Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 06/08/2026Muswell Hill. Always dedicated followers of fashion. 010
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 26/07/2026Have you considered audio books? Read while you walk. I listened to Swann’s Way on audio. Hypnotic. 110
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 13/07/2026Mine would be too but it would be cruel to my current ones after 35 years of service. 110
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 03/07/2026I thought @groomb.bsky.social was King of the North? 131
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 04/04/2026As an FT reader commented when I filed my column celebrating Crossrail on the Wednesday, its opening was postponed on the Friday and my out-of-date piece appeared in print on the Saturday: “Timing is everything.” 000
Reposted by Michael SkapinkerDaniel Sugarman @danielsugarman.bsky.social · 23/03/2026I grew up in this community and I have a few thoughts I want to share. A short thread. www.jewishnews.co.uk/breaking-hat...jewishnews.co.ukHatzola ambulances set alight in Golders Green arson attackCCTV footage circulating on social media shows three men approaching the vehicles and then fleeing the scene as flames appear 3264168
Reposted by Michael SkapinkerJonathan Freedland @jonathanfreedland.bsky.social · 20/03/2026On antisemitism. Latest column www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...theguardian.comAttacks on synagogues and Jewish shops in the UK, Europe and the US don’t hurt Netanyahu. They just hurt ordinary Jews | Jonathan FreedlandToo many want to cast acts of violence and antisemitism as blows against Israel’s government. But the fear and terror land on real people, thousands of miles away, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Fre... 65421
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 02/03/2026Brian, is there also a niche “northern places in sunshine” art school? 140
Reposted by Michael SkapinkerThe Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · 05/02/2026NEW BLOGPOST: Palestine Action: What just happened? A look at some of the legal principles at play following yesterday's verdicts. thesecretbarrister.com/2026/02/05/p...thesecretbarrister.comPalestine Action – what just happened?Yesterday, six Palestine Action protestors were acquitted by a jury of aggravated burglary, following a break-in at an Elbit Systems UK factory near Bristol in August 2024. Three of the six were ac… 1422983
Reposted by Michael SkapinkerAndrew Hill @andrewtghill.ft.com · 04/02/2025Well-established companies should ask themselves a simple question: “Who in the company is in the business of looking after its future?”’ My FT Big Read on how giants from Boeing to Kodak to GE lost their way on.ft.com/4jLtLS8 #management #leadershipon.ft.comHave America’s industrial giants forgotten what they are for?[FREE TO READ] Critics say fragmented ownership, weak culture and a fixation on financial results have harmed innovation 26217
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 26/01/2025I used to be one of the people selecting the letters to the editor for FT publication. You live for moments like this. 040
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 24/01/2025Thank you. I see that they were planning to charge me extra for a new “service” they hadn’t told me about. This needs a legal challenge. 010
Reposted by Michael SkapinkerRobert Wright @reporterrwright.ft.com · 10/01/2025FT readers will pretty much never have seen Andy Slade's name in print. But he was the kind of person who gets a newspaper out with minimal errors and maximum attention to the needs of the readers. We're all very sad at his death. But this is a beautiful obituary: www.ft.com/content/76e8...ft.comAndrew Slade, FT journalist, 1963-2025Talented but unassuming news editor who was universally admired in the FT newsroom 15516
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 08/01/2025Isn’t there someone else we’re supposed to quote if someone says “in the long run”? 210
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 08/01/2025Intelligent, nuanced email from @stephenkb.bsky.social today on dangers in Labour's schools bill. There's plenty wrong with England's schools, especially on special needs, but the bill risks reversing the greatest national achievements of previous decades - the improvement in state education. 010
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 07/01/2025And that fine distinction between indescribable and undescribable (although a writer should try). 150
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 03/01/2025And who also in Nice Work made a rare (in modern times) fictional foray into industrial life. 150
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 31/12/2024So we can add BA silver cards to the list of things we boomers had which are now denied to younger generations. www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-...independent.co.ukBritish Airways frequent flyers react to Executive Club changesPlane Talk: ’Spend, spend, spend’ is the message from BA to passengers who crave elite status with the airline 120
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 18/12/2024I try to use subway systems wherever I go. NYC’s is the most bewildering I’ve encountered. When I wrote a column saying New Yorkers were probably sniggering at our confusion I got messages from lifelong New Yorkers saying they’d only ever mastered their journey to work. 240
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 15/12/2024Thanks to the @financialtimes.com Claer Barrett for letting us know that the latest model of Monopoly is card-only. 473
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 08/12/2024The FT once had a news editor known as the Whichfinder General. 120
