhinged – Social Media Is Amoral, Depraved and Degenerate,” hosted by Martyn Jones of Goodstrat and broadcast across a consortium of global media outlets including the BBC, RTVE, CNN, and FT Weekend, is no mere panel discussion. It’s a razor-sharp dissection of the chasm between social media’s utopian promises and its dystopian realities. Launched on February 25, 2026, this episode – available at goodstrat.com – assembles a formidable roster of journalists and commentators to expose the platforms we inhabit as nothing short of modern feudal empires. Far from the finger-wagging moralism that plagues much tech commentary, this is witty, acerbic, and profoundly humane, reminding us why independent voices matter in a world dominated by billionaire whims.
Glitter and Abyss: Martyn Bey’s Camp Odyssey Through Postmodern Ruins – Review by Vanessa Bell
In the kaleidoscopic whirl of Martyn Bey’s Come In Pink: The Fragility of Postmodernity, we encounter a narrative that sashays defiantly between the sequined excesses of camp and the shadowed precipices of existential doubt. Published in 2025, this debut novel, framed as a “memoir” narrated by the irrepressible Lloyd Jones, arrives like a feather boa flung across the staid tables of contemporary fiction. Bey, a literary renegade with roots in Istanbul’s labyrinthine streets and Notting Hill’s velvet parlours, channels a voice that echoes the mischievous ghosts of Oscar Wilde and Kenneth Williams, while nodding to Orhan Pamuk’s intricate tapestries of memory and myth. Yet beneath the sparkle lies a poignant interrogation of postmodernity’s brittle facade, where truth fractures like a disco ball underfoot.
Sequins Against the Storm: Camp, Conscience and the Cracks in Postmodernity
In Come In Pink: The Fragility of Postmodernity, Martyn Bey has written a novel that behaves like a drag revue in a philosophy department: sequinned, self-aware, intermittently profound, and constitutionally incapable of lowering the lights. It is at once a campus satire, a political fantasia, a queer picaresque, and a baroque meditation on what the author calls “the fragility of postmodernity.” If that sounds like a mouthful, it is because Bey has never knowingly left a mouth unfilled.
Sequins Against the Storm: Camp, Conscience and the Cracks in Postmodernity
In Come In Pink: The Fragility of Postmodernity, Martyn Bey has written a novel that behaves like a drag revue in a philosophy department: sequinned, self-aware, intermittently profound, and constitutionally incapable of lowering the lights. It is at once a campus satire, a political fantasia, a queer picaresque, and a baroque meditation on what the author calls “the fragility of postmodernity.” If that sounds like a mouthful, it is because Bey has never knowingly left a mouth unfilled.
https://goodstrat . com /2026/02/28/sequins-against-the-storm-camp-conscience-and-the-cracks-in-postmodernity/
Martyn Bey’s Come In Pink: A High-Camp Literary Journey
There is a particular kind of London air, one part diesel exhaust, two parts rain-dampened pavement, and three parts unearned audacity, that seems to breathe through the lungs of Lloyd Jones, the “velvet-voiced narrator” of Martyn Bey’s Come In Pink. Jones is less a protagonist and more a sentient pashmina, a “chiffon-wrapped time traveller” who claims to have provided the lavender soap for Pontius Pilate.
Davos 2026: The Illusion of Leadership and Dialogue
Oh, for fuck’s sake, Dirndl Barr, you gleaming beacon of LockedOut futurism, you’ve done it again. March 2, 2026, the snow’s still settling on the Davos chalets, the private jets are queuing for takeoff like taxis at a funeral, and here you are, posting your pre-packaged “What Are The Real Questions Leaders Will Be Asking At Davos 2026?” like it’s some brave exposé rather than the world’s most expensive press release. You’re not a futurist, Benny. You’re a futurist-shaped content mill with 5 million followers who all clicked “Follow” in the hope you’d one day say something that wasn’t sponsored by the ghost of McKinsey.Let’s start with the official theme: “A Spirit Of Dialogue”. Beautiful. Nothing screams authentic conversation like locking up 3,000 of the richest, most insulated people on earth in a Swiss village so they can talk about how the rest of us should talk better.
The Moral Foundations of Effective Leadership
In Good Leader / Bad Leader: The difference and why it matters, Martyn Jones provides a visceral, unfiltered, and deeply philosophical examination of leadership that eschews the sanitised language of modern corporate manuals. Jones, a veteran consultant with four decades of experience advising global giants like Adidas, IBM, and the United Nations, crafts a manifesto that is part ethical treatise and part practical field guide for the “leadership masochist”.
