1581 days ago
Some of you have suffered only three years of being branded thick, ignorant, xenophobic, narrow minded and racist since you voted to leave the EU. For my family there is 45 years of hurt. But on January 31 it is all over and so I have today invested a few quid for my own personal celebration, which I will – of course – record though it will probably be classed as a hate crime.
1587 days ago
I say this as a Star Wars groupie: I went with my daughter todaty and it was pure woke rubbish. It really was awful. I was bored, annoyed and almost walked out. I thenm discuss Bidstack (BIDS), caught up ion its own lies and running out of cash and Zoetic International (ZOE) caught up in its own poor judgement and running out of cash.
1587 days ago
I was nine when the first Star Wars film came out and almost ever since I have been a true groupie. I have seen every film, in the case of the original three, dozens of times. I have Star Wars Trivial Pursuit which I should warn you all that I am rather good at. There was even a vague attempt to include in my daughter’s names Leia but I am afraid that the Force was not with me in that battle. And thus my daughter and I headed off yesterday to see the final instalment of this nine movies phenomenon, the Rise of Skywalker.
2312 days ago
Star Wars beckons. Happy days. Ahead of that I discuss Stanley Gibbons (SGI), Provexis (PXS), Fishing Republic (FISH), Inspirit (INSP) and have some more questions for Neil "nomates" Woodford.
2504 days ago
I suppose I should not have been shocked. The spin from her publicists was that Carrie Fisher had once been a hell raiser but had now been clean for years. I think she once admitted that during the filming of Star Wars she was taking so much coke that she barely knew which day of the week it was. Well I guess we now know that the "now clean" line was just spin. The autopsy shows that Fisher had traces of coke, heroin and ecstasy in her body when she died aged 60 just before Christmas.
2551 days ago
Of course these two good folks have a lot in common. They are both part of the metropolitan elite who think that the real downside of Brexit is that there might be a shortage of folks to serve them organic semi-skinned macchiatos at £6 a pop in ponsey London cafes. They both know who I am and say that I swear too much in podcasts. But they have a deeper bond. And it is once that marks them out as total freaks. Today is May 4th. you know the 4th of May. May the 4th be with you! Still Paul Scott does not get it, nor will Olaf who I am seeing later. Today is Star Wars Day.
2807 days ago
The Star Wars imagery should tell you that this is Tom writing not Steve. The series of movies will be my specialist subject if I ever go on Mastermind. Enough geekery, you want to know about marble not that I am losing my marbles.Another day and another operational update from Fox Marble (FOX) sees, on balance, more good news than bad. We will get full interims for the half calendar year by the end of September but the trading update is full. Let's start with the bad.
2965 days ago
Once again a range of funny and filthy entries were offered for this contest and I was sorely tempted to award myself the prize for my suggestion involving Wildes and oral sex. You can see all the entries here but the winner for someone who understood where Jabba started out, in Star Wars is Santiago:
3052 days ago
My sleep patterns disrupted by a late night screening of Star Wars and ealy morning writing to accomodate the travel arrangements of pizza Hardman Darren Atwater, I have only just woken up. The Mrs is out at a party with some Krauts and so I engage in a few reflections on a changing world and how that affects work and investment decisions. Malcolm Stacey is the cue...
3053 days ago
I am asked by a reader would I buy shares in any AIM listed company from Israel? I widen that to include Aussie, Greek, Chinese and US companies and the answer is NO! I explain why. Then I go on to thank the readers who post so many great "spots", "red flags" and technical insights in the comments section here. You make me look an awful lot smarter than I really am. I also discuss Star Wars which I shall be watching tonight and which I have looked forward to all year. Merry Christmas to you all.
3282 days ago
As you might have guessed, I am a major Star Wars geek. We have Star Wars Trivial Pursuit here, all the films, I have a Darth T-shirt and the Star Wars jokes run through all of my writings, notably in my battles with the now imploding Death Star known as Burnbrae Media. Did any of the folks at UK Investor Show 2015 get my little joke on that matter with our introductory music?
Anyhow, we are now preparing to announce the arrival of the real Princess Leia at the rebel base in Clerkenwell - our first Leia was just a trick to fool The Emperor - as we work to eliminate the last remnants dark side of the force forever, today is officially World Star Wars Day. May be the 4th be with you.
3809 days ago
Ever since the new Star Wars film held auditions for extras here in Bristol the suggestion that my (not very tall) Mrs should have applied to play an Ewok has gathered momentum. The Deluded lefty has been rechristened Ewok.
And at 3.55 PM today ITV finishes the six weeks of gripping Saturday afternoon showing of the Star Wars movies with The Return of the Jedi. As a Star wars/ Princess Leia obsessive I shall naturally be watching. And – for those that remember the plot – the Mrs will also be watching as her people go into battle.
