252 days ago
I have a facebook account which I very rarely use. I post links to my articles on it and now and again visit it it to check whether I am the subject of a two minute hate here in the last village in Wales. Following revelations that the Welsh Government imposed draconian lockdown rules on us for purely political rather than scientific reasons I am waiting for some of the face nappy fascists here to apologise but suspect they will not. Anyhow I was on facebook the other day and was contacted out of the blue by a chap living in Greece. My late father would have been horrified.
515 days ago
I start with Lucian’s 24 mile suffering while I did not suffer from walking but, once again, from being the pantomime villain of the village facebook site. In short, to the 92% of you yet to donate please give to Rogue Bloggers for Woodlarks HERE. Then I move on to ASOS (ASC) and Eden Research (EDEN).
519 days ago
There are folks out there who still think that Chris Cleverly and Darren Mercer have ignored the habits of a lifetime and created a real business in Tingo (US:TIO) and that its fully diluted billion plus bucks market cap undervalues the story despite Lucian’s damning dossier HERE. Well here is something for such folks to consider: where are Tingo mobile’s 9 million supposed customers? I present to you a series of screenshots.
1041 days ago
The opinion polls suggest that Americans now rate Joe Biden as the worst President Ever. After more than 40 years Jimmy Carter has lost his crown and can breathe a sigh of relief. Folks see through the lie that Trump caused vast covid deaths as the body bag toll has gone through the roof under Biden – this was a disease not a political football weaponised by the Dems in 2020. Inflation is is the thief in the night and Americans feel robbed every day as they buy gasoline or groceries, just as they feel humiliated by events in Afghanistan.
1183 days ago
I am not in the slightest bit apologetic. In fact I think she is rather pathetic and she deserved exposing for raising money on a false prospectus. But I am the pantomime villain of the Holt facebook page yet again today as I explain HERE. I then discuss Roquefort Investments (ROQ) a proposterous Standard Listed shell, Kefi (KEFI), Chill Brands (CHLL), and Nanosynth (NNN)
1185 days ago
I am back in the last village in Wales, Holt, and it seems as if the village Facebook page has again identified me as Emmanuel Goldstein and a two minute hate, which will last a lot longer than two minutes, is now underway. This time my “crime” is not to make a “modest proposal” to the local face nappy jihadists, it is far worse. I appear to have made a young woman cry.
1211 days ago
Forgive the crude title or love it if you are Matthew and his dog. I could not resist. I start with a discussion of the tyranny of village facebook pages prompted by my latest spat with some villagers of Holt in Wales HERE. Then I look at Kefi (KEFI), Zoetic (ZOE), Kanobo (KNB), Supply@ME Capital (SYME), Block Energy (BLOE) and the bitcoin pump by America’s Neil Woodford and others. Ian Westbrook is now at just under £12,000 and has ten days to reach £20,000 to see the loathsome Neill Ricketts at the next stage. To call the bluff of the Versarien (VRS) bully, please donate HERE. PS Darren points out it is the 26th not the 27th. He is correct.
1213 days ago
Not Byron and Cam Hobhouse in Zitsa but cats Sian and Quincey back in Wales and snapped by a kind friend who went round to talk to them. No doubt someone in Holt will be dobbing them in on the village facebook group for non mask wearing and a failure to social distance. These cats are what i miss most about life back in Blighty which tells you a lot about how Airstrip One appears from abroad right now.
1248 days ago
I kid you not. Carole is the Orwell Prize winning journalist who made up a stack of stories about Cambridge Analytica, the Vote Leave campaign, Dirty Russian Money, Arron Banks and those pesky Russians getting Donald Trump elected in 2016. It has all been shown to be utter fantasy. Carole has now admitted that she has no evidence at all that Banks, who is minted in his own right, got Russian money to fund the Brexit campaign. She will shortly be taken to the cleaners by Arron in the High Court. She is the ultimate source of media disinformation. So today I learned that lefty pressure group Avaaz is holding a conference on media disinformation…
1248 days ago
I start with a request to you all, to help me nail some villains. Please can you send THIS OUTSIDE PAYWALL ARTICLE to all your twitter, instagram, facebook etc accounts. I then look at the frauds Zoetic International (ZOE) and Supply@ME Capital (SYME), as well as Best of the Best (BOTB) which is not a fraud but is a stock that for three reasons I would not touch with a bargepole.
1251 days ago
It was this time last year that I had my first run in with infamous Abi Lancelotte and her mum. My “crime” then was getting a path around our fields moved by a tractor and telling folks they could walk along it, enjoying the river and fresh air in lockdown. What a bastard thing to do! Abi, her mum and a few others went ballistic and some folks were soon moaning about the good old days before incomers (i.e. English infidels) started moving in.
1257 days ago
The first time I contacted the FCA about these two boiler room scams was in November 2019. Natch the woke dullards were too busy jerking off on ESG porn to do anything and now about £35 million has been stolen. My coverage has been extensive as you can see HERE. But now it really is time that the FCA did something and put these frauds to the sword if only so that those who invested under EIS can get some of their cash back.
1258 days ago
Update August 24 2021: I have now been painted as a villain for writing the article below, demonised on my village facebook group. Demonised most unjustly, I should say. That mob attempt to silence someone just telling the truth is written up here.
The most famous person in these parts, apart from my cat who starred on Panorama’s Neil Woodford special and has been receiving fan mail ever since, is Eleanor Farr, aka Miss North West Charity girl. And she wants us all to give money to help her plant trees. Her green shite maths is off this planet.
1282 days ago
On one side of the farmyard at the Welsh Hovel lies a scrap metal skip, full to the top with more than three tonnes of iron. On the other side is the pile of sandstone blocks pictured below, many already hewn into shape. All were retrieved from the nettle and bramble covered large earth mounds that once separated our fields from the paddock where we have created the mound which will end with a Ha Ha. Suffice to say, we also removed vast amounts of plastic, tyres, asbestos and other horrors for safe and legal removal.
1299 days ago
I was only joking when I suggested that someone here in the last village in Wales, snitch-on-Dee would report me for having a bonfire. But hey ho..meet Abi Lancelotte, the teenage curtain twitcher.
1318 days ago
Here in Holt, the last village in Wales, where snitching on your neighbour with unfounded allegations is deemed fair game but something that cannot be discussed openly, a bright sun shines this Tuesday morning revealing another night of, modest, frost. So far this frost season the blossom on the fruit trees has survived and peas and beans planted a few weeks ago, grow unaffected.
1319 days ago
I recounted earlier how someone in this village near Wrexham, Holt, had snitched on me to the local council, an act of pure malice as what I was doing in creating an amazing restoration of a derelict farm, was not in ahy way wrong or in breach of any rules. I thought I’d put a link up on the village facebook group so that others might ponder such petty silliness and how it is not a great reflection on the way some in Wales treat, what they term, newcomers.
1393 days ago
Okay I do not really support the Socialist Workers Party. They are so nutso that they make even the Cottage Burners of Plaid Cymru, who are bonkers, look like rational and sane human beings. But that said, I stand shoulder to shoulder with the comrades.