Martyn Jones on Leadership Integrity
Executives looking for a new acronym will be disappointed. Those willing to endure a sustained moral audit may find the discomfort useful. The difference between good and bad leadership, Jones contends, is not semantic. It is existential; for institutions, for employees and, ultimately, for the societies that must live with their consequences.
Good vs Bad Leadership: Key Insights
In an era besieged by grifters and hype, Good Leader/Bad Leader is a triumphant rout of mediocrity. Martyn Jones, the reluctant guru of data and decency, has crafted a work that would earn nods from history’s finest: from Alexander’s audacity to Lincoln’s empathy. For aspiring captains of industry or guardians of the realm, this book is indispensable ammunition. Read it, internalise it, and lead, not as a tyrant, but as a bridge to victory.
Global Thuggery and the Erosion of Democracy Explained
The End of Honour is a “whispered dare” to look at the “haunted house of political degeneracy” without flinching. Jones does not promise simple lessons or moral clarity; instead, he provides a meticulous “catalogue of the stupid” and a warning that if we build a global order on “strategic bullshit,” it will eventually “buckle under the weight of its own duplicity”. For those seeking to understand the “temporal confusion” of modern politics, Jones’s work is a vital, if profoundly unsettling, guide.
The Decline of Honour in Global Politics
The End of Honour is no dispassionate ledger but a fiery indictment, compelling us to confront whether global leadership can reclaim virtue amid absurdity. In a world tilting toward autocracy, Jones reminds us: without honour, strategy devolves into survival, diplomacy into deal-making, and power into predation. Essential reading for those navigating the ruins of the liberal order.
The Crisis of Honour in Global Governance
We noticed, Jones tells us in his closing pages, is the most we can promise our grandchildren. It may be. But to notice clearly, to document precisely, and to demand that leaders be held accountable to something beyond electoral calculus, that, too, is a form of honour. And if this unruly, combustible, vital book helps restore that demand to the centre of political discourse, it will have done its duty.
Martyn Jones on Geopolitical Thuggery – Book Review
For all its clinical despair and spiralling anxiety, The End of Honour remains a vital, if unsettling, intervention, a “whispered dare” to confront the cognitive collapse afflicting global leadership. Jones offers no facile remedies, but his meticulous “catalogue of the stupid” compels us to notice, document, and demand accountability. In an age where disinformation reigns and think-tank apparatchiks peddle strategic bullshit, this book stands as a reminder that politics, at its best, can still aspire to liberation. Essential reading for diplomats, strategists, and anyone navigating the ruins of the liberal order, it affirms that honour’s reclamation may yet avert catastrophe.
F*ck Data Mesh: Martyn Jones’s Hilarious Haymaker at Tech’s Data Delusions
In the end, Fck Data Mesh* isn’t just a rant; it’s a revolution in sheepdog’s clothing. Jones closes with a “Call to Arms”: Reclaim data from charlatans, model with purpose, and remember, “Data doesn’t lie. But a bad analyst with a Power BI license and a KPI target will.” For entrepreneurs, VCs, and data pros tired of the hype treadmill, this is essential reading. It won’t make you a data demigod, but it’ll arm you against the next wave of nonsense. Because in the data wars, the real edge isn’t in the mesh, it’s in the truth. And Jones serves it straight, no chaser.
F*CK DATA MESH: A Critical Look at Data Trends
For executives looking for a neat blueprint for modern data architecture, this book will feel unruly. For practitioners weary of industry hype, it will feel cathartic.
Jones may exaggerate for comic effect, but his underlying message is serious. The data industry’s obsession with novelty risks obscuring the accumulated wisdom of decades of practice. Progress, he suggests, is less about replacing the past than about understanding it properly.
In an age of relentless technological evangelism, that is a distinctly unfashionable idea, and precisely why F*CK DATA MESH deserves attention.
Why Data Mesh is Not the Future of Data Management
F*CK DATA MESH is a salty, effervescent, and “possibly a health risk” read for those who have spent too many Fridays staring at a broken dashboard. Jones writes with the “poetic restraint” of a Welshman who has seen the “Upside Down World” where ignorance is as valid as facts.
For the executive, this book is a reminder that there is no magical “unicorn stack”. The future of data isn’t in another diagram; it’s in the hands of those who demand context, consistency, and coherence over “chaos dressed in designer jargon”.
As Jones concludes, in a world of “Jira-drunk lunatics,” the most radical thing you can do is build a system that actually serves people.