Reposted by Michael SkapinkerSarah O'Connor @sarahoconnorft.ft.com · 03/12/2024This CD player was my birthday present in 1997 along with the incomparable Fresh Hits 1997. I found it recently and COULD NOT BELIEVE how rich the sound was, after years of streaming Spotify on my phone. My column today is about this phenomenon, which I’m calling “qualitynesia” on.ft.com/3ZlwHf5 2502710411
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 02/12/2024Here's @pilitaclark.bsky.social writing about how "around" had replaced "about" as the word used when talking about something. While I'm an ever bigger pedant than Pilita, I hadn't noticed this one. It will now irritate me every time. www.ft.com/content/b589...ft.comThe battle around ‘around’ and other awful woolly wordsThe fuzzy meaning space is becoming depressingly overcrowded 000
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 27/11/2024My old friend Peter Grimsdale arguing in the @financialtimes.com that Jaguar's ad is a return to traditional values. 020
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 19/11/2024People facing retirement often want whatever they do next to have a wider purpose or worry that their career didn't have one. So thanks to Victoria Tomlinson of Next-Up for alerting me to this study concluding that a sense of purpose reduces dementia risk. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC....pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.govSense of purpose in life is associated with lower risk of incident dementia: A meta-analysisA sense of purpose in life has been associated with healthier cognitive outcomes across adulthood, including risk of dementia. The robustness and replicability of this association, however, has yet to... 010
Reposted by Michael SkapinkerThe New Statesman @newstatesman1913.bsky.social · 19/11/2024Our overdiagnosis crisis Amid a sharp rise in mental health conditions, critics say we have started to pathologise “ordinary human unhappiness”. By Rachel Kelly www.newstatesman.com/politics/hea...newstatesman.comOur overdiagnosis crisisAmid a sharp rise in mental health conditions, critics say we have started to pathologise “ordinary human unhappiness”. 2184
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 13/11/2024My old deputy, and then editor, Isabel Berwick and I talk about what we wish we'd known when we started out. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/w...podcasts.apple.comWhat I wish I’d known when I started my careerPodcast Episode · Working It · 12/11/2024 · 21m 000
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 21/10/2024Delighted to see @pilitaclark.bsky.social advocating "if you cough, you're off". If you're ill, go home and don't infect everyone else. As a manager, I was sending snifflers home long before Covid, as my deputies @martinbrice.bsky.social and Hugo Greenhalgh will recall. www.ft.com/content/d79c...ft.comIf you cough, you’re offWhy is it so hard to follow this first rule of flu season office etiquette 120
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 02/09/2024How to play the organisational politics game. My @financialtimes.com column. (And, no, opting out of the game entirely doesn't work.) www.ft.com/content/772f...ft.comThe dangers of staking your career on the company’s rising starSuccession planning at JPMorgan Chase offers lessons for executives hoping to land the top job 000
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 28/08/2024Pleased to have caught the last performance of "Skeleton Crew" at the Donmar Warehouse about the closure of a Detroit car plant. Brilliant portrayal of the middle manager's invariable dilemma: having to defend company line against the rage of your team, who you try to protect against all the odds. 000
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 28/08/2024“We are not considering an EU-wide youth mobility scheme and there will be no return to freedom of movement.” Meaning that any u-turn will be portrayed as a return to FoM. Difficult to see how they spin this. 100
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 28/08/2024Any thoughts on why the government is being so categorical on Erasmus and youth mobility? Why box yourself in so early in your term, particularly when public support is in favour and only like to get more so? These are things the EU wants and could be traded for other favours. Makes so little sense. 100
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 16/08/2024Special deal for new Starbucks CEO: he doesn't have to come into the regular office. Baristas will presumably still have to show up for work. www.ft.com/content/ef7a... 110
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 15/08/2024I did think "wait list" was an Americanism and "waiting list" more common in BrE. Am I misreading the chart? 210
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 15/08/2024In today's FT, @lynneguist.bsky.social and @byagoda.bsky.social, admittedly in a report from New York. Is there an increase in UK use of "wait lists" and "wait times" over "waiting"? 010
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 14/08/2024Lovely piece. Mine before lockdown was regarded as so weird it made it onto my FT leaving page. Five years is a long time in high-tech toilets. www.ft.com/content/b88f...ft.comFrequent flyer: why hasn’t the Japanese toilet taken off?In the west, we can put it down to the three Cs — cost, culture and electrical currents 221
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 12/01/2024Brilliant column by the FT's John Thornhill on the Post Office scandal, especially this conclusion. www.ft.com/content/3cbb... 000
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 08/01/2024@byagoda.bsky.social @lynneguist.bsky.social Spotted in the wild. www.ft.com/content/8e7e... 020
Michael Skapinker @skapinker.bsky.social · 21/12/2023I spoke to @financialtimes.com's Isabel Berwick about why we need to stop talking about retirement. It no longer describes what people like me are doing. open.spotify.com/episode/7ae7... 041