3822 days ago
A well known businessman hosted a poorly attended soiree last week at which he approached one guest with the opening gambit “I don’t like Tom Winnifrith.” Had he been speaking to Terry “Junk” Bond of Vialogy or a partner at Pinsent Masons that might have been a winner. But his guest was in fact a godfather of my daughter. Within minutes his words were relayed to the rebel alliance headquarters in Clerkenwell.
Darth, you should know that the rebel alliance has spies everywhere. We know your pitiful plans as well as your social faux-pas and your gaffe spread across the galaxy within minutes. The force is powerful but the Dark Side of merely attacking ones foes and harking back to the past is not as powerful as you might think. The power of the force is to play to your own strengths. If you have them. The rebel alliance understands this. And that is why we continue to grow. Watch this space.
Incidentally the new Star Wars film was auditioning for extras in Bristol yesterday. I was tempted. The Mrs is short enough to be an Ewok. I’d happily be the bloke who helps Han Solo, who must be at least 104 by now, to climb up the ramp into the Millienium Falcon.
3905 days ago
It is a fight to the death and it was hand to hand stuff on the front line today. For the Evil Empire Emperor Ellerton moved off the beaches of Hawaii and flew (at Sefton shareholder expense) to California. That left newly appointed company Secretary and IR genius Doc Gopher Green to lead the counter attack from his personal Shareprice death star.
Some of the Imperial strormtroopers in the BB Moron brigade of the Sefton army were hoping for a statement refuting weekend allegations, broadcast across the Galaxy by the rebel alliance. But that was not possible as the company is not in a position to refute anything. So instead Doc Gopher briefed a number of BB loons with the line: “all Sefton directors have been fully vetted by different nomads and nothing was found awry.”
That, of course, is NOT the same as a denial. Doc Gopher is not THAT stupid. And it is also meaningless as one of the Nomads immediately came forward and revealed to the intelligence officer of the Rebel Alliance that it had indeed commissioned independent due diligence on the Sefton board but that it was told that Ellerton/Dillabaugh was a personal matter and that Sefton did not disclose the Court case to it at all. Thus this did not feature in the due diligence.
Han Solo (played by Daniel Levi) then revealed that the non-execs on the Imperial board had now commissioned an independent enquiry into the activities of Darth Ellerton relating to the Ellerton case. And
4015 days ago
I seem to remember that there used to be an AIM Australia Day party. The “cesspit” meets a bunch of folks from a country which started its colonial life as a penal colony. It sounds like a hoot. But I guess that I am not going to get invited if such an event still takes place. Or perhaps it never did and was just a figment of my imagination – a sort of party for white collar folk held in Jabba the Hut’s Bar. Did Princess Leia attend this party? Which PR firm does she work for as I’d like a briefing? And which dodgy mining stock is Jabba promoting today? We need to know.
I slightly digress, but I am a Star Wars groupie and Carrie Fisher is always welcome at Chez Winnifrith to pop on over and drone on yet again about her celeb parents and all that cocaine she took any time. Now,where was I? Oh yes, in that water and snake filled garbage crusher on the Death Star when Luke, Han, Chewie and Leia almost get crushed before R2D2 and C3PO save them by hacking into the control system. I refer of course to AIM.
It seems that barely a day goes by without me feeling compelled to vent my anger about some outrage inflicted on investors on the cesspit. But, it strikes me that a disproportionate number of the stocks that I write about in this vein, are dual listed on the ASX and are primarily Australian companies
4289 days ago
One of the minor matters that I have resented during the past few years has been the idea of dressing to a corporate standard. There are greater issues that have caused me angst but this is an easy one to address going forward. When I started t1ps my attire was T-shirt and shorts/jeans. When the office was in my home I used to work in my underpants. It was a time when life was simple, work was fun in that I did only what I enjoyed (mainly writing) and was – I think – quite good at what I did. And no-one told me what to wear. I remember Algy Cluff being a bit surprised to find me wearing Irish rugby shorts and a T-shirt with some vaguely controversial message across the front, but most CEOs judge you on your work, not on what you wear.
Gradually, the pressures increased to smarten up. I found a review of a talk I gave a long time ago where I was lambasted for wearing a crumpled shirt. Heck did the reviewer know that was an upgrade? Looking back I can see some inverse sort of correlation between freedom to wear what I want & to write what I wanted and my move to do other things and an increasing sense of frustration and unhappiness. However that was suppressed at the time. Maybe weight gain was a symptom of that.
And so, going forward, whatever I do it has to be on the condition that I will be looking rather casual as I do it. I guess that rules out a career at Morgan Stanley. Drat. But my lifetime love affair with the T-shirt can once again come out of the closet.
