Nearly there, everyone, nearly there. It’s dark and it’s cold and there’s as much as three inches of snow in parts of England so obviously it’s snowmageddon. I was reminded recently when daydreaming of escaping to Finland of this rundown of what proper Finnish weather is:

• +15°C / 59°F – This is as warm as it gets in Finland. People in Spain wear winter-coats and gloves; Finns are out getting a tan.
• +10°C / 50°F The Portuguese shiver violently; Finns plant flowers in their gardens.
• +5°C / 41°F Italian cars won’t start; Finns are cruising in cabriolets.
• 0°C / 32°F Water freezes. The Vantaa River in Helsinki gets a little thicker.
• -5°C / 23°F The English prepare for the Apocalypse. Finns have a final barbecue before winter.
• -10°C / 14°F Aussies lose the power of speech.. Finns think about using long sleeves.
• -20°C / -4°F Scots turn on their heating (one bar) Finns end their Midsummer celebrations. Autumn is here.
• -30°C / -22°F Greeks die. Finns start drying laundry indoors.
• -40°C / -40°F Paris is cracking apart. Finns eat ice creams in the line at hamburger kiosks.
• -50°C / -58°F Polar bears evacuate the North Pole. The Finnish army postpones winter survival training awaiting ‘real’ winter weather.
• -60°C / -76°F Russian hitchhikers use pictures of thumbs instead of thumbs. The Finnish army begins winter survival training.
• -183°C / -297.4°F Microbes die. Finnish cows make ice cream, and complain the farmers’ hands are cold.
• -273°C / -459.4°F All other atomic motion stops. Finns say “Perkele, it’s cold outside today.”
• -300°C / -508°F Hell freezes over; Satan skates to work. Finland announces a tax cut.

Well it made me laugh.

Listen, it’s the second last Wednesday before Christmas. I don’t have the energy to dive into a topic properly and you don’t have the energy to read it, so here’s a list instead of some Nice Things that may sustain you in the week and a half to come. It is officially OK to start drinking now.

1. Ding! Dong! The 10% drop rule is dead. We may be setting ourselves up as a deregulated scam-friendly hellscape but at least investors won’t get stupid letters any more, or at least not those ones. Interestingly, not everyone’s happy: platformz who spent a fortune building the functionality to do it now have to reverse it out and that will have an impact. I’m minded of a sales director I once worked with who was famous for saying “surely it’s as simple as just switching it off” at which point large consignments of rotten fruit would go flying in his direction. See also: PRIIPs.
2. Rejoice! Nuclear fusion is here, sort of, and we are now living in the first reel of a new MCU canon film. Bagsy the superpowers they can’t put in family films. I for one love the idea of things putting out more energy than they take in and am hoping that if I shoot 192 lasers at the lang cat team that this will be the result. That and lower bills from Scottish Power. Result.
3. Swish! It’s time for yet another salami slice from Transact. Not core charges this time, but a removal from March next year of the still deeply silly buy commission of 5 (five) of your British basis points if your average portfolio is under £100k and zero if it’s over that, down from £200k. Something magic must happen at that point which only happened at twice that point before. An unkind observer might point out that a £5k buy deal costs the same whether a client has £99k or £101k, but I’m not any of those people. Anyway, less is more and all that, and maybe next time they’ll get rid of it for everyone.
4. Spiritual! You wouldn’t put McPhail down as a shaman, but he dons that sparkly cloak in his latest podcat which for once has relatively little to do with pensions legislation. A fine 40-minute listen on the future of the advice profession in 2030 with futurologist Eleanor Winton, recently seen at the Parmenion Let’s Grow conference.
5. Hoof! Only 50 in-person tickets left for #langcatlive in February at the beautiful RIBA building in Fashionable London. And we haven’t even published the agenda yet. Or the speakers. Or the menu. This is a hot ticket and you should absolutely get in there if you want to come along.

And your music choice this week is something rousing from what I think might be my favourite album of 2022 – and yes, the albums of the year list is coming with a weary inevitability about which you can do nothing. Please do immerse yourselves in this absolute banger from Halestorm. The Steeple will perk you up quicker than a run around a snowy field in the scud.

See you next week for the last Update of 2022

Mark