Josh Spero
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joshspero.ft.com
Josh Spero
@joshspero.ft.com
11K followers 920 following 4K posts
Wealth editor, Financial Times. I like swimming, classical music and cryptic crosswords. he/him 🏳️‍🌈 [email protected]
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joshspero.ft.com
👏🏼👏🏼 @katie0martin.ft.com as.ft.com/r/3657b067-a...
For months, market participants have been obsessing over who will replace Powell when he is due to step aside in May. Which Kevin will be the new chair? Hassett or Warsh? How many slivers of percentage points would one be likely to cut rather than the other? Oh, the suspense! All the while, the risk of a profound reworking of the world’s most important financial institution has been bubbling up. We really do not need to talk about Kevin.
January 12, 2026 at 2:57 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Ah good
Hot cross buns in the supermarket
January 10, 2026 at 3:37 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Michael O’Leary talks to the FT as.ft.com/r/c319582b-1...
The airline does not “hate” its customers, he stressed — or at least not all of the time. “If you don’t comply with our rules, we hate you and will torture you. But if you comply with our rules, we love you.”
January 9, 2026 at 6:47 AM
joshspero.ft.com
Breaking out the braces
Smiling selfie where I open my navy jacket to reveal braces
January 7, 2026 at 8:07 AM
joshspero.ft.com
Morning!
Broadly smiling selfie of a bearded man in front of a steaming lido Iphone weather app showing -5C
January 6, 2026 at 8:20 AM
joshspero.ft.com
Ten years at the FT today — I couldn’t be prouder to work with such smart and (never to be taken for granted) nice people
A card that says Big consisting on your 10th work anniversary
January 5, 2026 at 7:31 AM
joshspero.ft.com
Get her, Jade!* as.ft.com/r/7b0838e5-9...

*her = Boulez, Jade = the FT’s classical music critic
In 1977, at his instigation, IRCAM (the Institute for Research and Co-ordination in Acoustics/Music) was founded in Paris. By 1981 it had a budget of FFr30mn (then about $6mn). Some prestigious composers have passed through its doors, but the number of lasting major works coming out of it numbers barely a handful.
January 4, 2026 at 8:46 AM
joshspero.ft.com
AI strikes again
It's usually one word, "saleroom," especially in British English for an auction room, but "salesroom" (two words [but in fact here shown as one]) is also used, particularly in North America
January 3, 2026 at 4:31 PM
joshspero.ft.com
No one does it like @bryce.lol as.ft.com/r/35580ea8-7... The messy art of escapism
It's Saturday night near Glasgow Central Station, where the best lack a conviction, while the worst are full of passion-fruit martini.
January 3, 2026 at 10:42 AM
joshspero.ft.com
Singapore gonna Singapore
In Singapore, CMB recently introduced a new feature that is linked to the government’s Singpass authentication tool, which includes a wealth of personal information such as address and marital status. This has helped reduce a common problem in the city-state of married users pretending they are single. It is also helping crack down on behaviour that is all too common on dating apps, such as harassment and scammers targeting victims. Juay said that, when the feature was rolled out in July, CMB suffered a drop-off in accounts, but that was starting to recover. Ultimately, however, it is making it a safer environment for users. “People tend to be a lot more respectful and kinder when they know that we hold their national identification number and can hand it over to the police,” she said.
January 2, 2026 at 8:45 AM
joshspero.ft.com
Oh yeah, it’s *our* fault, not the evolution of a UX which encourages you to dismiss people in less than a second as.ft.com/r/d95c4041-c...
“It’s become more troublesome to flirt and date in the workplace and harder for people to connect with people when they are spending all their time at work,” said Malgosia Green, Asia chief executive of Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge and OKCupid. “Unlike in the west, the majority of Asian daters are [highly] intentional and marriage orientated.”
January 2, 2026 at 8:41 AM
joshspero.ft.com
Got there early doors
January 1, 2026 at 11:37 AM
joshspero.ft.com
New year swim done. Air feel: -3C
Smiling selfie of a bearded man with dramatic almost Caravaggiesque light in front of a lido
January 1, 2026 at 10:50 AM
joshspero.ft.com
I have just learnt that the Treaty of Versailles compelled Germany to give back six panels of the Ghent Altarpiece that it had bought on the market a century earlier
ARTICLE 247 Germany undertakes to furnish to the University of Louvain, within three months after a request made by it and transmitted through the intervention of the Reparation Commission, manuscripts, incunabula, printed books, maps and objects of collection corresponding in number and value to those destroyed in the burning by Germany of the Library of Louvain. All details regarding such replacement will be determined by the Reparation Commission. Germany undertakes to deliver to Belgium, through the Reparation Com- mission, within six months of the coming into force of the present Treaty, in order to enable Belgium to reconstitute two great artistic works: (1) The leaves of the triptych of the Mystic Lamb painted by the Van Eyck brothers, formerly in the Church of St. Bavon at Ghent, now in the Berlin Museum; (2) The leaves of the triptych of the Last Supper, painted by Dierick Bouts, formerly in the Church of St. Peter at Louvain, two of which are now in the Berlin Museum and two in the Old Pinakothek at Munich.
