Welcome to Lord Copper

Opinions about lots of things - mostly related to the worlds' metal markets

It's a People's Business

16 September 2020

Most of us who have worked in the metals industry on the commercial side for any length of time have been privileged to do so and part of that privilege has been the opportunity to travel and meet an extraordinarily diverse number of people. More than that, it gave us the opportunity to develop relationships with those people thereby obtaining a deeper understanding of their business. As a friend of mine often said to me the metals business is a people’s business. He is right.

A Breaking Wave

09 September 2020

Martin Hayes and I have both written on here before about the likelihood (or not) of the LME Ring ever returning to our lives. It’s now give or take six months since the Executive took the decision to (temporarily) halt open outcry trading, and as the coronavirus and its contagion stubbornly remain present, we would have to assume that it will still be some time before they start thinking seriously about a re-opening.

Though every prospect pleases, and only man is vile

26 August 2020

In PG Wodehouse’s Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, Bertie Wooster is once again compelled (for reasons far too convoluted to go into here) to visit Totleigh Towers, stately home of Sir Watkyn Bassett, where he will need to be at his sharpest (a tough demand for Wooster) yet again to have to attempt to escape the Gussie Fink-Nottle/Madeline Bassett/Wooster marital merry-go-round.

Time and a Word: Change for the Metals World

19 August 2020

Evolution is a natural process, and a constant in human nature – nothing ever remains the same. But, on rare occasions, major global-encompassing events, often unforeseen, such as wars, revolutions and plagues, can accelerate change, sometimes in ways that were unimaginable.

Is it all worth it?

12 August 2020

Once upon a time, long ago and in a land far away, I was a graduate student in a major American university. As J P Hartley aptly said in his opening words of The Go-Between, “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.” And so it was more than half a century ago. Distance learning on desktop screens and virtual webinars were not how you were taught, or even more importantly, how you learned to teach yourself.

Country Rhodes

05 August 2020

Truly, this time we seem to have fallen down the rabbit hole to a world where nothing is how it seems, where Humpy Dumpty tells us “when I use a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean; nothing more, nothing less” and our understanding of universal facts is simply wrong (with reference to that last one, just consider the US teacher who tells us that the idea that 2+2=4 is not a mathematical reality, but rather just a manifestation of western imperialism and colonialism……..).

What's the value of paper?

29 July 2020

I have often wondered what money is and if anyone really knows. It seems to capture the imagination everywhere from a very young age, even where maths is poor and literacy low. Like grammar, money seems to be hardwired in the human brain.