1398 days ago
As you know, we have had a spot of flooding here at the Welsh Hovel. In fact so much that we are on page 33 of today’s Mail. I stress that I do not read that frightful rag but my neighbour did and, so that you do not need to hold your nose, I bring you the dramatic picture below.
1409 days ago
To we libertarians former Congressman Dr Ron Paul is our idol. The good doctor has campaigned against pointless US wars, for sound money and budget responsibility, against the Patriot Act and for free speech and to protect the constitution for years. In recent times he has questioned the efficacy of masks and lockdown but also suggested that the damage they cause to liberty and the economy is not worth it. He is a good guy. He is not inciting violence, he abhors it. He is a brave voice often castigated by his own Party, the Republicans, and one that should be heard. But facebook does not want that voice heard. Big tech is now deciding who can or cannot question Government but it is only libertarians and conservatives who it is muzzling.
1416 days ago
UPDATED: What is happening in the UK right now is the biggest assault on our civil liberties in history and is causing the worst recession for 300 years. You may argue that in order to stop the spread of a disease where the average death is at 82.4 years, a year greater than UK life expectancy, such measures are justified. I support your right to do so. But I might counter that since all prior lockdowns failed to stop Covid, then why should this make any difference and that, in any way, the response is disproportionate and unwarranted. But big media does not want that debate to happen at all. The GroupThink of the media and political classes just must not be challenged.
1417 days ago
The last time I posted on the Facebook page of the last village in Wales was to say that if folks wanted to walk across our fields then they would be more than welcome to do so. At the height of lockdown, it seemed a decent offer and I had even cut back the grass so folks could do so in a socially distanced manner. That was met with overt hostility from some who saw this as an act of wicked selfishness.
1419 days ago
Arguably, it would be more useful than a Matt Hancock clock which isn’t even right once a day, let alone twice. As you can see below, purchasing a clock which honours a man who the BBC used your money to protect and reward over many years although many staffers knew – as did the whole of Fleet Street – that he was a nonce, is a bit hard on Amazon. For some reason, the firm that used to make them has discontinued production. Why do I undertake this search you ask? My interest was spurred on as I searched for a clock to buy for my kitchen on Facebook marketplace and came across this £100 “John Lennon” clock below. But it was not a Beatle that stared out at me. It is not this sort of clock which I seek.
1426 days ago
I have not read the full 1500 pages of the Trade treaty between the UK and the Evil Empire. I am sure that buried in the detail are a few dastardly measures from inserted by stormtroopers from the Death Star. I don’t need to fall asleep reading it; I just look at the reactions of those who have.
1442 days ago
It seems as if the tax affairs and China business dealings of Joe Biden’s cokehead son Hunter are now being investigated by Federal authorities. And with Hunter admitting this, the MSM is starting to report on it. This exposes the real fraud at the heart of the US election a fraud that should terrify all of us whether we are liberals or conservatives.
1457 days ago
I am far from convinced that Donald Trump won enough real votes in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to swing the electoral college. US elections are always, to some extent, corrupt but right now I’d bet heavily on Joe Biden being the next President. However, there is a new poll out today which convinces me that an enormous fraud did take place and I will call as my first witness the late Mr George Orwell.
1460 days ago
Karen Attiah has a blue tick on her Twitter account so Twitter tells you to trust what she says. She is the National Association of Black Journalists Journo of the year, has 200,000 Twitter followers and a highly paid gig at the uber liberal Washington Post. So Twitter allows her to tweet out what is divisive and dangerous fake news as if it is gospel as you can see below.
1461 days ago
During the US election, Facebook and Twitter took it upon themselves not only to restrict what President Trump was able to communicate to electors but also to stop folks discovering about the sordid business deals and sexual antics of Hunter Biden and allegations that his dad Joe was involved in the former. The new media giants were happy to link to stories about Trump which were palpably untrue and had been proven to be untrue, but Biden allegations which are well sourced were blocked. Twitter and Facebook claimed, without evidence, that they were fake news and folks had to be protected.
1491 days ago
Can Trump win the General Election? I discussed how he could HERE and this morning things look a little better for POTUS. I see the Economist says Joe Biden has a 92% chance of winning. Its writers must be sharing Hunter’s crack pipe. The same publication says the Dems are more than 80% likely to win the Senate. I explain why, as things stand, I am scoring it at 51-49 for the GOP as I look at the eight swing races. Then it is onto two breaking bombshells from last night that is not the Borat sting on Mayor Giuliani which the MainStream Media is focussing on. But Iran exposed by the FBI, not Trump’s friends, as batting for Biden and more damning evidence on the #BidenCrimeFamily – this time fingering Creepy Joe himself. The MSM and twitter/facebook are working hard to supress this and I demonstrate how, but this is seeping out and let’s see how Trump plays the debate tonight. The Donald has the big Mo right now.
1497 days ago
You have a right to know about Hunter and his business dealings and how his dad Joe was involved. Emails that emerged yesterday are, even the Bidens concede, genuine and show them in a terrible light as liars and worse. Yet Twitter and Facebook have taken extraordinary steps to stop you reading about this story which first appeared in the New York Post. And that has allowed folks across the Deadwood Press and MSM, notably charlatans such as Jon Sopel at the BBC, to ignore it completely. 19 days before polling day, Americans have a right to know about the story and the cover up which in these dark times marks a new low point in the suppression of a free press and free speech. I explain all and show why the position of Twitter and Facebook is inconsistent and unjustifiable in this podcast.
1523 days ago
When is an exploration company worth £1 billion? Very rarely. When does its market cap reach £1 billion with almost no, or no, institutional support? When you are in a bull market and the stock is being ramped by folks saying it could treble again. Ask yourself would you rather own 40% of Centamin (CEY) which has cash, is producing vast amounts of gold and whose directors are not big sellers of stock or 100% of an exploration play with heavy boardroom selling like Greatland (GGP). Exactly…my thoughts too which is why I own Centamin. But Big David Lenigas owns Greatland and so writes on facebook:
1666 days ago
The Coronavirus crisis here in Airstrip One has given elements of the Old Bill license to act in an increasingly authoritarian manner. Often asistsed by a GroupThink mob keen to snitch on their neighbours to enforce house arrest, sorry lockdown we see Journalists pulled over for filming nothing at all. Citizens are warned for sitting on a park bench or playing soccer in their own garden. And now from Norfolk a new insanity.
2380 days ago
On a post approved by ShareSoc on its blog, Roger Lawson has today commented on the incident I described in bearcast on Monday - the email I received in response to my fraudbusting work. I have made Lawson aware of the content of that email currently with the Police so something I cannot publish - but it is the most disgusting material about my wife of Indian origin. Yet he is unapologetic for writing in a way that trivialises it and has refused polite requests to withdraw his article of today. Roger, may your soul burn in hell for your failure to see hate crime against an innocent woman, committed by someone not wanting fraud exposed, for what it is. Roger comments on Audioboom. My comments are in bold.
2433 days ago
Rather confused about the clocks going forward, my eighteen month old son Joshua and I prepared to watch some of the old Michael Horden voice-over Paddington Bear cartoons on video. Instead we found ourselves watching Andrew Marr as he introduced Guardian and Observer journalist and all-round nonsense talker Carole Cadwalladr.
