103 days ago
After my mum died we had a series of Warwick University students, mainly from the Classics department set up by my Dad, come to look after us as babysittters. There was one of my heroes in jounalism, the great Neil M. who got his break onto Fleet Street by scooping a sex scandal involving the pop star Howard Jones who, until then, was thought to be rather a wholesome fellow. Classy. I am still in touch with Neil who was one of the 30 folks able to attend the funeral of my father during covid. If only we had been shooting grouse we could have had more. Thanks Boris Johnson you total arsehole.
731 days ago
Oh dear, oh dear. My old friend the champagne socialist Fleet Street Legend Brian Basham is a director of Net Zero Infrastructure (NZI) and was so hopeful when it listed on the (sub) Standard list at 3p last September 15th. I warned him… and now a year later almost two thirds of the money has gone….
892 days ago
We sped past Jane Austen’s house and into Alton, where I bring you a picture of three bears. No delays for the five rogue bloggers and, at 4.10 pm, with 11 miles to go, we caught up with 78-year-old Fleet Street legend, Brian Basham, and his trainer J, who had left Winchester five hours before us. We are now just nine miles from Woodlarks, and the group is again splitting into fast and slow. Amazingly, I am in the fast group. If you are yet to donate to this fantastic cause, please do so HERE.
892 days ago
We marched past the beds of watercress, and are now just 15 minutes behind schedule. At the first rest break – the Cricketers Arms – Lucian is apologising for last night’s excess to his Mrs. Fleet Street legend, Brian Basham has been in contact. Two hours ago, he was 45 minutes ahead of where we are now. The pursuit is on. If you have yet to donate to this great cause, think of the suffering that lies ahead: 25 miles still to go! Please donate HERE.
972 days ago
To date, controversial mining boss Bell, has managed 18 miles, 31miles and 3 miles (the last three). But on June 11th he will try to make it 4th time lucky and complete the 34miles Winchester to Woodlarks walk. He joins myself, writers Lucian Miers, Steve Moore, three of our readers Jonathan Price, Nick and Sam plus 80 year old Fleet Street Legend Brian Basham and his long suffering trainer. So that makes nine rogue bloggers so far.
1119 days ago
The Fleet Street Legend is up in arms about what he terms a foul smear on him HERE but, as I explain, the old champagne socialist is trying to pull the wool over our eyes with his mockney dining habits. At least the budget means that the champagne for Brian and his comrades will be cheaper but the Budget really is a shower. I explain why. Then it is onto Bluebird Merchant Ventures (BMV), Red Rock Resources (RRR) where it looks ever bleaker for my pal Andrew Bell and finally why the Redcentric (RCN) valuation is bonkers.
1145 days ago
Jeepers, the answer will shock you but is a reminder that Fleet Street does read this website avidly. In the rest of the podcast, as my son spends the day vomiting I discuss a work life balance that is becoming increasingly daft. Then I head back to work looking at Ariana Resources (AAU) where I disagree with Nigel and probably lose another friend (Kerim Sener), Chesterfield Resources (CHF), Boohoo.com (BOO), AO World (AO.), Parsley Box (PUKE), Mercantile Ports (MPL) and Primary Bid and what it needs to change.
1219 days ago
Dawn Foster was a young journalist who has died aged just 34. Surely we can all feel some understanding for someone dying so young? Not Giles Coren of the Times but he is not really the villain of this piece.
1373 days ago
This is for Cliff weight of ShareSoc. I discuss incidents in my life on Fleet Street showing the corrupt nexus between financial PRs and the press in action. I hope you all find it amusing as informative and relates to this fight I got into earlier today. Then it is onto Brokerman Dan who is a visionary analyst of health stocks, notably MyHealthChecked (MHC) as PL and I are agreed. Finally Zoetic (ZOE) has been exposed by an RNS today from Path Investments (PATH) which is damning. Its implications are clear, Zoetic is now mortally wounded; however, its evil PR spinners tried turd polishing earlier today.
1394 days ago
Brian Basham has been a legend of journalism and PR for more than fifty years. He moves in the highest circles of the Labour Party, is a serial AIM NED and exposer of corruption, notably the HBOS Reading scandal, and is a man not to be ignored. He has written a letter to AIM Regulation boss, the fake Sheriff of AIM, Mr Marcus Stuttard which I publish in full below as it makes very strong allegations.
