Tuesday 22nd December 2009
I can’t say I’m happy about the changes over at Eastlands. I actually went to the City-Sunderland game – my first live match for some years – but all through Saturday evening I kept mulling over what I feel has been a disastrous and self-defeating decision. It’s truly shocking. Just when did they change the [...]
“Congratulations, Mr Quinn; you are now the proud owner of an endowment policy to pay off your newly acquired mortgage!”
I was slightly confused as I shook the unindependent financial advisor’s hand, not least in part because my surname is not Quinn, and it would still be some years before I would decide to adopt that [...]
Donald S writes an open letter to his gas supplier.
Dear Atlantic Gas
Quick question about a letter you just sent me last week, dated October 2008. I don’t understand how you can write to me in October telling me that gas prices “will” (future tense) increase from 25 August 2008 (2 months ago). This is gas [...]
Fund manager Mark Mobius of Templeton Asset Management was interviewed about investing in emerging markets on the BBC’s Working Lunch programme last week. The interviewer, Nik Wood, began by asking just what an emerging market is.
It was actually the IFC, the International Finance Corporation at the World Bank. They were struggling with what to do [...]
Wednesday 30th April 2008
Oh dear.
Property investment training firm Inside Track, which claims to have created hundreds of property millionaires in the UK, filed for administration on Tuesday, the latest victim of Britain’s housing downturn.
The company, which says it has trained more than 100,000 individuals, said demand for buy-to-let landlord training had shrivelled as mortgages became more expensive and [...]
Wednesday 20th February 2008
Last year I was going to write a post prompted by this Daily Telegraph article from Jeff Randall, the ex-Business Editor of the BBC, where he criticised his former employer for the profusion of useless timeservers at the corporation. Well he should know, I was going to say; how ironic that during his period at [...]
A morning spent fruitlessly trawling through a large tin of Celebrations attempting to locate just one last Snickers must mean conclusively that the Christmas period is finally over, so perhaps I should dust off this old blog and write something down here; but what?
Well some old things don’t change with the New Year; for one [...]
Friday 23rd February 2007
At times it seems as if it is open season on the supermarkets, and especially Tesco, the UK’s largest retailer. In the same way that Barclays – by virtue of its dominant position in the banking sector – is the first to be attacked for closing branches, outsourcing and imposing punitive bank charges, so disquiet [...]
…and I am a Plant. But a few years ago I was a Monitor Evaluator. So has the world changed or have I changed?
I’m talking about Belbin’s Team Roles, and for the second time in my life I have filled out one of their self-perception questionnaires that in theory indicates where I should ideally fit [...]
Friday 10th February 2006
Jarndyce has gone into semi-retirement, again, and I know the feeling; but I don’t think I will ever follow suit because I will never stop shouting at the telly, I will always have something I want to get off my chest. I think this blog will just continue in its erratic and irregular nature, occasionally [...]