267 days ago
828 days ago
Though on the payroll of the Sunday Telegraph, Chris actually cancelled his Daily Torygraph two years before he died as he found it just too ghastly: woke, metropolitan and innacurate. For a man of the countryside, of his beloved Somerset, the Torygraph had become a beast from another planet. And that brings me to the photo and article below frm last week.
1391 days ago
My late Uncle Christopher Booker wrote for the Sunday Telegraph for almost half of his life and almost to the bitter end. But in his last years, he and my aunt V cancelled their subscription to the Daily Torygraph because it had become such a lightweight rag. If I read it, which I do not for many of the same reasons as Chris, I would be cancelling my sub today in protest at this vile headline about new laws in Poland restricting the right of folks to murder unborn babies.
1493 days ago
Apparently pubs are working class and grubby. So say the patrician snobs at the Daily Telegraph as you can see below. How I wish this was the case. It seems to me that almost every boozer around here is now a twee gastro-pub serving overpriced food with folks sitting at socially distanced tables sipping just a glass of wine and texting away like dervishes. And yes I do live in the Grim North. Heaven only knows what it is like in the soft South.
1538 days ago
Eco terrorists from Extinction Rebellion last night blockaded roads leading to the presses where The Times, The Sun and The Daily Telegraph are printed. So many folks cannot, today, waste their cash on buying those papers. I am no fan of the deadwood press but I do believe in a free press. However, it seems that at least one MP does not and is celebrating this action. Is this not rather disturbing? I imagine that Dawn Butler would not be cheering if The Mirror & The Guardian had been prevented from distributing their rags.
1646 days ago
I outlined at the weekend how the Government will now lie about Covid 19 in a most brazen fashion and will make appalling policy decisions which only compound previous blunders, simply to cover up those initial blunders. The media and oposition almost all went along with the GroupThink response to Coronavirus so find it hard to offer questions now, other than on minor issues of implementation. But some in the media go further spinning outright lies on behalf of the Government in its hour of need. Today’s Daily Telegraph serves up a real shocker as you can see below.
3596 days ago
Back in Bristol and the cats are in disgrace for weeing on the doormat and the temperature is minus something. The Mrs is not sympathetic and I am back in the garage at my desk wearing a thick coat, hugging my heater and still freezing. I suggested to the Mrs that the cats be forced to join me as punishment but she said that would be cruel. And so I suffer alone.
At the tobacconists the Daily Express warns of snowfall across the country and of freezing conditions. I point this out to the Mrs on my return but she thinks this is just right wing propaganda and I must continue to work in the garage.
The Daily Telegraph warns its readers
3748 days ago
Jim Slater, father of UK Investor Show speaker Mark, is the controversial fellow who created the PEG (Price Earnings Growth) method of investment analysis. Using PEG analysis e has today served up two AIM listed stocks he reckons as buys in today’s Daily Telegraph. One of the, as it happens, is a stock Steve Moore and I have tipped on our Nifty Fifty website.
In the article today Slater outlines his investing criteria today. He is a shrewd old cookie and I am not arguing. Slater lists his check list as follows:
3953 days ago
I do not understand why my father, the other Tom Winnifrith, puts himself through the torture of reading the Guardian since he admits that it is riddled with factual errors and that its opinions are generally idiotic. I think he does it at home to please my rather politically correct step mother before scuttling off to the White Bear to read the Daily Telegraph at leisure and with pleasure.
But in reading the Grauniad a few weeks ago my father could not help but spot some glaring errors in one of its daily articles lambasting Michael Gove (who naturally has the full support of my father). So my father penned a letter pointing out the basic factual errors in the Guardian diatribe. It goes without saying that the Guardian has neither printed the letter nor corrected the errors. Pravda!
My father’s letter reads:
Dear Sir or Madam,
In deriding the unfortunate Mr Gove Michael Rosen refers to Horatio in Lord Macaulay's poem. There seems a little difficulty about the name. Horatio is Hamlet's friend and the first name of Admiral Nelson of whom like Macaulay Michael Rosen presumably learned at school.
But Macaulay appears to have been studied less thoroughly. His Horatius is not "putting down rebellion" or "hacking away at insubordinate chiefs and their troops" and thus clearly bad like Macaulay putting down the Indian mutiny and those suppressing the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya.
These are Rosen's analogies but are not very accurate ones. Macaulay's Horatius was fighting the Roman tyrant Tarquin and his foreign Etruscan allies. Should he not have done so? And should not Mr Gove be entitled to defend the teaching of facts against the teaching of attitudes which then distort the facts as Michael Rosen has done.
Even the ranks of Guardian readers can scarce forbear to jeer not at Mr Gove but at Michael Rosen.
Yours faithfully,
Tom Winnifrith
4101 days ago
Sefton Resources (SER) has this morning fired its chairman Jim Ellerton from the board. He has been shown to be a liar, a criminal, a man not fit to run a PLC and there will be worse to come for him as the Serious Fraud Office, the US Internal Revenue Service and the Colorado Department of Justice Enquiries get underway. All three have been or will be provided with full dossiers. Ellerton will try to grub whatever cash he can from Sefton but he is toast. Toxic toast.