F*CK DATA MESH: The Contrarian’s Take on Data Tech
For executives staring at dashboards like they’re crystal balls, this is a love letter to facts wrapped in barbed wire. Cathartic for weary practitioners who’ve lived through the loop of rediscovered problems. Unruly and indulgent for anyone wanting a neat blueprint. But in an era where billions vanish into “transformative” initiatives that still can’t answer basic questions, Jones’s message lands like a brick through a glass conference room: stop chasing unicorns. Build coherent, accountable systems that serve people, not egos. Reclaim data from the charlatans.
In short, if Data Mesh is the future, we’re all doomed to eternal Jira tickets and duplicated CSV exports. Thank Christ for contrarians like Martyn Jones, shouting “F*CK THAT” from the back of the room. Read this book. It won’t give you a new stack. It might just save you from the next one.
Celtic Domination: A Literary Journey of Identity and Vision
This is not a polished literary novel in the conventional sense. It is too didactic, too digressive, too enamoured of its own visions. Yet in an era when fiction often shies away from large ideas, de Tours dares to imagine a cultural and political alternative rooted in shared heritage rather than ethnic grievance or market logic. The result is an odd, heartfelt artefact: a book that walks the Camino of its own making, picking up stones of policy, memory, and myth along the way, and piling them into something that, if not a cathedral, is at least a cairn worth pausing before.
Exploring Celtic Domination: A Novel of Ideas
There are novels that announce themselves with a trumpet blast, and others that arrive like weather. Celtic Domination by Martyn de Tours belongs firmly to the latter category: a book that drifts in on a sea-fog of memory, mysticism, political anxiety, and intellectual ambition, and then, rather unexpectedly, begins rearranging the furniture of the reader’s mind.
Celtic Domination: A Bold Literary Attack on Extremism
In a literary landscape increasingly cluttered with the disposable and the derivative, Martyn de Tours’ Celtic Domination: The Most Significant Influencers arrives like a Molotov cocktail lobbed into a country club. It is a work of breathtaking intellectual audacity, a “Digital Celtic Covenant” that refuses to politely deconstruct the status quo, choosing instead to incinerate it. Part high-octane spy thriller, part “passive Marxist” manifesto, it is the definitive literary antidote to the toxic sludge of the MAGA era and the burgeoning “fetid imperialist conceit” of the extreme right.
A Celtic Renaissance: Martyn de Tours’ Defiant Vision Against the Shadows of Extremism – Book Review
Martyn de Tours, or rather, Martyn Jones, deserves our deepest admiration for this audacious feat. A pilgrim-scholar whose contrarian spirit infuses every page, he has crafted a masterpiece of defiance, a “Modern Renaissance” in book form that screams into the void of modern politics with breathtaking intellectual audacity. Facing backlash from “pro-genocide, pro-war, pro-MAGA” quarters, including death threats and disinformation campaigns, de Tours stands as a beacon of moral courage, his work a necessary insurgency against hate’s puppeteers. In an era when the far right peddles xenophobic nostalgia, Celtic Domination offers a vision of kinship that is inclusive, sustainable, and profoundly human. It reminds us that true domination lies not in conquest, but in the collective will to build a world where decency prevails. For those weary of the fetid imperialist conceits of our time, this book is not just a read; it is a rallying cry.
SHOULD WE KILL THE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS?
Social Media and the Vermin-Ridden Extreme Right-Wing War on Rational Thought, Democracy and Intellectual Rigour
The Algorithmic Silence: Why Serious Writing Disappears on Social Media
For much of the early internet era, there was a widespread belief that digital platforms would democratise public discourse. Anyone with a good idea, a well-written argument, or a compelling piece of criticism could reach an audience. Gatekeepers would fall away. Thoughtful debate would flourish.
Two decades later, that promise looks increasingly hollow.
Ten Ways the Extreme Right Manipulate Social Media and Encourages Anti-Democratic Behaviour
The internet was supposed to be a glorious democratising force, connecting people, spreading ideas, and letting truth shine through. Instead, it has become a glittering weapon in the hands of the extreme right, twisting platforms into tools that erode rational thought, fair elections, and basic decency. This is no accident. It is a deliberate, sophisticated playbook designed to undermine democracy while hiding behind memes, outrage, and “free speech” rhetoric.
Radio Debate: Trump’s Undeclared War on Europe
Martyn Jones: Thank you all for this thoughtful, unflinching discussion. As strikes continue in Iran, oil markets tremble, and tariffs loom over Europe, the old narrative of an unbreakable alliance is in tatters. Europe and the world face a choice: cling to comforting illusions or confront uncomfortable realities. Listeners, thank you for staying with us. Good night.
