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A new podcast/interview was launched today by Samuel Tini on Spotify. Good summary of my current thinking on related themes.

After two years without a car, because of London’s ULEZ scheme, of which we wholeheartedly approve, we found our horizons being slightly cramped. So, as mentioned in a prior post, we subscribed to a Tesla Model Y for four years via a salary sacrifice scheme set up by Volans. Teslanomics – making the whole thing much more affordable.

For some weeks now I have failed to post because WordPress has stopped accepting images in my posts. Am trying to sort. But am now trying an image-less post given that something slightly momentous happened yesterday. Here is how I described it to my colleagues Laura and Louise:

Dear Laura and Louise,

Unlike my father, I have never been a car junkie, but the (Tesla) Model Y we took delivery of yesterday – in not-entirely-romantic Staines – has quite simply blown my mind away.

Everything about it is spectacularly well designed – and it is a joy to ride.

Because it was handed over with a low charge, we have also now had experience with supercharging it – on the way back into London along the M4 – which was a relative doddle, once we had worked out how to plug the thing in.

So, both Elaine and I want to thank you both for your Herculean efforts to set up our salary sacrifice scheme. We appreciate how challenging it was at times, but sense that the Y will be liberating.

This morning, for example, we went to Pen Ponds in Richmond Park. We were surprised to see that the heronry on one of the islands seemed to have been bulldozed and replaced with expanses of exposed gravel. I said to Elaine that it looked as if they had been trying to dislodge the herons – then, later, I stumbled on the real story. One of nature restoration, regeneration, almost literally in our own backyard.

As we sat by the larger lake, I saw my first swift of the year – they are remarkably scarce – and grebes, schooling fish, and a range of damselflies and dragonflies, including a broad-bodied chaser that landed just in front of our feet to sun itself.

All in all, a wonderful reminder of how much we have missing on our doorstep for two years without access to wheels.

Having missed our beloved Volvo V70, snatched from us ULEZ (a scheme with which I wholeheartedly approve, despite its impact on poorer motorists, which I believe should be better compensated for), the hole in our hearts has been superbly bridged : )

Thank you, thank you’ll etc.

Just a quick note on one of the many adventures I failed to post on this year, for a variety of reasons – but the most important being that my blog was out of action for well over a month. In any event, today (though this is actually posted on 13 August), I scooted across to the House of Hackney to do a fireside chat session.

Because of a shortage of time, I went by taxi. First taxi driver misunderstood and dropped me somewhere with a similar name, but some way away. Second got it right. Still arrived early and had time to take a look around inside this fascinating business, also a B Corp.

Because of a diary confusion, I had to scoot out of our session slightly before the end to do a virtual fireside chat in Toronto, supporting the candidature of Chloe Brown for city mayor. (In the end, she lost in the election.) Was attracted by her intelligence and wider ambition – and by the fact that Rob Wolloch and her team were building their campaign for office around the triple bottom line.

One of the benefits of being a member of Pi Capital, is you get to meet some extraordinary people. And today I met a number of High Court judges in the Judges’ dining room at the Central Criminal Court. Afterwards, several of us sat in on different jury trials – in my case, that of the driver of a tram that had overturned in Croydon in 2016, killing seven people. The quiet word during the lunch was that the court was sympathetic to the driver, who – it later transpired – would be acquitted later in the month.

Better still, given the circumstances of the accident, the operators were fined a total of £14 million, a clear case of the system being at fault rather than the individual. It turned out that the operators had ignored several previous warnings, including a ‘near miss’ only days before the accident.