2731 days ago
"Congratulations on your anniversary" said a raft of messages from folks I once knew, barely know or don't know at all but who are connected to me on facebook for grown ups, that is to say LinkedIn. Er ....what thought I... what anniversary?
2849 days ago
I have made it clear that the issues raised by Channel 4 with regards to the way Boohoo.com (BOO) treats warehouse staff and exploits vulnerable immigrant workers are serious. I am so shocked that I am boycotting the retailer. Ho Ho Ho - do you honestly think I have ever used it? But other real customers are enraged not just by what appears to be the unacceptable face of capitalism. Boohoo is censoring its facebook page removing any hostile comments. That in itself is seen as being shifty. Truly, Boohoo is crap at PR.
2862 days ago
My wife draws my attention to the Facebook page of Bristol Against Trump which one of her mad left wing public sector working pals supports. BAT is holding a demo against the democratically elected leader of the USA at 5 PM today. Who is going to tell these fucktards that as of 1776 they stopped having any say in how the USA was governed and by whom?
Of course that does not matter. When Mr Trump opines that Brexit is good news for Britain, these same people post on facebook that it is none of his business. But apparently we are all obliged to assemble at 5 PM because who runs the US really is our business.
That is not because the BATty ones are especially worried about US foreign policy.
2873 days ago
It was Oakley's birthday last week. Thank you to those who left messages for him on his facebook page. He is now fifteen. But I need to record that he is now starting to behave very badly indeed.
2895 days ago
In this podcast I look at Daniel Stewart (DAN) where Waseem Shakoor closed his short today. I look at the lunacy there, the lunacy at Cloudtag (CTAG) and show how it is the same folks, the sort of folks who are also preyed on by conman Darren Winters. On that note please read THIS ARTICLE TODAY - and tweet it out and link to it on Facebook and on any website you can. I look at Strat Aero (AERO), Ferrum Crescent (FCR), Avanti Communications (AVN) and then at another stock cursed by the frothing endorsement of the Clown, MySquar (MYSQ) which is a right old dog and its well spun RNS today can't hide that.
2935 days ago
Cyril d'Silva who floated Golden Saint Resources (GSR) at 10p a share three years ago has just updated his facebook profile with a new picture. With the shares at 0.05p Investors have lost 99.5% of their money but Cyril does not seem to be starving. The word on the street is that Golden is trying to get another bailout placing away urgently as it is again out of cash. Meanwhile as you look at the smug fat fellow below do you have a suitable caption for the photo. Entries in the comments section below before midnight Tuesday please.
2942 days ago
This was the strap on an article posted on LinkedIn. aka facebook for really boring adults. It is a great headline which arouses interest but I really doubt that "I'm an emergency surgeon" was quite the answer you were thinking of as you hit the link. I am sure you could do better. For instance, when with the mad public sector working bunch of lefties who are the friends of my Mrs, I could come up with:
2962 days ago
LinkedIn, aka Facebook for grown ups is where those in the business world connect with each other and oggle good looking PR birds from the world of commerce or humourless left wing lawyers who look like a squirrel. In your profile you say what you are good at and joining LinkedIn today we have Dan Levi, aka BrokermanDan. Now just look at his profile - it has to be the most unusual out there. Whatever else you say about him, Levi can be quite amusing.
3030 days ago
Airports across Britain are today being disrupted by activists protesting that #blacklivesmatter - well of course they do. All lives matter but for white middle class liberals in the media and on twitter and facebook this is an opportunity for angst, guilt and self loathing that cannot be missed. But what about the hard data?
Sod the hard data, lets just feel guilty about slavery and how everyone, especially old Brexit voters, are all racists, facts do not matter any more do they? This is Airstrip One and its 1984 every day these days. Okay
3044 days ago
Munich, Nice, Norfolk, 9/11, Charlie Hebdo the attacks are all horrible. And there is a fairly obvious common thread. It is nothing to do with ISIS, Al-Qaeda or Islam, it is how the deluded lefty reacts as he or she prays that it is a right wing crazy.
1. Tweet
3160 days ago
When you are away for a short break what is the priority of the Mrs? It goes without saying that it is worrying about how our morbidly obese three legged cat Oakley is doing.
Is he alright? Is he
3211 days ago
The Mrs went to see Howard Jones last night and I explain his significance in life then what the sell off in the FANGs ( Facebook, Amazon, Netflix & Google) as well as junior tech darlings like LinkedIn means. The it is onto all the reasons why I dodges the CMC Markets (CMCX) float and finally I look at the director dealings in Fusionex (FXI) and why they scream out SELL!
3240 days ago
I forgot: belated many happy returns to my morbidly obese three legged cat Oakley
It is only now that I logon to facebook for the first time in a week that an alert comes up. How could I forget? Oakley turned 15 on Tuesday. It is on his facebook page.
At least he has had a great week. The Mrs
3335 days ago
Oh dear. Last Autumn the big ramp from supporters of Avanti Communications (AVN) was that it would sign a major deal with Facebook to provide internet in Africa. It was even suggested that facebook might bid for the AIM listed company with the most bombastic CEO on this planet, Mr David Williams. Oh dear. It ain’t going to happen.
3354 days ago
The ghastly feminist lawyer Charlotte Proudman was doing the rounds on the British news channels last night and did herself no favours, as she whinged away in a nasal faux working class drone she showed herself to be little more than a humourless, publicity seeking hypocrite.
You remember that on the tedious LinkedIn website Ms Proudman posted a photo of herself in which she polished up well prompting some buffoon of a lawyer (Alexander Carter-Silk) to post a comment “I appreciate that this is probably horrendously politically incorrect but that is a stunning picture!!! You definitely win the prize for the best LinkedIn picture I have ever seen.”
Ms Proudman promptly accused the sexist old beast of being a sexist old beast stating:
3438 days ago
Thanks to @facebook forcing me to use my real name, I am now at more risk of rape and death threats. But enjoy flogging that data, guys.
Where to start?
3490 days ago
Give the many admirers that my morbidly obese three legged cat Oakley has (well Brokerman Dan at least) it is time that the old boy got into social media and so as of today his very own facebook page has gone live. If you want to "friend" the creature also known as Benefits Street, you can do so here
3602 days ago
As you may know the Mrs has decreed that I cannot work in the house because I make it untidy, stop her having freedom to canoodle three legged cat Oakley, watch Coronation Street and “work” on Facebook, etc. And so I was consigned to the garage as my new study. As October turned to November I flagged up that the garage was a little on the nippy side.
And so for Christmas by biggest present was a radiator. I have until now managed to avoid using it and have happily worked away in the kitchen. The Mrs has this morning put her little feet down and so I am now in the garage. The radiator is blasting away against my left leg which is toasting nicely. My right leg is about surviving. But above the desk my fingers are freezing as I tap away. I suppose it keeps me awake. The Mrs is however almost quoting the blessed Margaret – of whom she strongly disapproves: “The lady is not for turning.”