Trump’s Digital Assault: How the Far-Right Weaponises Social Media to Wage War on Europe and Democracy
This isn’t alarmism; it’s urgency. The far-right’s digital war on reason, amplified by Trump’s assaults, risks irreversible democratic decay. But synthesis offers hope: by combining critiques of algorithmic bias, manipulative tactics, and imperial overreach, we build resilience. Europe and the world must act, snuff the vermin, restore rigour, and reaffirm democracy. The alternative? A fractured future where outrage reigns, and alliances crumble.
IT’S POLITICS: Echoes from the Past: Historical Voices on Trump, MAGA, and the Shadow Over the West
In an age where political discourse is conducted through rallies, retweets, and the occasional midnight proclamation on social media, one cannot help but wonder what the great minds of earlier centuries might make of it all. The phenomenon surrounding Donald Trump and the rallying cry of Make America Great Again (MAGA) has spilled far beyond the borders of the United States, casting a long and argumentative shadow across Europe and the broader international order. Nationalism, isolationism, suspicion of alliances, and the rhetorical targeting of those deemed “other” are hardly new ideas, but like vintage fashions and bad moustaches, they have returned with startling enthusiasm.
Revealing Wealth: A Data-Driven Crusade Against Tax Evasion
In an era when wealth inequality feels like an intractable virus, Martyn Jones’s Revealing Wealth: Combatting Tax Evasion with Data, Political Will and Technology arrives as a potent antidote – or at least a blueprint for one. Published in 2025, this ambitious tome blends technical savvy with moral urgency, proposing a global “World Asset Register” (WAR) to unmask hidden fortunes. Jones, a data architecture veteran once hailed as one of the world’s top information experts, teams up with his alter ego, Afilonius Rex – a pseudonym for a collective of contrarian thinkers – to argue that technology can pierce the veil of offshore secrecy. But as Gillian Tett might observe, drawing from her anthropological lens on finance, this isn’t just about algorithms and databases; it’s about the cultural rituals of power, where the ultra-rich perform elaborate dances to evade civic duty, leaving the rest of us footing the bill.
Uncovering Tax Evasion: Insights from ‘Revealing Wealth’
In an age defined by algorithms, trillion-dollar tech companies, and data flowing across borders at the speed of light, one of the oldest problems in civilisation persists: how the wealthy avoid paying their share of tax. In Revealing Wealth, Martyn Jones argues that the real scandal is not simply that tax evasion exists, but that in a data-rich world we still allow it to thrive.
Revealing Wealth: A Blueprint for Financial Transparency – Book Review
To say that Martyn Jones’s Revealing Wealth is merely a book about tax evasion is like saying the Large Hadron Collider is just a fancy pipe. This is a manifesto for a digital revolution, a technical blueprint for global equity, and a provocative call to arms that arrives just as the old financial order begins to crack.
Top Things You Can Learn From GOODSTRAT.COM
Here are the most important lessons you can learn from goodstrat.com. These are distilled from the site’s essays, blog posts, and strategic frameworks around data, governance, and technology.
Top Things You Can Learn From GOODSTRAT.COM – Limited and buried by WordPress, LinkedIn and X
Here are the most important lessons you can learn from goodstrat.com. These are distilled from the site’s essays, blog posts, and strategic frameworks around data, governance, and technology.
Laughing@Data.Com : A Data Heretic’s Hilarious Heresy Against the Hype Machine
In the digital colosseum where data evangelists duel with dashboards and AI prophets peddle predictive panaceas, Martyn Jones arrives not with a sword, but a seltzer bottle. His latest tome, Laughing@Data.Com (self-published, 2025), is a riotous romp through the absurdities of the IT industry, a book that skewers the sacred cows of big data, machine learning, and that perennial favorite, “digital transformation,” with the precision of a Welsh coal miner’s pickaxe. Jones, a grizzled data architect who’s consulted for everyone from Adidas to the UN (and survived to tell the tale), channels the spirit of Swiftian satire into a manifesto that’s equal parts Wired’s gadget glee, CIO’s boardroom battle cry, and FT Weekend’s urbane eyebrow-raise. If Dave Trott’s advertising yarns met Stewart Lee’s stand-up scorn in a Zurich banker’s lounge, this would be the offspring: witty, worldly, and wonderfully wicked.