Sefton sued Daniel Levi (aka Brokerman Dan) and Tom Winnifrith for libel and also reported them to the FSA for market abuse and then accused them of market abuse and libel via an RNS. Sefton also briefed The Daily Telegraph that we were shorting the company for a monetary gain. All was part of their malicious Black propaganda campaign. Sefton is today negotiating with Dan and Tom.
It will be paying their costs in defending this case but also damages for defaming them. The only issue is how much will it be paying.
Those Bulletin Board Morons
4107 days ago
With its own lawyer, Russell Booker of Pinsent Masons, admitting that the Sefton libel case against myself and Dan Levi is in tatters with its sole witness ( liar and crook) Jim Ellerton having been booted off the board in disgrace and now ( in Booker’s words) “discredited,” the way is open for Dan Levi and myself to launch claims against Sefton. Will this sink the ship?
You will remember that Sefton issued an RNS on 24th February accusing us of libel AND market abuse. Via Company Secretary and IR genius Michael Green it also briefed Harriet Denys of the Telegraph (via two phone calls that Harriet has full notes of) that Dan was short of Sefton. Other folks are now coming forward revealing the full extent of the Sefton dirty tricks campaign against myself and Daniel.
As such Both Daniel and I have discussed with our (different) legal advisors not only the matter of recovering costs from Sefton but also now the matter of damages
4171 days ago
On 29th January the Daily Telegraph ran a piece suggesting that my pal Brokerman Dan was short of Sefton Resources (SER) and that is why he was writing bearish pieces. The source of that story which was untrue was Alex Walters who acts for Sefton as its PR man. The journalist at the Telegraph has contemporaneous notes of the conversation. The paper has now withdrawn the article and apologised to Dan for its role in this i.e. being duped.
On February 25th Sefton announced that it was suing myself and Dan for legal action but also that it had received legal advice that we had breached the Financial Services and Markets Act of 2000 and that it had reported us to the FSA. Dan obtained the letter sent by Sefton’s lawyers Pinsent Masons on 14 January using a FOI request. It took him two minutes to respond and the FCA has now confirmed to Dan that the matter is closed – he has done nothing wrong. It was a spurious and malicious complaint against him (and also me).
I have also explained to the FSA (and to Pinsent Masons) why the compliant was spurious and frankly anyone with a basic understanding of the FSMA would know why it was spurious. As such, to suggest that we had breached the FSMA in a public release was damaging and defamatory. Sefton may regard it as part of a legitimate dirty tricks campaign but I am not sure anyone else would.
Sefton Resources and its agent (Alex Walters) have clearly committed not one but two acts of libel against Dan (also myself). I hope that Sefton will issue an RNS apologising in full to myself and Dan and I’d happily drop the matter there. But I am aware that Daniel is now considering suing Sefton for libel should an apology not be forthcoming.
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.
4214 days ago
I revealed some weeks ago how AIM Cesspit listed oil company Sefton Resources (SER) had instigated a smear campaign against its two principal critics, myself and Daniel Levi (aka Brokerman Dan). It is suing us for libel but has also engaged in underhand smear tactics. This has backfired as the Daily Telegraph has now confirmed to my comrade Mr Levi who, how and when Sefton played this sordid game.
As such I can reveal that Dan Levi will be filing a Solicitors letter with Sefton within days seeking a public retraction and potentially leading to a claim for vast damages for defamation. He has already agreed with Sefton’s uber-expensive City lawyer Pinsent Masons how this will be served.
Ooooh that Dan plays hardball. He is such a gritty Northern hard man.
I am, of course, a really nice guy and like to handle things on an amicable basis.
And as such I have simply dropped Sefton boss Jim Ellerton a friendly note
4216 days ago
I reported some weeks ago how Sefton Resources (SER) had tried to smear its critic Daniel Level (aka Brokerman Daniel) who is – like me being sued for libel by the joke AIM company – by planting an untrue story in the Daily Telegraph of January 29th.
The story suggested that Dan was being beastly to Sefton as he was short. The Daily Telegraph has today apologized to Dan and withdrawn the offending article on the grounds that it was untrue.
But it gets better.
4252 days ago
If I wish to read more than 20 articles a month on the Telegraph website I now have to pay £1.99 a month. And so the Telegraph loses another reader and an active one. I am not sure how much it makes in online revenue but if we say that it is £4 per 1000 Page impressions I think that the paper is now about £1 a month worse off.
I read that paper out of habit not because it offers that much. My most visited page was the Premiership table which I seem to check far too often. But I can get that data elsewhere for free as I can also get for free West Ham team news and forthcoming fixtures. I read the odd news story but it is a commodity so I can get that elsewhere.
I do like reading Christopher Booker’s column but Richard North always reprints that on his blog. And so I am left with Jeremy Warner (who is occasionally good), Ambrose E-P and Tom Stevenson. And that probably comes to about 15 columns a month which I may bother to read. Because I was drawn in by the columnists and the league table I inevitably ended up reading a few more articles but I did not need to. They were junk food. So I was responsible for a good slug of Page Impressions.
This is the problem that newspapers have. They have high fixed costs (staff, printing presses, lavish offices) and 98% of their content is commodity content. Why should anyone pay a fee to cover all those fixed costs when all they want is the odd bit of unique content? Start charging me 2p a go to read a given column and I might well play ball and then read all that junk food material and give the paper advertising income as well. As things stand I, will like many others, just turn away.
I used to read the Times online. I thought I’d miss Matthew Parris