Meanwhile as a birthday present I am to be allowed to give a lecture to the sociology students currently taught by the Mrs. These impressionable young people currently have their minds filled with all sorts of nonsense
3753 days ago
What is it about the intolerance of the liberal left/Islamofascist alliance when it comes to free speech? I do not deny anyone the right to say that they support Hamas and why, that is their call. They are on the side of terror, of homophobes of folks whose desire is genocide but they have the right to be heard. And that is pretty much the view of all Israel supporters we believe in a free world where folks can say or do what they wish.
In Israel one can dissent, one can speak out against the Government, one can pursue a career if female and you can sleep with whom you want. In Gaza life is very different and it is shameful that in the UK supporters of the organisation whose charter commits itself to wiping Israel off the map appear to be adopting a similar attitude to free speech.
My pal, Mr Frog (not his real name) works for a FTSE 100 listed marketing and communications group. He is a vocal supporter of Israel and of her right to defend herself. He does not celebrate the death of any innocent in his tweets or Facebook pages but he is clearly partial. And this has come to the attention of certain Islamofascists in the UK who have now swamped his employer with emails accusing Mr Fish of “racism” and “supporting child killing.”
This is clearly bogus but such is the fear
3875 days ago
I am sitting in a little café in Delphi and have found a 95 year old man to chat to. He offers up two more details on the death of my great uncle David Cochrane in 1931, one of which begs a question for my father.
The first is just on how the body was found in 1932 a year after the death. It seems as if the folks from Desfina were on the mountain collecting snails. It is not just the French who eat l’escargot. And it was on the snail hunt that they found the badly decayed body of David. The consensus here is that he was buried in Delphi in the North East part of the churchyard where there are a small number of protestant graves from the 40s onwards. But as I have described before bones are removed after a while and that appears to have been what happened to those of David. I have checked that part of the yard in detail.
The question for my father is what happened to David’s Camera? It was found with his body and like his other possessions returned to England. Did anyone ever develop the film which would undoubtedly have had footage of his last few days in Desfina and possibly of his last walk? Possibly he was shooting the sort of photos I took two days ago when he slipped and fell.
Over to you Tom Winnifrith Snr…
PS A Young man said that they guy at the town hall in Delphi, who I cannot thank enough for his help, has shared my video with him on facebook. He says “ah you are the man…” If anyone has any more details I guess they know how to get hold of me. For my father who terms the internet Beelzebub, you see..it has some purpose. I will explain to him later what facebook is.
3923 days ago
Once again the fascist bully boys of the Kent Police are stamping out on new media thought crime. This force has “form” when it comes to Orwellian oppression of thought crime but in Margate this week they have surpassed themselves.
In the sleepy seaside town there is a plan to build a new Tesco. As ever in such matters, opinion is divided. The plebs want cheap turkey twizzlers and jobs and so are in favour. The middle classes fear that the small stores where they pay over the odds for their sundried Tuscan tomatoes may be shut down and so are against. Such was the debate in my parents’ home town of Shipston last year where my deluded lefty father and step-mother were naturally wanting to screw the poor along with their fellow Guardian readers who, for once, stood firm alongside Nimby Tory Toffs. Sadly this unholy alliance prevailed and so the shops where they buy their quail has been saved while the folks on the Council Estates are deprived of both consumer choice and jobs. Chianti’s all round.
Over in Margate battle lines are similar
3933 days ago
The Mrs strolled in yesterday saying that she had posted some witty thoughts about, and pictures of, our cats on her Facebook page. I went to look. “hang on? I can’t get in” said I. “Oh…I de-friended you a few weeks ago” said she.
My crime was to put up some comment about how she and her lefty mates could always pop down to the local Conservative Club if they wanted as it would be a good opportunity for them to meet folks from outside the intellectual middle classes for a change. That apparently did not go down well and I was de-friended.
As a 14th February gesture I have now been re-friended. The Mrs says that if you are in a relationship you should talk face to face rather than digitally or on line. Now that I have been re-friended I shall consider it….down at the Conservative Club.
4077 days ago
There are many reasons why I cannot give blank cheque support to UKIP although I am a profound Eurosceptic but here’s one for starters: the abject failure of Nigel Farage to purge his party of some pretty obvious Jew hating scumbags. I refer to the UKIP Friends of Palestine, a group with only 30 members but whose pronouncements are just shocking.
This bunch of scumbags last week announced
"The genocide of the Palestinian people by the current Israeli government is no different to the genocide of the Jewish people by Nazi Germany."
On Facebook the Jew haters state:
4084 days ago
Please complete your education profile shouts the latest command: “Where is Warwick School, Warwick, England located?” I am asked to enter the City name in a box to make my education profile complete.
Er, um, let me think is it:
a) Tirana, Albania,
b) Ulan Bator
c) Downtown Damascus, Syria
or
d) Warwick, England.
Does anyone out there need to go 50/50 or phone a friend on that one?
4084 days ago
Maybe it is the name that attracts them? I do not know. But it certainly adds to the joy of working here. First we met up with Pauline Amos, the naked artist as you may remember from this video article here. And now it is senior waitress Maribel who is getting her kit off.
Fear not, it is all in the name of world peace. All 77 pictures of her in the altogether. I kid you not. On her Facebook site (which not surprisingly has almost 4,000 followers) Maribel explains:
To my parents: Father, Mother, you are not going to like this, but it is what I must do.
To my friends: You know me, so you will understand.
The rest of the world: I do this because I must use what power I possess to act out against war and barbarism.
I expose myself to reconcile my body and my soul.
I use my body because all I came into this world with, and all I will go out with, are my body and my soul.
I use my body because I am a woman, and women are the most used, humiliated, the weakest and the strongest of humanity.
We bear the children they send to war, to kill and die.
We are still the temptations, the objects of desire—Eve, the Original sinner—from the East to the West.
I use my body because, at this stage of "civilization", nothing is more revolutionary than to show us as we are—people, human beings, a majority of humanity, who want to live in peace.
Only the sick of soul want war.
PLEASE UNDERSTAND, I FORBID the use of these images for profit—not even for me or on my behalf.
I encourage everyone to take the same action, but if your modesty prevents you, use my images.
Paste them on Facebook, distribute them by email and post, or print them, until there is not a corner of the Earth that does not know that the majority of humanity calls for Peace.
I am of course really into peace & love and all of that stuff but shall pass on taking the same action myself.
The facebook page is shown below.
If you’d like to discuss World Peace or to see more of Maribel, just pop along to our quirky Italian restaurant Real Man Pizza Company in Clerkenwell at any time – perhaps this Wednesday for Ken Scott’s gig?
4119 days ago
Some of the Bulletin Board loons out there seem to think that the City is on the side of Sefton Resources (SER) in its libel battle with myself and Dan Levi. Au contraire…our big name backers grow by the day. And today came a fascinating endorsement which should make Sefton supporters as well as its uber expensive bully boy City lawyers Pinsent Masons think long and hard.
I posted an open letter via video this afternoon to the AIM regulation team calling on it to suspend Sefton shares pending a full investigation. Heading over to LinkedIN (Facebook for grown-ups) I see that this video has been “liked” by Tim Metcalfe.
