Fearless girl & Wall Street bull spoke "their truth" ... and I have my say.

As I told you last week the ONLY thing I was looking forward to watching was Unforgotten, which runs weekly, Mondays, on ITV. It's not available to binge watch at will. No, you have to be old fashioned, dedicated and loyal. You have to set your alarm, sit yourself down and be there at 9pm on a Monday to catch the latest episode.

You can imagine my frustration when this week's episode was dumped in favour of a night at the Oprah. Not impressed.

It's the start of the week and I can tell it's going to be a BAD news week. In that there will be no other news. Ergo no newsletter. My strategy will be to write a daily newsletter, review it at the end of the week and then decide whether to publish or slink off into the underworld, silenced, nothing to write about, no voice to be heard.

Monday

The Prince and the Showgirl

What do I think? Managed not to mention it last week. This week? I'm cross about ITV moving Unforgotten. Other than that? Well, it didn't seem very compassionate. I haven't watched the interview but there is no escaping the soundbites. Harry isn't happy with his father is he.

My dad let me down once. I was 12 and he told me the garage down the road was going to be turned into MacDonalds. This was 1978 so BIG news. I told everyone at school. Felt a total jerk when it opened as a video rental store. I was embarrassed, upset and sulked a bit at the time but it wasn't until his 80th birthday celebration a couple of years ago that I made my complaint public, in front of all his friends. With time, came forgiveness. Still, money wasn't involved so that made it a bit easier to forgive.

Tuesday

Piers

I was right to make this a daily journal. This blinking story isn't going away. I care less about him than I do about the royal family, so you can imagine how irritating it is that every news item is now either about Piers Morgan or that interview. You can't even take satisfaction that his remarks got him sacked. Nope. He stormed off and will no doubt pop up somewhere else very soon.

I met him once. It was after he was sacked (properly sacked) from the Daily Mirror. My husband had just resigned from his job, I was on maternity leave and we'd booked a Caribbean holiday to celebrate during his (my husband's, not Piers') garden leave. Problem was by the time the holiday came round he'd rescinded the resignation so wasn't on garden leave after all. Bit stressful.

Anyway, Piers was there. On his own. No mates. Never said hello, never tried to make friends. Which is probably a good thing because rumour has it the reason he's so mean to Meghan is because he thought they were besties and she dumped him. Don't think I'd want to get on the wrong side of Piers.

Not me guv

In a very misjudged move, the UK's Society of Editors (defenders of the freedom of the press) put a very quick pen to paper and put out a statement complaining that the Sussexes were accusing them of racism and bigotry without evidence. Problem for the Society of Editors (bastions of the truth) was that there was, and is, plenty of evidence.

Cue the media turning its attention inwards, editors complaining, and people dropping out of the forthcoming National Press Awards. Including the editor of the Yorkshire Post. The Executive Director of the Society of Editors later resigned.

So that's three of the four pillars of state holed below the waterline, so to speak. Meghan won her recent court battle, so the judiciary are onside; the royalty is sorely damaged; and now the press. What's left? Oh yes, the legislature. No wonder Boris is keeping shtum on this topic.

School's Back

According to my son, most of what goes on here is a waste of time. The travel to school, having pointless assemblies, stopping for breaks, eating rubbish, unhealthy school meals, PSHE lessons, getting back home again ....Far from being relieved to finally be out of the house and back in the classroom, he announced that he actually feels educated enough for now thank you very much.

Thankfully the law takes a different view, so whatever he thinks, he'll be on the tube again tomorrow. Up to him if he wants to make his own lunch (he does).

Wednesday - Back to Monday

It's taken me until Wednesday to calm down about it. Monday was International Women's Day, the theme being #ChoosetoChallenge. This year was even noisier than usual. Everyone was working from home, so had time on their hands and access to a female member of the family - ideally a daughter, but failing that a sister, mother or wife. Or perhaps a cat.

Cue a little photo with a cute wave from business leader and chosen female/feline saying this leader will #choosetochallenge inequalities of any description so that future generations will have a better time of it. Wouldn't it be lovely if it were that simple.

Last year it was #EachforEqual. I think. Though it might have been #PressforProgress or #BalanceforBetter. Pretty sure they've all featured as strap lines in the last few years. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for equality and for people standing up and being accountable. I'd just prefer them to take action rather than make pledges: ideally 365 days a year rather than 1.

Here's a suggestion - #JustDoIt (or is that 3 word slogan already taken?)