Laughing@Data.Com: A Candid Review of Data’s Absurdities
There are books about data. Then there are books written by people who have survived data.
Laughing@Data.Com sits firmly in the second category.
Martyn Jones’ latest contribution to the already groaning shelf of “data thought leadership” arrives like a heckler in a TED Talk. Where most books on artificial intelligence, analytics, and “digital transformation” read like a PowerPoint deck translated into prose, Jones offers something rarer: a long, irreverent laugh at the entire enterprise.
Laughing @ Data.Com: A Satirical Take on IT Industry Hype
The tech industry has long been a parade of expensive suits, hollow acronyms, and “digital transformations” that possess all the structural integrity of a damp Digestive biscuit. Into this landscape of algorithmic overpromise and professionalised grifting comes Martyn Jones with Laughing @ Data.Com, a book that, by all rights, should be required reading for anyone currently being held hostage by a Jira ticket.
Jones, a man once heralded as a top-tier database expert back “when that kind of accolade still meant something,” has produced a work that is less a technical manual and more a weary, satirical travelogue through the “Kafkaesque scrum of buzzwords and bootlickers” that defines modern IT.
IT’S POLITICS: The New Guilty Men – 2026/03/12
Based on current events as of March 2026, compiling a comprehensive, global list of politicians under suspicion of breaking laws requires noting that “suspicion” often stems from ongoing investigations, indictments, or international warrants rather than convictions. These cases span corruption, war crimes, interference with law enforcement, and more. I’ve prioritised by prominence (e.g., heads of state first), severity of allegations (e.g., international crimes over domestic probes), and recency/impact. Note that many U.S. cases involve investigations by the Department of Justice under the Trump administration, which critics have described as politically motivated. This is not an exhaustive list, as investigations can evolve rapidly.
IT’S POLITICS: THE AFTERLIFE BRIEFING
Jones:
Good evening and welcome to The Afterlife Briefing, the only political programme where the panellists are dead but the arguments are very much alive.
Tonight, we examine the current geopolitical carnival: accusations of genocide, missile diplomacy, the kidnapping of presidents, and the steady collapse of international law.
Joining me tonight are Karl Marx, Martin Buber, Hannah Arendt, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Luxemburg, Tony Benn and Margaret Thatcher.
Panellists, welcome back to Earth.
IT’S POLITICS: The Afterlife Briefing – WISDOM ON THE WINDS
Tonight, we examine the current geopolitical carnival: accusations of genocide, missile diplomacy, the kidnapping of presidents, and the steady collapse of international law.
Joining me tonight are Karl Marx, Martin Buber, Hannah Arendt, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Luxemburg, Tony Benn and Margaret Thatcher.
Panellists, welcome back to Earth.
IT’S POLITICS: The Guilty Men – 2026/03/12
Based on current events as of March 2026, compiling a comprehensive, global list of politicians under suspicion of breaking laws requires noting that “suspicion” often stems from ongoing investigations, indictments, or international warrants rather than convictions. These cases span corruption, war crimes, interference with law enforcement, and more. I’ve prioritised by prominence (e.g., heads of state first), severity of allegations (e.g., international crimes over domestic probes), and recency/impact. Note that many U.S. cases involve investigations by the Department of Justice under the Trump administration, which critics have described as politically motivated. This is not an exhaustive list, as investigations can evolve rapidly.
IT’S POLITICS: The Guilty Men – 2026/03/12
Based on current events as of March 2026, compiling a comprehensive, global list of politicians under suspicion of breaking laws requires noting that “suspicion” often stems from ongoing investigations, indictments, or international warrants rather than convictions. These cases span corruption, war crimes, interference with law enforcement, and more. I’ve prioritised by prominence (e.g., heads of state first), severity of allegations (e.g., international crimes over domestic probes), and recency/impact. Note that many U.S. cases involve investigations by the Department of Justice under the Trump administration, which critics have described as politically motivated. This is not an exhaustive list, as investigations can evolve rapidly.
IT’S POLITICS: Leaders Who Shape Global Conflict: Trump and Xi
We asked some of our clients, bespoke AI and our Strategy Team: Who is the political leader most likely to cause World War III, and who is the political leader most capable of stopping World War III?
And this was the response:
Viewed through the prism of strategic history and contemporary financial diplomacy, the question of which leader might inadvertently ignite, or instead forestall, a wider conflagration is less a matter of personality than of structural power, institutional constraints, and geopolitical incentives. Yet, as historians from Thucydides to modern analysts have repeatedly noted, individual leaders can still accelerate or dampen systemic pressures. With that caveat, recent expert commentary, polling data and geopolitical assessments as of March 2026 suggest two figures loom particularly large in opposite directions: Donald Trump, the incumbent president of the United States, and Xi Jinping, China’s paramount leader.