December 31, 2025 at 8:30 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Christmas walk
Smiling bearded man in bright blue jacket sitting on a log amid fallen leaves and bare trees, all a shade of brown
December 25, 2025 at 4:17 PM
joshspero.ft.com
42 today!
Smiling selfie of a bearded man in front of a lido
December 23, 2025 at 8:57 AM
joshspero.ft.com
Well I know what the amateur pianist in my life is getting for Christmas
A book called Classical Tear-Jerkers Contents (this is long so skip if you don’t want to know) 04 Menuet (HWV 434) - George Frideric Handel 06 Dolly's Funeral (from Children's Album Op.39, No.8) - Tchaikovsky 08 Moonlight Sonata (Op.27, No.2) - Ludwig van Beethoven 12 Sonata in D minor (K32, L423) - Domenico Scarlatti 13 Lamentation for a Lost Life - Max Richter 14 A Sparrow Alighted Upon Our Shoulder - Jóhann Jóhannss 16 A Collective Destiny - Luke Howard 22 Pavane pour une infante défunte - Maurice Ravel 24 Adagietto (from Symphony No. 5) - Gustav Mahler 26 Prelude in E minor (Op.28, No.4) - Frederic Chopin 28 Sicilienne - Maria Theresia von Paradis 30 Glantaf - Morfydd LIwyn Owen 31 When I Am Laid in Earth (Dido's Lament) (from Dido and 34 Un bel dì, vedremo (from Madama Butterfly) - Giacomo Puc 36 Ave Maria - Franz Schubert 38 Come, Sweet Death (BWV 478) - Johann Sebastian Bach 39 Intermezzo (from Cavalleria Rusticana) - Pietro Mascagni 42 Lacrimosa (from Requiem Mass in D minor K626) - Wolfgan 44 Sospiri - Edward Elgar 46 Ständchen in D minor (After Schubert) - Franz Liszt
December 22, 2025 at 6:07 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Adventures in the L*uvre on my Stories www.instagram.com/joshspero?ig...
Oil painting of a naked man with a red cloak and a dove over his crotch
December 21, 2025 at 7:30 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Last night
A cast-iron menorah with nine candles lit against a dark blue sky
December 21, 2025 at 4:08 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Awks
Louvre-based version of Cluedo in the shop
December 19, 2025 at 3:55 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Plus or minus
Poster in the Louvre advertising the gallery with the French crown jewels
December 19, 2025 at 1:00 PM
joshspero.ft.com
Came to Paris to see the Richter show at the Fondation Louis Vuitton; there’s a bunch of pics on my Stories www.instagram.com/joshspero?ig...
A building which looks like a ship with large glass sails reflected in a pool
December 18, 2025 at 7:07 AM
joshspero.ft.com
I chose The New Yorker on Sotheby’s (obvs) but also The Fence on chemsex www.the-fence.com/the-tina-tri...
The Tina Triangle (The Fence) Picked by Josh Spero The Fence (self-dubbed "the UK's only magazine") is a thriving young publication which goes places both terrifically high and impressively low. Combining both was a shocking, frank but important story by Bron Maher about chemsex in south London; it wasn't just that there was on-the-spot reporting but that it explored the complex motives of those dosing themselves up on chemicals where a millilitre is the difference between being high and being in hospital.
December 17, 2025 at 8:10 AM
joshspero.ft.com
In the window for all to see
A cast-iron hanukkiyah with three lit slender silver candles
December 15, 2025 at 8:31 PM
joshspero.ft.com
as.ft.com/r/2b86c8aa-c...
Speaking via video link to a panel of islanders in late November, Janssens criticised Nevis’s court system for lacking “efficiency . . . And if we’re just going to copy that, it’s not attractive to people to come”. Instead, he said Destiny could “propose that for certain matters we have our own efficient court systems”, but would ultimately “still abide by” the national legal system.
December 15, 2025 at 7:58 AM