Hold onto your seats. The ONS just published research which shows that (despite the best efforts of the #EachforEqual brigade) the pandemic has hit women much harder than men. More likely to be furloughed, lose their jobs, take responsibility for home schooling, feel stressed about it, do all the housework, take what is likely to be a long term economic hit.

On the bright side, women were less likely to die.

Anyway, I #ChoosetoChallenge all those leaders who want the future to be better, to go and find a women who has lost her job or stepped away from her career because of the pressures of homeschooling, keeping the family going etc, and help her get back to work. Give her a job. She will need a bit of flexibility and would probably like to work from home a couple of days a week but believe me, she can be trusted to get the job done.

Rest of the Week

My daily diary plan went awry. The middle of the week was just too awful to find anything remotely amusing.

At the same time, I'll never secure that commission for a regular column on a world-famous, internationally renowned, well read newspaper, if I can't demonstrate an ability to churn something out on a weekly basis, so on we go ....

Find me an economist

With 90% of journalists reinventing themselves as royal correspondents, I fear that insufficient attention has been paid to one of the more startling news items of the week.

UK exports to the EU fell by 40% in January.

40%. That's huge isn't it?

The ONS (who have clearly been having a busy week) said it might be a temporary blip, might be down to stockpiling and called the data "erratic", whilst Goldman Sachs called it "noisy." I know economists get a bad rap sometimes but calling data "erratic" and "noisy" does rather take the biscuit.

I've been doing my own market research and can tell you that there is definitely trouble ahead. I bought my daughter a birthday present that had to come from the EU. It was stuck for days in customs (it was a gilet, by the way, not an item of contraband). Took over two weeks to get here and when it did arrive, it was too small.

No bother, you might think, returning online purchases is straightforward. Well hold your horses on that one. Make sure you read the small print because the process has changed. You have to print out the return form in triplicate and put it in a little plastic bag taped to the front of the box so that customs can check it again on the way back.

No way will I be making that mistake again. Zara all the way.

Straight talking from the Wall Street bull

A couple of weeks ago, David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, called working from home "an aberration". He doesn't like it, doesn't think it's the "new normal" and can't wait to get everyone back to the office. Cue a whole load of noise on various social media channels slamming him for being out of date and being horrid to women who need the flexibility that comes from being able to work from home.

At least he was being honest. And he's consistent. Just this week he told workers he hopes to have them working in offices again by the summer.

By the way, as I know you're curious, I've just spent ages trying to dig out the bank's diversity stats. It's not easy and I could only find numbers for the US. What proportion of "Executives, Senior officials and Managers" do you suppose are female? 23%. Black or African American? 2.7%

But don't worry. Goldman is one of those pot kettle black callers who like to draw attention to themselves by demanding that others do better. Just a couple of months ago they issued an edict saying they'd only act for companies with a woman and someone from an ethnic minority on their boards. Do as I say ....

Reasons to Be Cheerful

Can't end on a churlish note, so here's why I'm feeling cheerful.

I bought a skirt. I'm so confident in the road map out of this lockdown that I've invested in a piece of clothing designed to be worn on the bottom half of my body where the tracksuit bottoms normally go.

True, the day after I bought it, temperatures plummeted and they don't seem to be recovering anytime soon .... but come April 12th ....

(Which reminds me I now have just under a month to figure out what top goes with this and whether it's OK to stick with trainers).

2. The Women's Prize longlist is out

Small Pleasures is the only one on the list that I've actually read (it's fabulous) which gives me 15 others to choose from.

3. A regular reader recently asked me about my writing style and where it comes from. I guess mostly from reading. Eleanor Mills and Lucy Kellaway are two journalists whose writing I admired - I still miss Lucy's FT column. Never imagined I'd ever meet them, let alone work with them and so I can't tell you (well, I can, obviously, because that's exactly what I am doing) how thrilled I am to have been asked to join the advisory board of Noon. Empowering women in mid-life. Maybe Goldman Sachs will give us some cash.

As they say at Noon,

There's so much more to come ...

And finally

I am NOT reading Shuggie Bain. My lovely friend Erin recommended it. Whilst the writing may be sublime, the experience of reading it right now certainly is not. She never told me it's a misery memoir. I keep waiting for the happy bit and I can tell it's not coming. So I'm shelving it for a little bit. May return when everything else is a little bit brighter.

I'm listening to: Sideways. Matthew Syed's new podcast which takes a different look at topics we think we already know lots about, beginning with another look at Stockholm Syndrome (recommended by a reader).

I'm watching: Unforgotten. On Monday. 9pm.

I'm donating: Reclaim these streets.