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.
1435 days ago
Here in Wales, thanks to First Minister, Mad Mark Drakeford, all 50 JD Wetherspoon (JDW) pubs are shuttered and will stay so for the foreseeable future. As I noted in a photo article just published, life just over the border in “free” England is not much better for the boozers. Tim Martin is, yet again, my hero of the day, using Wetherspoon’s AGM as a platform to expose the Government and a supine 4th estate which laps up lockdown lies without question. The great man opines:
1645 days ago
This gives me real pleasure. Dismissed as a “blogger” by some patronising tossers in the Newspaper world I enjoy seeing our readership here at ShareProphets steadily climb. Moreover we operate on a business model that Fleet Street would find hard to understand. Folks want to access our content so pay for it and our revenues exceed our costs. We innovate and hope to continuing growing to top line so we can invest in content you can’t get elsewhere. Meanwhile newspaper print circulation data for April is out. Ouch.
1767 days ago
Shareholders have a right to know exactly why the Fleet Street legend Brian Basham quite as a Non Executive director of ADVFN (AFN) on Friday but despite Basham ensuring that Nomad Roland “fatty” Cornish was kept in the loop, ADVFN has refused to come clean. Luckily, thanks to Winnileaks, I have BOTH resignation letter sent by Basham and what they say is utterly shocking.
2060 days ago
76 year old Fleet Street Legend Brian Basham is one of the rogue bloggers walking for Woodlarks this year. At his age that is impressive and is something you should sponsor here. Basham was also an ace spin doctor in his time (notably for Mo Al Fayed) and is enraged at the way Simon Hume Kendall has stolen cash from the victims of the LCF ponzi, mostly pensioners like Brian, and has donated £65,000 to Amber Rudd’s local party and to Tory central office. Basham has written to Ms Rudd and his letter follows:
2229 days ago
Kelvin McKenzie is a major hero of mine. His Sun front page Gotcha! with a picture of the Belgrano sinking was his finest moment on Fleet Street so it was a pleasure to be a guest on his radio show today. My section is about 20 minutes in
2235 days ago
You may remember that my coach for my Woodlarks walk was 75 year old Fleet Street legend Brian Basham who himself completed the London marathon last year. My coach was in town yesterday and we met up for lunch. Uh Oh!
2399 days ago
I could not sleep this morning as I pondered me and drink. My prompt was the ramblings of a pal who was, I fear, drunk in charge of a keyboard. In days gone by I too was a heavy drinker.
2432 days ago
The Mrs thinks her dad was born in Chennai. I explain the relevance of this as I discuss Mercantile Ports & Logistics (MPL) and more evidence that has fallen into my hands suggesting that it is doomed. Elsewhere I look at Purplebricks (PURP), Angle (AGL) and the corruption of Fleet Street, Brokerman Dan again showing that he did not train as a journalist but as er..something else as he looks at Big Dish a stock where I have no knowledge or financial interest I also look at the disgraceful news today from Nick "not for the many but the" Trew at Pathfinder Minerals (PFP) and at ITM Power (ITM). If you like bearcasts then remember that at UK Investor on April 21 one of many highlights will be a live bearcast with myself and Paul Scott. Make sure you book a free ticket HERE using the promotional code WINNIFRITH
2592 days ago
Yesterday I discussed Doorsteps.co.uk which claims that it will flog your house for £99. I now look more closely at its history and the utterly shameless way that Crowdcube raised £400,000 for it; at the fact free and unquestioning BJ's its 19 year old founder has received from Fleet Street and speculate about how bad its metrics really are. That it has raised cash so easily is bad news for Purplebricks as it is now funded to nibble at its market share and so will be others until they all go bust. But it will be too late for Purplebricks by then. I then have hot gossip on Telit (TCM) which shows up the FT's dictation from PR men taking hacks for the fools they are and reinforces the shorting case big time. I cover UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) and Conroy Gold & Natural Resources (CGNR), both need to place ASAP and in both cases it will be ugly. I also remind you again what UKOG is NOT saying.