Winning Wars With Agile: Fear and Loathing Revisited
In the boardrooms of Silicon Valley and the corridors of Whitehall, the gospel of agility has become a mantra for efficiency and innovation. Borrowed from the frenetic world of software development, where iterative sprints and self-organising teams promise to outpace lumbering bureaucracies, agile methodologies, scaled up through frameworks like SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework), are now touted as universal elixirs. But can these principles, honed in the digital realm, truly orchestrate the chaos of armed conflict? Or do they risk injecting perilous uncertainty into arenas where hesitation can spell catastrophe? This question, once a provocative thought experiment, gains urgency amid evolving threats, from hybrid warfare in Eastern Europe to cyber skirmishes in the South China Sea. Drawing on historical precedents, contemporary military adaptations, and a dash of Celtic scepticism, we dissect whether agility’s allure holds water on the front lines, echoing the resilient pragmatism of Welsh soldiery through the ages.
Harnessing Data for Corporate Real Estate Management Success
In sum, Building Insight is a valuable addition to CREM literature, blending the Economist’s incisive analysis with the FT Weekend’s elegant prose and the Corporate Real Estate Journal’s practical depth. It reminds us that in real estate, as in life, true value emerges not from data alone, but from the insights we build upon it. Recommended for anyone seeking to elevate CREM from operational drudgery to strategic artistry.
Building Insight: The Future of Corporate Real Estate – Book Review
Martyn Jones wants his readers, whether practitioners, students or curious outsiders, to see corporate real estate differently. Buildings, he argues, are not passive assets but dynamic systems rich with data and strategic potential.
It is an argument delivered with enthusiasm, technical depth and the occasional philosophical flourish. And if Jones is right, the next great transformation of corporate strategy may not occur in boardrooms or spreadsheets, but in the quiet analytics of the buildings that surround them.
In the end, the book makes a persuasive case that corporate real estate deserves more attention than it usually receives. After all, companies may imagine themselves as digital organisms floating in the cloud. But every organisation still needs somewhere to put the desks, the servers, and the humans.
And that, as Jones reminds us, is where insight begins.
Building Insight: Revolutionizing Corporate Estate Management – Book Review
In the grand, sweeping narrative of global commerce, we have long obsessed over the movement of capital and the flux of labour. Yet, we have been curiously blind to the very stage upon which this drama unfolds: the corporate estate. In his magisterial new work, Building Insight: Data, Information and Advanced Analytics in Corporate Real Estate, Martyn Jones, a “whisperer of unruly data” with a pedigree that reads like a Cold War thriller, seeks to rectify this oversight.
Bandoxa: A Whimsical Memoir of Celtic Journeys – Book Review
Ultimately, Bandoxa is a triumph of the human spirit, a Celtic odyssey that, in Wilde’s words, reminds us that “to live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” De Tours lives vividly, inviting us to join his parade of memories, myths, and mirth. Read it, then read it again, different every time, as promised. A gem of a memoir, brimming with insight and irreverence.
Bandoxa by Martyn de Tours: A Masterclass in Literary Exploration – Book Review
To delve deeper into the idiosyncratic architecture of Bandoxa is to engage with what the New Yorker might call a “cartography of the soul,” or what the TLS might more dryly label a “monograph on the instability of the self.” Martyn de Tours has not simply written a book; he has curated a museum of his own obsolescence and subsequent rebirth. It is a work that demands we look at the “thresholds” of our own lives with the same squint-eyed suspicion one might reserve for a suspicious character in a Berlin train station.
Bandoxa: A Journey Through Mist and Memory – Book Review
There are travel books that catalogue places, and there are those rarer works that explore the geography of the mind. Bandoxa: A Celtic Journey belongs firmly to the latter tradition. It is a book that wanders across landscapes, languages, histories, and memories, with the reflective restlessness that has characterised the finest travel writing for more than two centuries.
The Global Grift: The Industrialisation of Technical Fraud – Surveying The Estate
The digital gold rush has ended not in a utopia of global connectivity, but in a sprawling, multi-jurisdictional wasteland of institutionalised deception. As remote work dismantled the physical perimeter of the office, it simultaneously liquidated the last vestiges of vetting. We are currently witnessing the “Great Dilution”, an era where the global supply of IT talent is being systematically poisoned by industrial-scale charlatanry.
