Duncan Weldon

Genuinely great.

‘Knives out’: Switzerland descends into blame game after US tariff shock President Karin Keller-Sutter under fire for failed trade talks with Trump administration

Fascinating piece this on Switzerland's blame game now that Toblerones face higher tariffs than the Taliban.

Yes.
I do find it odd that we’ve spent 15 plus miserable years living with the grim consequences of low productivity growth whilst fretting about the potential impacts of faster productivity growth.

Pacing the dressing room. Practicing one handed batting.

No one wants to see Smith do well here more than Woakes.

TV back on the Test after my wife insisted on the Hungarian GP and I was left following on the BBC site for two hours.

What a Test series this has been.

Thank you!

JR "Blood and Treasure" by @duncanweldon.bsky.social. Engaging, well written account of 1000 years of conflict and the changing incentives behind it. Mr Weldon knows his military history and his economics and writes an excellent book.

Can Test cricket survive a sticky wicket? A journalist goes out to bat for the five-day format

Excellent review of Tim Wigmore’s history of Test cricket.

Read it myself on Kindle and bought a hardback for my dad this week.

Highly recommended.

www.economist.com/culture/2025...

I’ve never especially rated Ollie Pope. And saying this publicly is probably the best way to guarantee that he hits 150 today.

Always seems to be. Exceptionally well stocked range of paint.

Satire, obviously.
On the other hand - 3 new wargaming cafes/shops have opened over the past 12 months in central-ish London. And I was in Stevenage last week and noted 3 within a 5 minute walk of each other in the centre.
And then there’s this:

Geekification of British men almost complete, announces Games Workshop GAMES Workshop has announced its profits are up by a third and its transformation of Britain into a nation of geeks nears completion.

www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/busines...

Exactly. If I just want some facts I can read the wiki on The Report from Iron Mountain.
The desire for facts isn’t why I read a book.

My agent does fiction as well. Her view (last time I asked) was that AI couldn’t yet produce anything she could sell but it can produce to a quality very like many of the submissions she receives.

And *good* fiction writing by AI still feels even further away.

As someone who is paid to write words I’ve obviously thought a fair bit about this.
And it sort of depends on what you want?
Hallucinations aside, AI is getting v good at providing factual information in written form. But there’s more to non-fiction writing than that.

Will AI put fiction writers out of work? Authors Naomi Alderman, Curtis Sittenfeld and more on why artificial intelligence is stirring fears for the future of book publishing

This is an interesting piece

www.ft.com/content/7ce8...

Green Haze. Which is sort of 7/10 for effort.

“Why are you wearing that?”
Not the ideal reaction to a *checks notes* 25 year old Placebo t-shirt.

Shush

Well, I thought 50-0 at the end of the day would set England up nicely. Now telling myself 50-1 isn’t really all that different.

Yeah. Feels a big ask now.
On the one hand I’d love to see England do this. On the other hand, a 2-2 series probably feels fairer than a 3-1 one.

Great Indian innings. Again.

She’ll probably complain about everyone being really old. And this will be fair.

Taking the eldest to a Green Day tribute act tonight. Which is her first proper gig.
Will I be allowed to dance though?

Britain has somehow managed to have low quality labour market data without even trying to.

No.

If you'd asked 100 trade policy experts in March which two countries would have the largest US tariffs on the first day of August, I don't think many would have said "Switzerland and Brazil."

Truly the @alanbeattie.bsky.social observation holds: "It's Trump's trade policy, no one knows anything."