A year and a half ago I had a surreal experience of meeting the Editor of the Financial Times, Roula Khalaf, and McKinsey’s soon to be ousted managing partner, Kevin Sneader, in my living room. They chatted about a mutual connection in an easy manner that showed it’s a small world if you’ve been to Davos while the rest of us waited around a little awkwardly.

Six months earlier in the balmy sunshine of the Covid summer of 2020 I’d had ten days of quarantine to kill. Along with my government approved exercise regime I spent some time writing about a topic that had caught my attention: Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). I’d known for a few years about the Bracken Bower Prize, a joint prize offered by The FT & McKinsey to the best new business book proposal by someone under the age of 35 and decided ‘what the hell, I’m not going to win but it at least gives me something to do with all the free time’. I dived into it, reading papers, playing with words, feeling a bit of life come back at the prospect of seeing friends and family after the wearying months of social distancing. I enjoyed the process. I loved leaving the route the sat nav suggested and exploring the side roads. I learned about how one of the Queen’s titles is Seignior of Swans and how the medieval guilds of London still count them on the Thames for her every year. I sent off my piece with the vague hope of making the long list but happy to have got a few words down.

Back with the esteemed company in my living room. It was the evening of the Financial Times’ business book of the year awards. Instead of the usual swanky ceremony in London or New York I was sat down at our dining table, wearing the slightly shaggy absence of a haircut that revealed the fact I hadn’t managed to get it sorted before Boris u-turned on restrictions yet again and Kent became a global swear-word and not our neighbouring county. My window on the world was a thirteen inch screen, their view of mine carefully framed to include the Ikea bookshelves my father in law had fitted so perfectly they look every bit an artisan’s instillation. On the shelves were a few books carefully placed in view because – well – you never know who is looking and you want to put your best book forward: Nick Harkaway’s Gnomon and Jill Lepore’s If Then, up for the main prize of business book of the year, if you’re curious.

To my surprise I’d made not just the longlist, but the shortlist. As the online ceremony ticked by with glitzy videos and a fireside chat (a sort of interview that other people listen to, without a fire as best as I can tell) it came to our turn. My heart beat faster in my chest. And then there it was, my name. I’d won. I was more than a little shocked. My incredible wife, Anna, sat just out of shot was beaming and clapping silently. Not quite sure what to say I asked the McKinsey partner if he wanted me to give a short overview of the piece. And then that was that. The window on the world closed and we were back to our living room. Anna grabbed a bottle of Furleigh Estate from the fridge. A few celebratory phone calls with family. Then the next day, the dawning realisation hit. ‘Fuck me, does this mean I have to write a book?’. The short answer was no. The prize was for a proposal, not a book, and it didn’t come with a contract or an obligation. But the long one was what an opportunity. Here’s something I love – writing, thinking, speaking with people – and a chance to do it properly with a bit of profile behind it.

Except life doesn’t always work out like that. I’d drunk nearly all the bubbly by myself because Anna was six months pregnant. On that same trip home where I started writing I’d brought photos for my parents from our first scan. It wasn’t our first pregnancy. But it would be the first where we got to bring our baby home, after the stillbirth of our daughter, Clara, in 2018. Blessedly, amidst a lot of stress and anxiety our son Alex was born healthy, if a little early to be on the safe side, in February 2020. I’ve never quite known what Joyce meant when he said “snow falls equally on the living and the dead”, but as the gentle snow fell outside the window of the hospital room and I held Alex in my arms for the first time it was that line that came back to me all the same. Ever since it’s been a blitz of parenting clichés of sleepless nights, giggles, exhaustion and jaw-dropping wonder at how this tiny bundle has turned so quickly from a helpless mite to the toddler standing beside me demanding to be fed dates.

And so the plans to write got placed carefully on the bookshelves along with the books I no longer have time to read. But that wasn’t quite it on its own. It was also the feeling of letting myself down slightly in not pursuing the big project of the book. Unfortunately I think I’ve let that feeling dissuade me from writing much at all. As if the two choices were write the book or write nothing. And so here we are 18 months later and I’ve decided that’s not the smartest way to think. I enjoy writing – love it even – and sure, why not do what I can? So I’ve decided to start this blog and to write something every week. It might not be the book. Not right away at least. But it will be fun and it might even be worth reading. It will mainly be about CBDCs and Finance but written in a way that I hope can bring more people into the debate without talking down to you. There might be the odd digression along the way. The scenic route is lovely after all. And if you fancy reading along and joining a conversation, even better.

Ever wondered what money is? We’ll start there next week.