B is for Bite

Week B | Tuesday | Strategic snark & swearing

Long-time subscribers will recall three years ago, when I was in Paris – as I am again now, in exactly the same spot, at the same desk, being awoken ludicrously early by the same astonishingly loud old cat (now 19) – and wrote a three-part series about strange financial dealings based in a small Cornish town. Involving £70 billion.

I don’t do ‘politics’ here nearly so often as I used to, do I? There are a number of reasons for that. I started out here writing savage profiles of Tory MPs. Labour MPs can be just as disappointing, sadly, but are rarely as interestingly rancid. It felt right to keep the tone here rather more respectful, light, and hopeful. I save most of my political writing for Byline Times because it has great reach and it pays me. And, this year, I started another Substack called The Bite for potty-mouthed political sarcasm.

I really just wanted a place to put things I hadn’t otherwise used, to vent, and to use a style that editors elsewhere will never (probably fairly) let me publish. But it’s actually growing quite steadily, thanks to some kind recommendations. And/or people just like the m&*%€Rf&@£+$g swearing and savagery. I use the Cheshire Cat’s smile in its logo, as it’s nice and bitey, and because I was born in Cheshire – though f#%^*+g Thatcher later changed it to Greater Manchester.

Usually my pixels are impeccable but I’ve deliberately left the logo a bit rough. The Bite is where I let my Shadow self out to play. It’s awfully therapeutic.

I’ve been refreshing and republishing the story of three years ago as (a) not nearly people paid attention at the time and (b) I wanted to check up on what all those feral capitalist scoundrels and bandwagon-jumpers have been up to since. It really is a bizarre and labyrinthine tale, spanning the globe and many industries. I’m hoping to post the fourth and previously unpublished part later today, sacrificing a reasonably cool day roaming between Parisian stationery shops before another heat dome arrives. It’s just like old times.

Who knows, maybe I’ll uncover further scoops.

Here’s a zoom link for tomorrow, Wednesday 9 July, at 5pm UK time. Meeting ID: 992 1449 1232. Passcode: 482610. Hope to see you ✨

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