From the author
Notes from the same desk - short pieces by Zafar Alam, in the book’s world: the question before the answer, in everyday decisions.
30 September 2026
Books were always made with help - researchers, editors, ghostwriters, co-writers. AI did not change that; it changed what the help is made of. The record first, from Maxwell Perkins to GPT-3 - then the facts of this book.
28 September 2026
Carillion filed nineteen years of clean audit opinions before it folded with nearly £7bn of liabilities against £29m in cash. The signatures were real. So was the missed question. A short piece on what an audit opinion is - and what it never promised. Carillion is also the fifth case study in Chapter 12 of the book.