Rio Ferdinand

1200 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast: Colin Bird, Rio Ferdinand & Toxic Dave Sefton: 2 bad guys and a hero but would you want any on the board?

I start with yesterday’s Albanian lecture in honour of my late father. Then it is onto Colin Bird and Jubilee Metals (JLP), Rio Ferdinand and the Gym Group (GYM) and Toxic Dave Sefton and Iconic (ICON) in the wake of Nigel’s bombshell from earlier. One of the three is a bit of a hero and, to give you a clue neither Bird or toxic Dave ever played for West Ham.  But would you want any of the three on the board of a company in which you are invested. I discuss all three situations in detail.

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2590 days ago

Saying Goodbye to my father...but, thank God, that was only a dress rehearsal: Good News from Warwick Hospital

The operation was set to start at noon so I headed in to see my father for quarter past eleven. In he wandered on his crutches wearing the most ridiculous surgical stockings and dressing gown. His garb invited ridicule but given the gravity of what was to happen I held back. 

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3598 days ago

I have a terribly guilty confession and is Manchester packed with homosexuals?

I have a terribly guilty confession. It really is shameful. But I am open with you and so confess that …I have started watching Coronation Street. It is really quite gripping to discover what life is really like in the Grim North.

The Mrs – hailing from the entrepreneur free, economic wastelands of the welfare addicted Grim North, that is to say Nottingham – is a lifelong Corrie fan. Until recently we have agreed that when I am there she records and when I am away she gorges and catches up. But then I started watching. It really is fascinating.

I had no idea that life in the North was so interesting. Apparently there is a murder on the Street about once every six months. Folks disappear for unexplained reasons (because the actor who plays them is on trial accused of being a nonce, a rapist or both) and no-one lives with their actual parents. In the North it is apparently compulsory for kids to live with a step parent and their new partner while their actual parents both live with new partners and the children of other folk.

It is all very confusing but since The Mrs is a sociologist she is able to explain it all to me. Right now someone called Tina who seems to have had sex with every man in the street (apart from the large numbers of homosexuals camped out in Corrie) has been murdered. The main suspect is a white man whose son by his first marriage appears to be black and lives with his white ex-wife. Go figure. The main suspect lives with the wife of his father (currently a “disparu”) who is not his mother.  The other suspect is the main suspect’s wife (not yet divorced).  In fact the killer is the brother of the main suspect’s wife whose girlfriend is the sister of the main suspect. Or is it half-sister? Whatever. As you might gather it is all gripping stuff.

My wife says hat Corrie is set in the traditional small c conservative part of Manchester 

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