Yes yes, it’s the first of April and I’m sure there are many japesome reels and posts and articles and whatnot out there. Not here, baby.  

Somewhere in my reptilian brainstem I remember parts of my degree, and spending at least a bit of time on the role of the Fool in mediaeval and early modern times. The Fool or the Jester was funny, yes, but had a proper job to do as well, acting as a bit of light relief or a pressure valve when things were tense, presumably when Nobleman A was after the lands of Nobleman B or whatever. The Fool was also the only person allowed to criticise the king directly; even then he would be walking a fine line. Hard or uncomfortable truths could be hidden inside jokes for unpacking later; a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. 

The Fool in literature is an amped up version of this – if you remember your English classes you might think of Feste in Twelfth Night, or the Fool in King Lear. Feste is a tricky customer and by some way the most interesting character in Twelfth Night for my money, but Lear’s Fool is just brutal. “Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise” says he in Act 1 Scene 5, shortly after saying “Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gav’st thy golden one away” and frankly he was pretty lucky to keep his own crown (head) after all that. 

Anyway, we’ve come a long way from Foolishness of that kind, and now we must endure try-hard brand marketing departments bidding for likeability in a way that still fundamentally is consistent with brand values and has been signed off by all interested stakeholders including investor relations. I just had an email from a coffee brand with – lol! – their first ever perfume called Eau d’Espresso. What larks.  That’s a sheal’d peascod if ever I saw one. 

Don’t know about you, but I’m not feeling very financially servicey today what with one thing or another, so let’s finish up with an interesting piece on technology (paywall) which I saw in the FT. It turns out that the state of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany (as opposed to the state of Schleswig-Holstein on one of the smaller Polynesian islands; don’t know why I felt I had to mention Germany) is trying to end its dependence on US big tech companies. This means no MS Office, no Teams, no Zoom, no Windows, no Cisco IP telephony. It’s not flawless as an approach; sometimes they’ve had to keep Murcan tech but use open source versions, like Meta’s Llama and not everything has been plain sailing.  

So while we might not be up for the hassle and expense that Schleswig-Holstein is expending on this, it’s a useful thought experiment to spend a moment considering what technologies we use, who owns them, what’s behind them and what exposure to things we might not like that these systems give us. Well known examples lately include AI issues like OpenAI who signed up readily to deploy their robot on classified networks unlike Anthropic who didn’t like the cut of the Pentagon’s jib and walked away. About 1.5 million users jumped from ChatGPT to Claude and the QuitGPT campaign has led to OpenAI renegotiating its deal and looking like a bunch of Charlies in the process.  

So here’s a challenge to leave you with as you head into the nation’s favourite chocolate-based religious holiday. What tech do you use in your business? Can you name all of it? Who owns it?  

When you’ve done that, let’s get more specific. What technology does your platform run on? Do you know the company or companies behind it? Where are they based? Where does your data go? How financially strong are those companies? Who owns them? Your clients’ money is in a custodian somewhere. Which one? More than one? How strong are they? If it’s a sub-custodian how does all that work?  

There is a whole industry most people never see involved in this business we call show. I wonder how feasible it would be for us to even try to do a Schleswig-Holstein? I don’t know, but it’s an interesting thing to think about.   

Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe we should just stick to the basics. Learn more than thou trowest, set less than thou throwest. Words to live by, Fool.

Your music choice today is in honour of my friend Phil, who you don’t know but who is gone far too soon. I’m not even going to try and explain this; you had to be there at a very specific time about 25 years ago. It is, however, a brilliant tune in its own right. Here is Go Go Ninja Dinosaur by Four Tet.