The Global Grift: The Industrialisation of Technical Fraud – Surf’s Up
To neutralise the “industrial-scale rot” of global hiring, your vetting process must shift from a posture of trust but verify to one of hostile interrogation. The goal is to break the “proxy” (where a different person speaks or codes) and the “emulator” (where the candidate uses AI or pre-written scripts).
IT’S POLITICS: Israel, the Imperial Twilight and the Axis of Stupidity
In the hallowed, wood-panelled corridors of the British Foreign Office at the turn of the 20th century, a decision was made that would set the stage for a century of blood and irony. It was the height of what Paul Kennedy termed “imperial overstretch,” though the architects of the British Empire were too intoxicated by their own cartographic arrogance to notice the fraying edges of their mantle. Today, as we survey the smoking ruins of Gaza and the paralysis of the West, we are witnessing the terminal phase of a geopolitical project conceived in colonial hubris, sustained by American strategic impotence, and shielded by a German guilt so profound it has curdled into a new form of irrationality.
SPORT: Liverpool Dog Days – 2026/03/18
In football, as in life, the true leader does not shout from the rooftops. He listens. He observes. He keeps the group close, like a family that quarrels but never breaks. I have always believed that leadership must be likeable, affable, cordial, and above all, emotional. The fashion for authoritarian ways has passed. What remains is the quiet work of hearts and minds.
IT’S POLITICS: The Poisoned Chalice: Britain’s Foresight, America’s Fatal Error
Bevin’s unflinching diagnosis of irreconcilable principles, Buber’s anguished cry against causeless hatred, these stand vindicated by every explosion since. America’s arrogance was the primal folly that poisoned the chalice. True security lies not in domination, but in the hard path of honest engagement, mutual respect, and shared humanity. The Middle East defies control; it demands recognition. To persist in illusion is not statesmanship. It is folly, inscribed in the blood of generations. Let us, at long last, heed the wiser voices that history has already judged righteous.
ES POLÍTICA: El cáliz envenenado: la previsión de Gran Bretaña, el error fatal de Estados Unidos.
Hablemos con franqueza, como exige la historia y obliga la conciencia. En el ocaso del imperio, cuando Gran Bretaña aún dominaba los mares y gozaba del respeto de las naciones, el Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores comprendió una verdad que las potencias posteriores han ignorado con graves consecuencias: Oriente Medio no puede doblegarse a la voluntad extranjera mediante la fuerza o el favoritismo. La estabilidad no residía en la conquista ni en la partición impuesta desde lejos, sino en alianzas respetuosas con los líderes árabes, en el reconocimiento de su soberanía, su dignidad y su legítimo derecho a la tierra que habían cultivado durante siglos. La colonización de Palestina por oleadas de colonos judíos europeos, el sueño de un Estado judío soberano forjado contra la voluntad árabe, nunca fue el camino de Gran Bretaña. Se consideró, con razón, una receta para la enemistad perpetua.
Navigating AI Choices in 2026: Beyond Model Selection
March 20, 2026. Yes, that’s right, the calendar has finally caught up with the grift, hasn’t it? Thank you, thank you, for bothering to read my latest steaming pile of corporate word salad: “Choosing The Right AI In 2026 Is No Longer About Choosing The Right Model.” Because obviously, in 2026, choosing the right model would be far too simple, far too honest. No, no, we’ve evolved beyond that. We’re now in the rarefied realm of “capability profiles” and “orchestral conducting.” Please, hold your applause until I’ve finished flogging this dead horse made of buzzwords
Good Strat Weekend: The Canine Enigma of the Boulevards – 2026/03/21
In the drizzle of a Paris evening, where the lamps along the Seine flicker like guilty secrets, a man may still feel the old thrill of espionage. Not the sort that involves microfilm or beautiful women in railway carriages, though God knows there are enough of both, but the quieter intrigue of the dog. I had come to the capital to write a harmless travel piece; instead, I found myself tailing a creature that looked as if it had escaped from a medieval bestiary and was now plotting to annex the Left Bank. Its owner, a woman in Hermès and despair, called it “Mon Petit Assassin.” I called it Tuesday.