I am not sure if I have ever met Mr. Metcalfe but I know full well who he is and he is incredibly well regarded in the Square Mile as a good and honest operator. He is currently joint CEO of the highly regarded City Corporate Finance house Zeus Capital. But until last year he was MD at Northland Partners. And that is where he knows Sefton from because Northland used to act for Sefton as its Nomad until the two parted company.
Why did the two firms part company? Hmmm.. The fact that Mr. Metcalfe likes my call to have Sefton shares suspended might just give you a hint. Fox Davies was Sefton’s next Nomad and it quit because it felt that Sefton was deliberately misleading investors. I already have the head of Fox Davies called as a witness in the forthcoming libel trial to testify to that. But perhaps there is a pattern emerging here? Do you think Mr. Metcalfe would make an interesting witness in the great libel trial?
Or perhaps now that the City is publically starting to back me the AIM Cesspit Regulation team will finally do something to end this farce once and for all and suspend the shares pending a full enquiry.
Tim – feel free to get in touch at any time.
4161 days ago
I am a bit new to Facebook and still have absolutely no idea what it is all about. I seem to have found a few “friends” but I am not entirely sure that a FB friend is a real friend. But I am always open to making new friends and so when a bird called Alison Schwarz said “be my friend” naturally I accepted.
A message has just popped up. “Didn’t we meet in Israel many years ago.” Indeed we did Alison & I went to visit you in Philadelphia the year afterwards – I was right (having searched your timeline) you are THAT Alison from 29 years ago. Alison admits that she is now a bit of a lefty and is married to a lawyer. I am not sure which is more shameful. I suppose dating me briefly has to be the really embarrassing bit for her. It is not what nice Jewish girls are meant to do.
But lefties can be pleasant and charming (if one accepts that they are fundamentally deluded) and we have had a good long chat. One days I must go back to Philadelphia. I think I owe her lunch at least.
4184 days ago
The British Government is threatening journalists with jail if they report on how the British Government helped the US Government to spy on you and me – innocent British citizens. Oh, and it has also threatened journalists with jail if they report on the fact that they are being threatened with jail. 1984 in Airstrip One – this is surreal. And terrifying.
The background is that it emerged last week that the US PRISM programme where US intelligence services snooped (illegally) on millions of emails, Facebook postings, etc. of ordinary US citizens actually operated in the UK too thanks to the folk at GCHQ.
President Obama thinks it is okay to snoop on anyone in the interests of National Security. But under this administration other Government agencies have been used for expressly political purposes. The IRS (the US taxman) has been shown to have explicitly targeted and abused those folk who contributed to Republican and Right Wing groups. Do I trust a State agency to always act fairly? Never. Do I trust one under Obama’s stewardship? Never, never, never.
What is chilling is that the same sort of abuse is going on in the UK. And the Government is doing its utmost to stop you finding out about it. While GCHQ is set to report to MPs as soon as next week on what it did do I trust a criminal to report on himself? So far it has been the much maligned press making all the running.
And that brings me to June 7th when the British Defence Ministry press advisory committee, reacting to a flurry of revelations in the American press about massive warrantless US government electronic surveillance programs, warned UK organizations Friday not to publish British national security information.
Defiance of the June 7th “DA-Notice” could make British journalists vulnerable to prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. And it gets better – that DA notice was itself marked confidential and so revealing its existence is a breach of the Official Secrets Act.
The DA-Notice accepted that the U.S. National Security Agency was indeed working with spooks in the UK but said that our spooks are worried about revelations of their involvement. Too frigging right. They should be worried. This is a scandal and another sprint down the road to 1984 here in Airstrip One.
The DA Notice states:
"There have been a number of articles recently in connection with some of the ways in which the UK Intelligence Services obtain information from foreign sources," said the notice issued by the Defence Advisory Committee, a joint body with media organizations.
"Although none of these recent articles has contravened any of the guidelines contained within the Defence Advisory Notice System, the intelligence services are concerned that further developments of this same theme may begin to jeopardize both national security and possibly UK personnel," it said.
The notice is marked "Private and Confidential: Not for publication, broadcast or use on social media."
Well this blog is anti-social media. If the spooks want to arrest me I have just sent an email to myself marked Barack Obama is a c*** which has details of where I shall be this weekend.; No doubt they can hack into gmail and find out where to get me.
4184 days ago
Half term over. Back on schedule. Videos, writing like a dervish, Tomographs. The weekend newsletter will be out on Saturday and is a 1984 edition in honour of the fact that the US Government gets to check my Facebook postings and read my emails.
I will also cover the AIM Cesspit awards dinner and explian why half term week ( eneded seven days ago) was such a right pain in the wotsit.
To ensure that you receive your edition of the Tomograph on Saturday evening please REGISTER HERE
4251 days ago
I am in trouble. I am seven columns in arrears with 24n.biz the online magazine for SMEs. And so for the next 24 hours I shall be writing little else than articles with tips for small businesses. Enough is enough, it is SME time and so here is my first offering.
At the start of the year I outlined plans to market my excellent quirky Italian restaurant via old and new media and promised a report back after three months: it was a new foray for www.therealmanpizzacompany.com and I was uncertain of the outcome. Has it been worth it? On balance yes but to say that it has been a company transformer would be over-egging the pudding.
The amount invested in cash terms has been trivial. We have an in-house web design capacity and so that took up some time. The hard cash outlay was about £50 for targeted Facebook adverts kitting one strictly defined market segment: students in central/East London.
New media gurus will measure tangible new media metrics.
4260 days ago
Brother in law James is a classical singer. He is not on facebook, twitter or skype and like my sister Tabby seems to regard the new media world with large amounts of disdain. But he did point me the way of this super trailer for an ENO production a couple of years ago: Facebook in real life. It is very funny. Enjoy.
4260 days ago
The next weekend edition of the Tomograph will go out on Sunday evening
Register HERE to join the ever growing Tomograph mailing list. In this weekend’s issue you will, as always, find links to all the content that has appeared on the TomWinnifrith.com website this week. And given how much I am writing today (Sunday) the total scores on the doors will not be insignificant.
You will also find an exclusive piece explaining why Facebook and Twitter statistics are just so much hogwash
To receive all of this register HERE
4272 days ago
A Sicilian has posted in Italian on the Real Man Pizza Facebook page asking for a job. That is because he thinks that we are a Sicilian restaurant. That is in fact not as daft as it sounds – we do serve one Sicilian wine but the confusion comes from the Isle of Man flag which flies outside out restaurant and is on our web-page.
Ilse of Man Sicily
You see the similarity – the presence of the triskelion – the three legs. The Sicilian flag comes from 1282, the Isle of Man flag is from 1931 although it is based on the Manx coat of arms which is from the 13th century. Some folks suggest that the Manx flag is derived from that of Sicily, others that it came via Olaf Cuaran, a 10th century Norse Gaelic warlord who briefly ruled the Isle of Man.
It could just be a coincidence – the triskelion is an ancient symbol going back as far as Mycenae.
So our Sicilian friend can easily be forgiven his mistake.
4291 days ago
Well not exactly. It is just that now I am on Facebook my old friend popped in to Real Man to discuss strategy. Thankfully he is off to Leeds now to spend an evening on the town in a curry house with Richard Jennings of SpreadBet Magazine so there is no danger to my liver. Zak said that he was on Facebook and suggested that I become his Facebook friend. Well why not?
And so I searched for Zak Mir. Top of the list is Zaki and Miri make a porno. Apparently it has 4,744 likes. Well I knew that Zak was a popular fellow as the self proclaimed top chartist in the UK but I was unaware that he was that popular. Or indeed of his latest sideline.
Apparently it is a film. Zak said that when it came out big averts used to flash by on London buses and he would read it as Zak Mir makes porn and get rather confused. Heaven knows what Mrs Mir, a formidable lady made of it all. Anyhow that is not him.
There is a Zak Mir in Texas but he is not the one. In fact I cannot find THE Zak Mir on facebook at all. Perhaps he is too busy diversifying.
4304 days ago
LinkedIn has emailed me to say thanks. Aaah how touchingly American. And …I mean that most sincerely. Facebook for grownups is celebrating having 200 million users and apparently I have played my part as my profile was among the top 1% most hit upon in 2012. I am so touched. Grabs Onion. Weeps. I’d like to thank various of my stalkers, notably Mark & Sarah and those folks at legal firms Pinsent Masons and Kermans for crawling all over my activity log almost every day and making this possible. And so what does this all mean? Absolutely nothing.
While Facebook is inane, LinkedIn is just rather boring. Other than alerting me to the networking activities of Alecto Resources boss Damian Conboy ( liaising with the playboy PR bird Lucy HERE) I cannot say that it has really brought me much in the way of laughs over the past year. For what it is worth I am now on Facebook. I use it as I use LinkedIn to churn out links to my articles and so to attract readers to TomWinnifrith.com. And for what it is worth, over the past month LinkedIn has brought in about 3% of my traffic and Facebook 1.3%.
Natch I ‘d like to thank the two firms concerned but not by giving them any money. I am a customer in that I add to their metrics they boast about to hoodwink Wall Street. But the cash I generate for both firms is exactly £0.00. I have never clicked on an advert & will not do so. I use them for free marketing and that is it. I will link in or whatever the term is on Facebook with anyone (even one of those aforementioned stalkers) as it means they get alerted to my articles and might just be read them.
I am also sure that the 1% is misleading. In the same way that I think I am around the 2 millions most followed person ( of 500 million) on twitter ( @tomwinnifrith in case you want to push me over 3,000 today), the scales are logarithmic. So the top 2000 twitter people in terms of followers are followed by 1 million + or whatever and hen it tails off quite dramatically. And of course most of the twitter followers of those with a million + followers are paid for robots, exercises in vanity ( as I explained here) I am pretty sure LinkedIn traffic patterns are pretty similar. So being on the edge of the top 1% is a lot closer to being in the bottom 1% than it is to being in the top 0.1%. And on twitter I am closer in absolute terms to being the least followed person on this planet than I am to being the 1 millionth most followed.
Alerts on this article will naturally whizz off into the ether by twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn – I still fail to grasp why I add anything at all to your bottom lines, but thanks for having me none the less.
4309 days ago
The EU has announced that it is to spend £2 million “monitoring” twitter and other new media outlets in the run up to the 2014 European elections. Of this around 40% will not come from existing budgets in the Evil Empire’s Ministry of Truth but is new cash, part of the EU budget increase. The aim of this is explicitly to counteract Euroscepticism. In other words the EU is pissing away your cash to monitor folks like me who write and tweet stuff pointing out what an inefficient, misguided crook factory this edifice is. The stated aim is in persuading voters not to listen (and I presume vote UKIP or for other sceptical parties in Europe) but to “see the light” and vote for Eurofanatics (i.e. Labour, Lib Dems or Call Me Dave’s Tory party).
I quote from a document produced by the Evil Empire:
“Particular attention needs to be paid to the countries that have experienced a surge in Euroscepticism…Parliament’s institutional communicators must have the ability to monitor public conversation and sentiment on the ground and in real time, to understand ‘trending topics’ and have the capacity to react quickly, in a targeted and relevant manner, to join in and influence the conversation, for example, by providing facts and figures to deconstructing myths.”
But what is a myth? The EU tried to tell us that the bent banana directive was a myth until it was shown to be true. Would it say that my statement “The EU is the world’s largest donor of foreign aid and much of this cash is wasted or stolen” is a myth?
4313 days ago
My weekly Small business (SME) tips column from 24n.biz starts, as ever, close to home. There are some who dismiss Facebook and twitter as a complete waste of space when it comes to marketing. There are others who swear by new media. I wonder. For what it is worth I offer a few observations based on my own experience of trying to persuade more folks to try to come to the quirkiest Celtic Italian restaurant in Clerkenwell, London – the Real Man Pizza Company.
4322 days ago
I shall not name this British businessman. You can work it out for yourself but this is a lesson for those who think that if you have a million followers on twitter that makes you a big swinging dick. Nope, it might just be that you are a vain prick who pays a lot of money to buy followers. Buy followers you say? Yup it is perfectly possible. Just go to an agency, write a cheque and you get stacks of followers. Tell the agency how many you want and get your cheque book out. It’s simple. Nearly all the followers are bots so it is not as if anyone actually cares what you have to say it is just that some folks will think that people care what you say.
According to TwitterCounter.com, this businessman had less than 600 followers on 21st October. Thereafter he gained exactly 11,147 per day until 21st December. From then until January 10th he showed an increase of exactly 24,124 followers per day. Since then ( one assumes the contract is over) he has lost exactly 1,467 followers a day.
What does this tell you? A) That the number of twitter followers someone has tells you nothing about how clever, funny or admired they are or how long their penis is. B)
4340 days ago
I used to laugh at twitter as a place where morons swapped inanities. I now realise my mistake. That is Facebook. Seven months since my pal Paul Nicholson persuaded me that I should start tweeting I have today just sent out my 3,000th tweet. Of the 500 million tweeters on this planet I am, after seven months, apparently now just outside the top 2 million in terms of followers with 2,777 followers. It is a logarithmic table. The average following is sub 150. The most followed person (Lady Gaga) has 33 million followers. Heaven knows why.
I use twitter to send out links to all articles I write on the 10 free to access sites to which I contribute, links to articles elsewhere I find interesting and the occasional thought that crops up which is not big enough for an article. But I also find it strangely addictive, swapping ideas, arguing or swapping jokes with a few of my fellow tweeters. It is vaguely satisfying making sure that the twitter feed of the dilly cow who leads the Argies now has a link to my latest thoughts on her 3rd rate country with Imperialist ambitions. And so I confess I like twitter.
I am still not entirely sure how its business model makes it worth tens of billions of dollars but who cares. As a user I find it useful, a source of ideas and entertainment and a great way to communicate. I guess that I am now a confirmed twit.
You can follow me on twitter @tomwinnifrith
4380 days ago
Firstly he is the boss at ADVFN and we seem to be working together on more and more projects these days. Secondly he is a decent enough bloke. And thirdly he will hopefully plug my book in return.
On that basis I am happy to impart to you news that the 4th book of the Jim Evans series from Clem Chambers was released late last week. To celebrate the launch, Clem is giving away 1 x SIGNED copy to one lucky Facebook fan.
To win, all you need to do is share this post (publicly). Clem will select at random from all shares of this post on Monday morning – the 26th.
And you can win all four of these books in a free contest at
http://www.facebook.com/ClemChambers1/app_79458893817’’
Since I am not on Facebook I cannot enter these contests. Drat.
I am sorry to say that I have never read a Clem Chambers novel but I have promised that I shall have a stab at one over Christmas.
4406 days ago
I am indebted to a the Pride’s Purge blog for a story from South Wales which should strike a chill in your heart if you give two hoots about free speech and civil liberties. It is the sort of thing that Orwell might have written about as a warning. But that the increasingly authoritarian British state would have taken as a blueprint.
I start with Pride’s short article.
4424 days ago
Facebook (FB) is under attack today for paying just £238,000 in corporation tax last year. I am the last person to want to defend Mark Zuckerburg’s enterprise. The shares are grossly overvalued even after almost halving from May’s $38 IPO. I still reckon they will more than halve again. But on this occasion it is the left (MPs, the Independent, the BBC – and its sister publication the Guardian) that just does not get it.
4429 days ago
The bad news for Facebook (US:FB) mounts on the earnings front with events at both Zynga (US:ZNGA) and at LinkedIn (US:LNKD) contributing to its woes. Gradually even the most diehard bull must be starting to recognise that there is no earnings visibility at all for Mark Zuckerburg’s company. It is on that basis
4437 days ago
Slowly, it is sinking in. Facebook (FB) was floated in May as a growth stock. Forecasts and valuations were based on extrapolating historic trends. But in the new media world, that is impossible. My bear case against Facebook was always that the rating was too high based on historic numbers and that one had to be the metric used given that forecasting was impossible. Rather more quickly than I had expected, recent data is starting to vindicate my stance. I argued here on 28th August that the shares were worth $5, and I stand by that view.
4460 days ago
There seems tremendous excitement among the Facebook (FB) bulls about today’s announcement that CEO Mark Zuckerburg has agreed not to sell any shares for a year. This is a total red herring. The reality is that Zuckerburg has already trousered billions from share sales. He patently has more cash than anyone can hope to spend in a lifetime. As such, were he even to sell a handful of Facebook shares, this would be seen as a cue for absolutely everyone to head for the exit.
The reality for poor Zuckerburg
4463 days ago
I see that twitter has delayed its planned IPO. Well there is a surprise. After the debacle of the Facebook (FB) flotation I cannot think that investor appetite for new media stock is exactly enormous. My other reason for showing lack of surprise is that I think that Twitter really does not wish to undergo the sort of metrics scrutiny of its user base that Facebook has suffered.
For what it is worth
4463 days ago
The Facebook (FB) stock price fell by 5% on Friday to $18.06 on the back of two leading brokers cutting the valuations (as well as one expert reiterating the bull case) but the downgrades and notes make no sense and there is just no reason at all to pay any attention to anything Wall Street now publishes on this stock. Do not read into this that I am a bull trying to shrug off bad news. I have always been a mega bear on Facebook, starting off with a price target of $7.30 at the IPO and subsequently cutting
4468 days ago
I have been bearish on Facebook (FB) since its IPO at $38 back in May. Indeed since then my analysis has become steadily more bearish as a result of the Q2 earnings numbers and an admission from Facebook itself about bogus accounts and claims made by customers about bot driven advertising. As a result I recently slashed my target price from $7.30 a share to $5 but there is a possibility that I might increase that estimate of fair value but only if founder Mark Zuckerburg quits as CEO.
4469 days ago
About once every three days, the New York Stock Exchange seems to tweet or issue a release saying how proud it is to have linked up with Manchester United (MANU), the British soccer club which gained a listing three weeks ago, raising $233 million at $14. The company claims in its prospectus lodged with the SEC July 30th to be one of the world’s “leading brands,” but is it a good investment? Without a doubt the answer is No! Perhaps it might help if I explain why, from the perspective of a British soccer fan who happens to be an investment writer as well.
Let us start with ancient history. 1968 to be precise.
4471 days ago
Hmmmm, an invitation I think I can refuse. But I am tweeted by the Isreali Defence Forces (yes I follow the IDF on twitter) about a new game “IDF Ranks – The Virtual Army.” To play all you need to do is register with the IDF website and every time you read an article there, comment, like it on Facebook or share with another you win a new online badge promoting you in the virtual army.
Apparently if i am a real new media freak I could even, one day, be Chief of Staff of the Virtual Ranks, IDF.
4472 days ago
Everybody knows the price of Facebook stock has fallen to just above $19, nearly half its value back in May, when it first sold shares to the public. But that plunge is nothing compared with the deluge that’s coming.
4474 days ago
I have explained numerous times since Facebook (US: FB) stock IPO’d at $38 a share in mid May why I think that the shares are on fundamentals worth no more than $7.30. Actually it is pretty hard to put any value on this company as there is just so little visibility of earnings. And for that reason alone I am now slashing my price target from $7.30 to $5. And I think that the shares will head there pretty quickly. This remains a stonking short sell opportunity and here is why.
4476 days ago
In terms of twitter followers I zoomed past another 3 million folk and am now among the top nine million (of 500 million on this planet). Richard Gill will be overtaken by Sunday evening. (Follow me HERE – RG). But I am now convinced that this means absolutely nothing at all. Sure, some folks are following me because they genuinely want alerts on articles I write or the odd thought from me. Great. Happy to oblige. But others are following me for no apparent reason. What interest does the British Potato Council really have in my thoughts? I have not opined on potatoes yet but I suppose as a long shot I might discuss my best roasting recipe. Others look even more spurious. Folk who have not tweeted in years, have very few followers themselves and seem to follow an eclectic mix but very few people remotely like me. I have to admit that I am bemused.
Frazer Thompson of Chapel Down is an enthusiastic tweeter
4480 days ago
I could not have put it better than this note from the trading desk at a leading London broker, which I have just been sent. I am sorry that I cannot include the chart referred to but you can guess what it looks like. The report states:
Gold has had a quiet year thus far. Despite the prospect of more money printing by the world’s central banks, and minuscule interest rates, it seems that not many people see inflation as a big threat at the moment.
But things can change quickly in the financial world.
4481 days ago
You bought Facebook (FB) stock during its May initial public offering at $38? Too bad. It closed at $20.38 Tuesday, its second-lowest close ever and a 46 percent drop in 12 weeks.
But far worse is yet to come. This stock is worth no more than $7.30 a share and the really big sell-off could start as soon as this Thursday.
4492 days ago
I could not sleep last night. Albanian TV was incomprehensible but just about kept me awake. I was unable to tune into a German comedy channel which normally does the trick. I tried reading an editorial by my new friend Roger from the ShareSoc, I tried watching Olympics weightlifting (men and women) and swimming – even that failed, though it was crushingly dull. And so I found myself tapping away surfing the internet and found myself looking at what was trending on twitter. I am told by SEO consultants to look at this every day and write an article about something in vogue. But who Justin Bieber is shagging does not interest me. The truth is I am not actually sure who Justin Bieber is. What I write about is what interests me and thus, almost by definition, will never trend on twitter.
What does trend seems to come in four categories. The temporary category is #Go(insert a name of a British Athlete about to win Bronze in a sporting event you had never heard of until yesterday). A perennial feature is #celebrity (insert a name of someone who is famous who I will almost certainly have never heard of).
4493 days ago
I rather sense that Facebook is the tip of the iceberg. In case you missed it the company has admitted that 1 in 10 of its (almost 1 billion) accounts are bogus.
Worse still, a customer has pulled its advertising claiming that 80% of the cash it paid over on a click per payment basis was for clicks generated by bots (automatic programmes). But I suspect it is not just Facebook where an obsession with headline users masks one or two issues.
I found myself celebrating this week as on Thursday I moved into the top 18 million Tweeters on this planet in terms of followers. By Friday I was in the top 17 million and by the time you read this I expect to be in the top 15 million. The power of my tweeting! My Chest swelled as I thought how, in 8 weeks, I have overtaken the vast bulk of the world’s 500 million tweeters in terms of following. Gosh I must be funny! Ahem. I then disovered that around 1 in 10 of those folks had not actually tweeted anything and had no followers at all. It appears that by the time my step sister Flea, plus my amour of 1986 Abbe and Karen, Colombia’s second greatest export after cocaine, had followed me I had already overtaken about 20% of twitter users in terms of following.
4494 days ago
Yesterday I wrote about how 80% of the customers one firm had paid (on a per click model) Facebook to send over were in fact bots (computer programmes). While there is sod all chance of most of Facebook’s customers (students, teenagers and piss poor Indians) buying anything online, there is zero chance of a bot buying. One thinks that advertisers will be thinking twice about using the services of Mark Zuckerburg’s great enterprise.
But it gets better. The company now admits that 1 on 10 of its accounts are in fact fake. That is to say duplicates ( where someone is so moronic that they need to “friend” themselves as they cannot find enough other morons online to be friends with?), not real (pets, etc) or spammers. You cannot now make any sensible earnings forecasts, the valuation is still crazy and insiders are about to start dumping hundreds of millions of shares onto a market where only the certifiable will buy. IPO $38. Price now $21. Target by Christmas (probably a lot sooner sub $10). As a non shareholder this is getting quite entertaining.
As one correspondent puts it:
“I’m loving this as my colleague took his first foray into investing on the IPO, buying a massive 3 shares. The only thing more amusing would be if he returned home to find Zuckerberg in bed with his wife.”
Why not? Zuckerburg has already screwed the investors, why not screw their wives as well?
4495 days ago
I wrote about an hour ago on TomWinnifrith.com that Facebook stock would trade at sub $10 on Nasdaq by Thanksgiving and that this was perhaps the number one short among global “blue chips.” Uh oh. It just got better for me, worse for the monster Zuckerburg. Some start up in New York ( Limited Run) says that it is pulling its Facebook ads because it found that 80% of those page impressions it was paying for on a click per basis model were in fact from bots (computer programmes) not people. Facebook says that it is investigating. Right. The bottom line is that those earnings models the porcine Wall Street analysts cooked up to justify the $38 IPO are just horse-shit. This stock is heading south fast.
4495 days ago
I have written here a number of times that the Facebook (FB) stock price will collapse. So far so good. Shares in the Nasdaq darling now trade at $21.71 down from a $38 IPO. But folks, it is about to get much worse. Much much worse. This remains a stonking short ( perhaps the No 1 big cap short on this planet) and if you were stupid enough to buy the shares I would get out now. They will have halved again ( or worse) before Thanksgiving.
Why $7.30? Well read my analysis HERE – even at that level it would still trade on a premium rating. But I was being generous with that valuation since. a) the quarterly earnings numbers the other day highlighted to anyone with half a brain cell that there is no real earnings visibility going out for more than a few months and that some key metrics (revenue per user) are already trending south. And b) those law suits from those folks who bought into the IPO and claim they were misled have not gone away. Another duff quarterly earnings statement and a further share price collapse and things could get nasty in the Courts. What profits Facebook actually makes by persuading advertisers to try to sell to its half-witted user base could be swallowed up many times over by legal costs and damages before this is all concluded.
So why the impending share price collapse?4497 days ago
AIM listed SciSys (SSY) served up a pretty decent trading statement last week but I am told by the current management that this stock is too boring to be recommended in my normal outlet for share tips and so I bring this one to you on the house. You see, what young folks forget is that boring is good. Massive asset backing, strong cash conversion, solid organic growth, dividends are a lot better than stacks of goodwill, oodles of jam tomorrow, a reliance on acquisitions, etc. If you want that sort of stuff buy Facebook and regret it. On the other hand if you want to make money with a “boring” tip buy shares in SciSycs at 54p. My one year target is 84p ( plus another 1.3p in dividends). I can live with that sort of “boring” return. Can’t you?
4500 days ago
I wrote here on June 5th that my target stock price for Nasdaq darling (and overhyped IPO of the year) Facebook (FB) was $7.30 a share. Results yesterday saw the share price slide again and they are now $26.84 down from a $38 IPO just a couple of months ago. At the time ex-penny share tipster Luke Heron set a $50 target price. That was a good a sell signal as you would normally get. But on this occasion the fundamentals were an even bigger sell. If anything yesterday’s results make me think my target price may be a tad optimistic. This remains a great one way bet.
The headline loss of $157 million is irrelevant.
4545 days ago
Heaven knows why I find myself reading Carlton Cole’s twitter feed. Okay the guy is a legend and a loyal West Ham servant but… I must be bored. But a few things strike me as odd. The first is his language. Carlton is a good striker but he is not that articulate. Would he really use the word conundrum in a tweet? What about protracted? Encapsulating? Secondly all his tweets seem to redirect you to a website on Facebook which is a commercial enterprise. And thirdly he appears to have tweeted during the playoff final against Blackpool at Wembley when I distinctly remember he was on the pitch and cannot remember him finding time to tweet before he scored our first goal. I am sure this is no conundrum but that there is a perfectly rational explanation.
4552 days ago
I do not use Facebook. It seems to me like a tool for morons who cannot read a book, engage in sensible conversation or live away from their screen or phone. In other words it has a vast target market in today’s world. Its shares have plunged from $38 at IPO two weeks ago to $26.90 but I fail to see how they are worth more than $7.30. I would not be tempted to bottom fish.
4553 days ago
I am not sure of my Latin. No doubt my father or Evil Knievil or his father George could do better. What I note is just that very few stocks in London seem to be perfectly priced. At one end of the spectrum there are some ludicrously overpriced bags of huff and puff. I flagged up one such enterprise and explained why it was 90% overvalued earlier today here. But it is not alone – I am sure it is not hard to find another two or three dozen companies that are equally over-valued. And I shall turn my attention to Facebook later. Yet at the other end of the spectrum there are profitable companies trading at a discount to Tangible Net Asset value or even to net cash. This is bizarre.
