Today is 103 years since the armistice  ended the first world war and it is my 60th birthday. I popped out just after 11 am. My father, who delivered me , joked that Mum didn’t observe the minute’s silence. I will be observing the minute’s silence in honor of the fallen and my mother, who is happily also on the planet.

I must now start thinking of myself as “senior” and feel entitled to free travel on London’s transport system.

It doesn’t feel quite right to be senior pic.twitter.com/Xjmr6zpaan

— Henry Tapper (@henryhtapper) November 11, 2021

My birthday falls within the duration of the COBS26 summit. The news that the US and China have agreed to work together to meet the Paris targets came as an early birthday present,

Last night I moved what was left of my retirement pot into L&G’s Fossil Fuel Free Fund.

Thanks to my workplace pension , I am now feeling I am making a small difference.

I am also selling my car , I may never own one again. My son passed his driving test 6 years ago and has never driven, let alone owned a car.

I need to make substantive changes, not just to the way I invest, but the way I live, I am  not entitled to a pollutant’s lifestyle.

Being senior

I have never thought of myself as “grown up”, but – as we shrink in later years – I must now think of myself as growing down.

Theoretically I am nearing retirement, though if the Queen and David Attenborough are working in their mid-nineties, why shouldn’t I defer my personal glide path a couple of decades?

My friend Andrew (forever) Young, is busy enjoying his 70s and bemoaning he did not make more of the first decade of his seniority. I will try to learn from him, though the habits of a working lifetime hold fast. Yesterday I was sorely tempted to take the afternoon off and watch the cricket. I didn’t , but maybe I will in future.

It looks like being a busy birthday with meetings all day , including with the Treasury this afternoon to work out where we are on the net pay anomaly. We are busy developing AgeWage’s capacity to benchmark workplace pensions so that fiduciaries and sponsors can know the value they have brought to members.

My hopes are to offer the same functionality to the mass of my peer group who are facing the nastiest , hardest problem in finance, the job of converting pots into pensions. My guess is that for many, the solution will be collective.

It was good to hear David Fairs and others speak feelingly of the need to create CDC plans that ordinary people can join, without need of their employer’s sponsorship.

Brilliant response from @david_fairs on the #risks that #CDC reduces and how @DWP will mitigate its downside risks. Multi-employer and individual purchase of CDC pensions are “interesting concepts to introduce in the UK” #FTLive #PensionFreedoms

— Henry Tapper (@henryhtapper) November 10, 2021

It was good too , to hear Steve Webb and Ros Altmann singing like turtle doves to the same tune.

@rosaltmann agrees with @stevewebb1 in calling for an adjusted figure for the 2021-22 earnings link for the triple lock. “If the Government is struggling to come up with an adjusted figure – follow @OBR_UK ” – 5% not 3% please!

— Henry Tapper (@henryhtapper) November 10, 2021

Celebrate tonight – come on!

Tonight I will have a genuine birthday party with a few old friends at the National Liberal Club, I will drink a toast to absent friends and to those who never got to see adulthood, taken in their youth by war.

Seniority is a privilege that I have enjoyed thanks to the NHS and I will drink a toast to that institution and in particular to those who have looked after me when I was ill a couple of years ago. My heart creaks as I run down the side of St Thomas’. Our dining room looks out on this.

In the midst of life we are in death, how lucky I am to be alive at this time. This is my 5,540th published blog. To my 10,351 subscribers and 40,000 odd readers many thanks, we are only getting started!