2816 days ago
There are two matters under discussion in this podcast. First the merger between Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) and Standard Life (SL.). I am bored by it. It is not what will drive the share price. Second the corrupt way the news was leaked via a corrupt Fleet Street in a way that can only harm private investors. As an "insider" in days gone by I explain exactly how this corrupt and rotten system works.
2860 days ago
I recall a couple of episodes from my time on Fleet Street demonstrating the corrupt relationship between PR firms and the press you mistakenly think you should trust. I then move on today's article by Peter Evans in the Sunday Times on the fraud Eden Research (EDEN) which, from headline to conclusion, is misleading, strewn with factual errors and omits the real story of wholesale fraud. It was clearly spoon fed by the PR man, Paul "Queenie" McManus of Walbrook and shows the press in the worst possible light. No wonder so many of us despise my profession, or at least the established dead wood press part of it, so much.
2880 days ago
I am in a twitter spat with ex Fleet Street editor Neil "Wolfman" Wallis who is concerned - rightly - that new legislation (Section 40) will restrict the ability of non national newspapers to pursue investigative reporting. But in begging sympathy for journalists, a man who has now turned to the dark side, to PR, fails to accept how low our profession has sunk in the public esteem.
2925 days ago
I know the area at the bottom end of Fleet Street, where it turns into Ludgate Hill and you wander up to St Pauls, like the back of my hand. Twenty years ago I worked around there at the Chronic Investor and used to walk home Eastwards. For two decades, at Christmas I would go to midnight mass at the journalists' church, St Brides. The area has changed a lot over the twenty five years that we have been acquainted. Unlike me, it has smartened itself up. But it is still familiar territory.
3053 days ago
Shares in Avanti Communications (AVN), once the darling of AIM, collapsed by 60% yesterday amid all sorts of horrors emerging. It is a big story and most papers are covering it, at least with a mention. But in the Daily Telegraph there is nothing ....except
3168 days ago
On the Marr show sat two journalists & a politico being interviewed by a fourth (Marr himself). They gazed at the front cover of the print edtion of the Independent on Sunday and agreed how sad they were about its demise. For today I feel that I deserve a glass of champagne for this is the last ever print edition. Hooray.
Marr, who once edited the Independent before heading off to another left wing financial black hole, that is to say the BBC, said that viewing an online edition would just not be the same. Nope that is correct.
The reality is that very few people read the Sindy. It offers the commodity product that is news plus stories pinched from others ( the business section has taken our material) without attribution and left wing columnists ranting about an agenda that few outside the metropolitan elite care about. And its mad left wing columnists are just not as good as the mad left wing columnists on The Guardian. The paper thus did not have enough readers to be viable offline.
Will it survive online with much lower fixed costs? For a while it will. But in due course
3205 days ago
The Offline Indy is dead. Pampered, patronising journalists are going to be fired. Hip Hip Hooray. Fleet Street is starting to pay the price of its corruption, and face up to unhelpful demographics, operational gearing and the end of subsidy as I explain in this podcast. I pray that the frightful Guardian is next to go.
3602 days ago
Elm House. Dolphin Square. The revelations keep on coming. The Sunday Mirror has another compellig and persuasive front page splash today about how a Tory minister appears to have killed a young girl in one paedophile party at Dolphin Square. The police are meant to be investigating this thoroughly. But….
it is clear that when all this was going on the Police and Security services were directly implicated in the cover up. Today’s report suggests that an officer was stationed outside the door where the MP killed the girl. So do I have faith in the establishment to allow “its own” to face justice? I am not so sure.
Trawl the internet and you can be in little doubt as to some of the names who are allegedly involved. The two most prominent ex MPs both now Lords (one Labour one Tory) have been the subject of Fleet Street speculation bordering on certainty for years. Shall we call them
3656 days ago
I am not in a fit state to write much today so I shall communicate via BearCasts. There will be a regular podcast later but ahead of that I shall run a series of Quindell fallout specials. I start with the role of the dying industry that is Fleet Street and the deadwood press. It is part of the problem of crony capitalism and corruption on the AIM casino not the solution as I try to explian here.
