Well, it wasn’t the Update so much as a bunch of intrepid cats, speakers who were happy to wade into the unknown and an audience who were up for being messed with a little bit. We reived across the Border, did all the things to your, er, partners-of-choice and drank all your drinks and then skedaddled back to God’s country to allow you time to count your dead.  

Actually none of those things happened, but last week’s event was really, deeply satisfying and reached the parts that other events don’t reach. We will have some sessions up on the lang cat’s YouTube channel (hi guyyyyys welcome back to my channel don’t forget to mash that like and subscribe button oh dear god what have I become) in due course for those who couldn’t make it, but they won’t give you the sense of the room. 

The premise of the day was all a giant and to be honest not all that sophisticated misdirection about celebrating division and (creative) tension and the power of argument. I actually like to see people debate and argue; smart people disagreeing with each other is generally a path to greater enlightenment on any given topic. But the real trick of the day was to get the profession to see things through the eyes of the industry and vice versa. We’ll never agree on everything – or even anything much – but that can be OK if we remember how to empathise and argue in the right way. 

Talking of which, we had an interesting moment as Sara Woodroffe from the FCA was doing her bit gamely from the stage. I’m always impressed when the FCA guys come out to play; it’s not a warm and cuddly environment for them and they have to be ruthlessly careful what they say; one slip of the tongue and they’ve suddenly remade policy on the hoof. I thought Sara was really good, but the mood of the room turned a little bit when she was on, and our comments platform lit up. Most of it was fine, but some of it…wow. Personal and nasty. And because our platform let people be anonymous, these brave limpdicked keyboard warriors felt empowered to write stuff they would never, ever have had the baws to put their names to. So two things: first we’ll find a way to switch off anonymous questions and comments for future events and just accept that some good stuff which people genuinely feel they need to be anon for won’t happen, and second: do better.  

Anyway, if you weren’t there, Updates about something you didn’t see probably aren’t that exciting. Not that any of them are exciting. Maybe some, a bit. Depends what you find exciting.  

I, for example, am finding the massing clouds around the ongoing advice review exciting. Well, if not exciting then certainly intriguing. Here’s a wee story which might have snuck by unnoticed; a sign of the times perhaps.  

We know big firms are in the process of being Carpeted by the regulator on this issue; water flows downhill and while you may not have a giant Review forced down your gullet in the foreseeable the direction of travel feels very clear. The arguments around all of this are well-rehearsed but that doesn’t change the fact that documenting clients are getting what they’re paying for is going to be Time Well Spent – not just doing it right but being seen to do it right. And not sounding off about it anonymously. 

And your music choice – well, I’ve gone easy on you the last couple of weeks. Not doing that this week. So here’s 12 minutes of Scottish folk-black metal from Saor (pronounced sort-of ‘Suhr’ not ‘Sair’). This is the title track of their new record Amidst The Ruins which is already one of my albums of 2025. You only think you don’t like stuff like this – give it a try and let it build up; it comes in waves. Matron!