Good Strat Weekend: The Canine Enigma
In the drizzle of a Paris evening, where the lamps along the Seine flicker like guilty secrets, a man may still feel the old thrill of espionage. Not the sort that involves microfilm or beautiful women in…
Good Strat Weekend: The Canine Enigma
In the drizzle of a Paris evening, where the lamps along the Seine flicker like guilty secrets, a man may still feel the old thrill of espionage. Not the sort that involves microfilm or beautiful women in…
IT’S POLITICS: Projecting Jesus of Nazareth
The hour is late, but the door of mercy is still open. Walk through it together. Love one another as I have loved you. And the world will know that you are my disciples not by the size of your arsenals, but by the depth of your love.
Even so, come, Lord of peace. Amen.
IT’S POLITICS: From Austerity to Unity: Europe’s Path Forward
In the tapas bars of Madrid and the windswept plains of Extremadura, a quiet capitulation is underway. Spain’s Popular Party, once a stolid bastion of post-Franco conservatism, now finds itself propped up by Vox coalitions in region after region. Vox, the outfit that once lurked on the fringes, has doubled its seats in recent ballots and is scooping up nearly 40 per cent of young Spanish men, not because they are all frothing ideologues, but because housing is a joke, wages have stagnated and the cost of living bites harder than any Brussels directive.
Fascismo y Democracia: El Futuro de Europa en Debate
En España, el Partido Popular, antaño baluarte de un conservadurismo constitucional y europeísta, ha comenzado a adoptar el lenguaje, los marcos ideológicos y hasta las políticas de sus rivales, Vox. Como si el fascismo volviera a ser respetable. En Europa entera, las formaciones de derecha tradicional , democráticas, liberales en lo constitucional se ven acosadas, desplazadas o directamente fagocitadas por el radicalismo de extrema derecha. Lo que antes creían en la cohesión social, la red de protección, la inmigración regulada y un mundo sin hambre, guerra ni abusos de derechos humanos, hoy parece diluirse en un abrazo mortal con la reacción. Y mientras tanto, líderes como Ursula von der Leyen, Mark Rutte o Friedrich Merz no encarnan precisamente la esperanza de una Europa decente y progresista. Miren a Hungría: un régimen que erosiona el Estado de derecho, captura los medios de comunicación y los tribunales y convierte la solidaridad europea en una burla. ¿Queremos eso para el continente?
MASTER CLASS: Mastering Data Warehousing: Balancing Pre-Emption and Back-Filling
In the ever-evolving world of enterprise data warehousing, one of the most persistent and critical challenges is how to intelligently expand subject areas and the associated data within the core data warehouse database, while maintaining architectural integrity, data quality, and governance, without venturing into data mart considerations.
The Impact of Agentic AI on Gammon
Ah, March 25th, 2026, the sun is shining, the Snowflake croissants are buttery, and another LinkedIn prophet has risen to bless us with his latest dispatch from the mountaintop of thought leadership. Thank you, dear reader, for stumbling upon “AI Special Agents Are About To Change Gaming and Maiming Forever” by the one and only Berneice Barr, world-renowned futurist, five-million-follower magnet, and man who has written more books about AI than most people have had hot dinners.
TECH HOUR: Snowflake’s Cortex Code: The Agentic Reckoning
Listen up, you glorious data martyrs, you noble sufferers who’ve spent years knee-deep in the festering swamp of undocumented ETL pipelines, chasing lineage graphs that resemble a deranged spider on acid after a three-day bender, and muttering dark incantations at 3 a.m. because some crusty Python script decided “customer churn” meant “every table that vaguely smells like a customer, plus that one VIEW nobody documented since 2019.” I stand before you today, your erudite, slightly unhinged technical prophet (with a heavy dose of stand-up bile and a side order of schema diagrams), to deliver the good news: Snowflake has unleashed Cortex Code, the AI coding agent that doesn’t just autocomplete your misery, it inhales it, digests the entire governed data estate, and burps back production-grade, hallucination-free SQL, Python, and dbt YAML while respecting your PII tags and warehouse economics like a paranoid compliance officer on Red Bull. This isn’t your garden-variety Copilot having another existential meltdown over a missing import. This is Code Context incarnate, an agentic beast that has swallowed the Horizon Catalogue whole, metadata, lineage graphs, semantic layers, role-based access controls, Dynamic Table lag policies, and the soul-crushing reality of your credit burn rate.
TECH HOUR: Warehousing Your Data: A No-Nonsense Guide to the Right DBMS in 2026
In 2026, the guide evaluates top database management systems for effective data warehousing, focusing on backfilling dimensional tables. Snowflake is praised for its ease of use and innovative features, while Oracle excels in reliability for enterprises. PostgreSQL appeals to budget-conscious users seeking straightforward functionality, making it a solid choice for mid-sized warehouses.
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