3807 days ago
What has Rob Terry got to hide from the press? It is reported that the Quindell (QPP) boss has banned the media from attending tomorrow’s AGM shoot-out. Why on earth would he do that? Perhaps he does not want press reports of institutions questioning him on corporate governance? Or nasty questions about how Quindell projections do not tally with Government data (see my exclusive of earlier today) or perhaps it is questions about the UKLA debacle, the 2012 accounts restatements or untrue RNS statements that he would rather Fleet Street did not pick up on. But…
3807 days ago
Thanks to Quindell (QPP) excluding me and also the Fleet Street guys there were very few questions at the AGM which would have troubled Rob Terry greatly. What did we actually learn from what went on there and from the accompanying trading statement?
One thing I learned is that Fleet Street is now very bearish on this company. PR bird Foxy Bex now refuses to answer any tough question she is posed whether being harangued by me on video or asked politely by the nationals. The FT, The Times and the Sunday Times all sent reporters to the AGM and all were turned away. I spoke to all three yesterday and they are not bullish. The editor of Questor on the Telegraph is a total bear. He did not turn up at the AGM because when he tried to go to the last “Teach-In” he was barred. What is Quindell so afraid of?
3843 days ago
A number of financial websites have taken cash from the Pacific Tycoon company in return for promoting its get rich quick schemes to their readers. We absolutely 100% refuse to carry its advertising and now it is trying to get me to withdraw a hostile article I penned more than a year ago. Guess what? I have withdrawn nothing. Indeed…
Readers can do what they wish with their money but, put it this way, I would regard a portfolio of shares in Quindell, Cupid, Iofina, Range Resources, blinkx and Globo as a better home for your cash than with Pacific Tycoon. I am not saying this is an investment scam. My original article presented the facts and readers can draw their own conclusions.
Pacific complains about my article from February 2013. It stated by email:
Hi Tom, there is a content in your site that harm our online reputation. Here is the link.........
http://tomwinnifrith.com/articles/2675/pacific-tycoon-investor-red-alert%C2%A0
Please delete it.
Ends.
Hmmmmmm.
3845 days ago
Fleet Street still has not touched this story because it is too busy sucking PR cock to cover the stench emanating from the City’s largest financial PR firm. We can revealed exclusively that Buchanan Communications has admitted that a staff member did wage a dirty tricks campaign against Range Resources shareholders campaigning to change the way Range is run.
We broke news of this dirty tricks campaign last Friday HERE
Buchanan represents more AIM listed firms than any other PR agency and is owned by Sir Martin Sorrell’s WPP Group (WPP). Journalists on the nationals want PR firms to spoon feed them stories or cushy well paid jobs in PR when they fancy a move to the dark side so NO national paper dared touch this story.
Buchanan has now confirmed that its chairman Richard Oldworth has written to the dissenting Range shareholders apologising
3846 days ago
This morning’s RNS from AIM Cesspit posterboy Greed Dragon Gas (GDG) plumbs new depths when it comes to spinning bad news as good. The company, its Nomad (Smith & Williamson) and its PR firm (Pelham Bell Pottinger, PR man James Henderson) should all be taken out and shot. This is such a total frigging disgrace in describing black as white. Words almost escape me.
3848 days ago
Yesterday I revealed how the City’s largest financial PR Company Buchanan is mired in scandal after one of its employees appeared to pose as a private investor to discredit shareholders opposing the (failing) management of a company it is paid £10,000 a month to represent. This appears to be a total breach of industry guidelines and if P45s are not handed out next week then the stench of cover-up will be unbearable. But this is just the tip if the iceberg as I shall explain below.
Needless to say Fleet Street has not followed up on this even though I know (I can track IP) that scores of journalists have read the piece. The journalists do not dare expose the PR firm that acts for more listed companies than anyone else. Cross Buchanan and there will be no hand-delivered scoops and no job in PR when you fancy earning real money. This is a very big story in the financial press but it just will not get covered. That shows the corruption of journalism as well as of PR and perhaps that is why fewer and fewer folks bother reading the deadwood press any more.
Remember how it was websites not the established press that broke the stories of lobbying scandals in politics and sleaze. It was the same principle at work.
This morning
3894 days ago
The ethos of Shareprophets is that we allow our writers to arrive at whatever conclusion they want. I do not endorse any view (other than my own) but I welcome debate and diverse opinion. It is what makes a market. That is a point lost on some total cretin giving me abuse on twitter today regarding W Resources (WRES).
