Happy Wednesday my esteemed confrères and consœurs; I hope you are all on top form. Or at least more top form than in my house, where everyone is a) ill and b) grumpy and frankly I am considering jacking it all in and moving to a cabin somewhere on a remote island. This plan is flawless apart from the fact I’m the least handy person ever, so would probably expire in short order. That said, I did fix the coffee machine the other week and have never felt so masculine in my life. Little coffee machine fixing / Polson masculinity update there. 

Someone who genuinely is disappearing off to an island to live on a croft is ex-Marillion giant Hibee Fish, who I went to see at Haddington Corn Exchange (I know, right?) last night. This is his retirement tour, and when he says he’s retiring he means it; he’s selling his studio, closing his record label, the whole bit and is off to Barra or somewhere like that. Anyway, the gig was a bit odd, mainly because you were literally standing in a community centre with badminton court markings on the floor watching a bunch of 60-somethings play prog rock. But it was still great, and I’m booked in for at least another two dates on this tour including his last ever gig in Glasgow. That will be…hoooft.  

The reason I mention it, apart from that I want to, is at one point there was quite a spirited discussion from the stage about – and I am not kidding you here – the state pension. Mickey the keyboard player had just started getting his. Robin the guitar player had deferred his (they literally talked about this onstage) and Fish is in receipt of his, though he says he gets it paid directly to Laithwaites. I missed what the bass player and drummer are in receipt of, and the backup singer was 30 years younger than everyone else so just looked like she was regretting her life and creative choices at that point. Anyway, as m’colleague and legendary basser Dave Brooks says, there’s #alwaysapensionsangle. 

I’d originally intended this week’s Update to be on platform pricing given Abrdn’s big cut and Transact’s two-millionth salami slice at the end of last year. But I think I’ll stick on pensions for a moment and leave that for another week, pausing only to note that the lang cat’s Analyser tells us that the over-under book price for a £500k portfolio with 50% in SIPP, 20% in ISA and 30% in GIA in the big 6 platforms (Abrdn Wrap, AJ Bell, Aviva, Fidelity, Quilter and Transact) is now just under 0.25% before any deals. I know there are cheaper upstarts out there of course, but that’s a big reduction in the last 10 years – the 2015 mean average across the whole market was 0.32% and for the biggies you can add at least a few points on to that. Prices have dropped by a third over the last decade, basically. 

Oh. Turns out I did do platform pricing a bit. So I’ll just leave it there except to just chuck in one more pensions thought – I’ve been saving up this chart from ICAEW on public sector pension liabilities, which a) shows they’re £1.4 trillion (that’s £1,400,000,000,000), b) casts doubt on the actuarial jiggery and indeed pokery that got them down to that from £3.9trn and c) points out they’re more like £2.4trn when you get right down to it. Which is A Lot. 

I only mention this because it looks like we’re going to have to find some money from somewhere pretty quickly given Events, and there are relatively few piggy banks big enough to matter left to raid. Might this be the tipping point for unfunded schemes…? 

For your music choice, I know how much you enjoyed last week’s Scottish black metal choon. But I am sensitive to accusations that I favour one Celtic nation over the others, and I am nothing if not an equal opportunities Updater. So here’s a thing from an Irish odd folk-metal-electronica-not-sure-really project called Fós. This is Bádaí na Scadán which is at the heavier end of what he/they does/do, and it’s a really cool mix of heavy and folk-singy. I suspect I may not be selling this all that well and when I tell you that the title means “the herring boats” that probably won’t help either. Anyway, see what you think and if anyone can point me at some good Welsh heavy stuff then I’ll put that here too. You’ll have to wait a couple of weeks for Actual Fish.