I thought the article by Robert Tyerman on W Resources that we published earlier was interesting and merited a wider audience & thus tweeted a link. Robert, as you would expect from such a Fleet Street legend,
4115 days ago
I am more than a bit excited, the inner child in me is in control. The new season is upon us and I am off to Upton Park tomorrow. My old pal Neil Masuda (who as my babysitter made my sisters and I watch the FA Cup Final on the box when Sir Trevor scored with his head) will be coming along with his latest bird. Neil, as you may remember started his long and glorious career as a peddler of sleaze on Fleet Street by breaking the Howard Jones (like to get to know you well) three in a bed scandal when on his local paper.
Anyhow, myself, Neil and his bird will meet up at Real Man Pizza before heading to the Academy. Cardiff were promoted last season so anything could happen. With Andy Carroll injured it will be interesting to see who can actually get it in the net for the Irons. Anyway, another season is almost underway. Another 40 weeks of misery is upon me. Like an addict I cannot wait and as 3 PM looms and we start “I’m forever blowing bubbles.”
I am excited already. It is almost as much fun as asking the Serious Fraud Office to investigate Pinsent Masons and Sefton.
4172 days ago
And so someone I respect told me yesterday that I was hated in the City. Not by everyone but in certain quarters. Tell me something I didn’t know. Apparently some folks feel that saying nasty things about companies, advisors, PR firms etc. is just despicable. “Other journalists don’t do it…why do you?” And it gets better.
Apparently this person was told by a well-respected City group not to be seen to work with me because I was being sued for libel by Sefton. To give them credit they did ask the City Group if they knew about the case and was told no. There was just the assumption that if listed company issues libel proceedings then the person it is suing must be a baddun.
Where do you start here? Without commenting on the specifics of this case I would point out that I have had legal proceedings threatened and commenced before. The companies who tried it on before have all disappeared or been censured (in the end) because they were liars or crooks or both. Any trade body/City group which in a blinkered fashion believes that companies always tell the truth and so without doing any research automatically sides with the company in such matters is frankly a joke organisation. Perhaps these folks have never heard of Robert Maxwell or Asil Nadir or Bernie Madoff? Some companies are bent…just accept it.
And so why write articles which point out that certain shares are overvalued, that certain companies are – if one analyses their published statements – running out of cash or that certain companies have issued RNS statements that are verifiably false or over optimistic? Let me think for about fifteen seconds:
4186 days ago
There is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about. So said another writer of Irish descent, Mr Oscar Wilde. Noting erroneous comments made on the ADVFN Bulletin Board a couple of monmths ago that I have lost my marbles as a result of frequenting gay bath-houses I should say that the similarities between mysef and Mr Wilde really do end there.
I see that while it in its latest misleading RNS Cupid PLC describes me as a market commentator the daily Telegraph takes a different view. My new best friend, foxy Fleet Street hackette Harriet Denys gave our AIM Cesspit awards a jolly decent write up in her City Diary column yesterday and describes me as a "maverick share tipster."
Hmmm. Maverick was a classic TV show starring James Garner. I am horrified to see that it was shot before I was born so I guess I only saw re-runs but I was always a big fan of Garner, notably in the Rockford Files when he was also a bit of a maverick
I think I shall write to foxy PR bird Bex at Cupid and suggest that next time Cupid wishes to issue a misleading RNS about one of my articles they should refer to me as a "maverick market commentator." I like the sound of that.
4375 days ago
So the Leveson Report is out. And it is pretty grim reading. It will delight Hugh Grant, Max Mosley, Nick Clegg and the other illiberal folk who want the press muzzled. It will delight the political elite who resent their sins being revealed. And it will, I suspect, hasten the demise of the traditional newspaper industry.
Leveson proposes legislation which will see a body containing no MPs or journalists but a fine body of establishment grandees there to ensure that newspapers do not breach certain rules. If they do they will face crippling fines Ofcom will review how this body works every two years. The information Commissioner will be given greater powers to prosecute newspapers for breaches of data protection.
Hmmm. Ultimately who appoints these independent grandees…politicians. David Davies MP (the man who should have led the Tories rather than Call Me Dave) is spot on:
