168 days ago
Those who know the Welsh Hovel in which I live will remember that the most hovelish part was a two room office from the Edwardian era, tacked on to the original 1650 farmhouse. My priority since we arrived five years ago has been renovating the main house and barns and transforming the fields and garden. This year I finally addressed the office block as you can see below.
892 days ago
Given it is hammering down here in North Wales, I bet Mr Mellon is somewhere far sunnier than Port Erin. The graphic below is from him, and I discuss it in detail. Then, I look at those determined to ignore clear warnings, ref Petropavlovsk (POG). I cover incomplete and thus, potentially deceptive, RNS statements ref. Nostra Terra Oil & Gas (NTOG), before assessing Fulham Shore (FUL) in detail. With gift aid, we have now raised £19,700 for Rogue Bloggers for Woodlarks - please help us reach the £20,000 landmark today (D-3 days), HERE. Finally, my podcast on falling out with Dominic Frisby, 1939 and all that can be accessed, HERE.
1111 days ago
Manx Financial (MFX) the AIM listed bank based on the Isle of Man, where my pal Jim Mellon is the second largest shareholder and also the chairman, has announced a raft of board changes. No offence intended Jim, but from a G as in Governance perspective this sucks. Now Manx is very well and conservatively run so this is not suggesting anything is amiss but it is how it looks.
1266 days ago
Okay, tomorrow is the big day. If you are yet to donate please do so HERE as the Rogue Bloggers are now just over £2,000 off target. In today’s podcast, I discuss at length issues arising from the Skinbiotherapeutics (SBTX) and Optibiotix (OPTI) issue where Steve O’Hara says a man who took a company to the Isle of Man knows nothing about tax! Then onto the fraud Zoetic (ZOE), company specific issues and the wider one, raised by promoter David Lenigas today, of the increased risk caused by margin buying of small caps.
1436 days ago
Following Monday’s bombshell expose on this site about a $20 million funding which clearly breaches Isle of Man Companies Law, Bahamas Petroleum (BPC) has today been forced into a partial ‘fess but still plans to go ahead with the illegal funding
1437 days ago
Telit Communications (TCM) reckoned that a cash offer of £1.948 from Isle of Man based asset management business per share fundamentally undervalued the company. Dbay disagreed so has pulled the offer. Ooops.
1438 days ago
As a loyal former citizen of the Isle of Man I feel that it is my duty to go to my good friends at its Financial Services Authority on Bucks Hill in Douglas to dob in Bahamas Petroleum (BPC) for apparently breaking the law with its disguised death spiral placing announced today. Crime should not pay. Have they abolished birching for naughty Nomads on the island yet?.
1561 days ago
I am sure we all think that the bank we bank with is useless. But changing banks is such a pain in the arse. I’ve experienced it firsthand. Direct debits go awry, auto payments on your card bounce, you have to remember a new PIN, and so we don’t bother. But boy, Barclays (BARC) in the Isle of Man is in a class of its own for being useless.
1847 days ago
I was going to cave to that ghastly American imported idea and buy a pumpkin and make pumpkin pie. I bought the molasses and cream and was ready, all I then needed was a pumpkin…
2213 days ago
Happy Hop-tu-naa to any listeners in the Isle of Man, and happy Halloweebn to the rest of you. I start the podcast with a handy tip on dealing with the Trick or Treat menace. This afternoon I head off with Joshua to deal with the bastards at Barclays (see yesterday's bearcast) and I will report back on that tomorrow. I look at Crawshaw (CRAW), I3 Energy (I3E) doing a Cathy Newman, at Photonstar Led (PSL)) which is toast, Online Blockchain (OBC), at FastJet (FJET), lessons for Neil Woodford from GYG (GYG) and elsewhere and why Thirsty Paul Scott and others should keep December 3 free.
2304 days ago
It was not that long ago that my three legged cat Oakley tipped the scales at over 6 kg and was, rightly, described as morbidly obese. The vet warned us that he must diet. It is so very different now.
2559 days ago
I see that Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr is complaining that she has received death threats after writing what she, without any justification, claimed to be an expose of Russian meddling in the Brexit vote. Let us be clear: Carole is talking shite on the Russians, as she does on almost everything, as I noted here, but death threats against journalists are always utterly wrong. I speak as a journalist who has received death threats.
2567 days ago
The Guardian's coverage of the Paradise Papers has now turned to my old friend the Isle of Man based fugitive from Korean justice, Mr Jim Mellon. The Grauniad's coverage goes far but, sadly, its journalists fall for some slam dunk lies. This all concerns the Hoxton Pony,a fashionable bar in uber hip Shoreditch. I used to live round the corner and know it well.
2571 days ago
Of course when I was a crony capitalist I spent a couple of years in the Isle of Man with its progressive tax system. That was all legit, it is called tax avoidance (legal) not tax evasion (illegal) but it is clear that the IOM facilitates a stack of illegal tax evasion. I am not shocked by the Paradise Papers revelations on this and explain why. Elsewhere there is follow on work on Totally (TLY) looking at more red flags and the vanity of sales, then coverage of Red Emperor (RMP) and P:aragon Entertainment (PEL)
2695 days ago
At its AGM in the tax haven and cultural desert that is the Isle of Man, Veltyco (VLTY) was in bullish mood. The brief statement reads:
2821 days ago
Having been deprived of chocolate and sweets for most of the year, late October until November 5th at Butterwell Farm, Byfield provided some greatly appreciated treats.
2896 days ago
Today is the annual Christmas party held by the Mrs for her mad lefty friends, a Godless bunch who regard Christmas as having nothing to do with Christ. The normal score is that I do the cooking then, to avoid being emboldened by a few glasses of wine into pointing out that whatever they are saying is patent nonsense, I feign illness and go to bed. Let them believe
2942 days ago
The younger generation suggested half term pumpkin carving. But I could not find a pumpkin in the local stores as all the chavs seemed to have got there ahead of me. But I spotted a turnip and, remembering my time in the Isle of Man, Halloween became Hop-tu-Naa.
2980 days ago
Having had the run around from my Barclays team in Douglas, Isle of Man as I described on bearcast yesterday, I was advised to go to a Barclays branch in Bristol with two forms of ID to change its records of whom I worked for. As I had a dental appointment in town I walked to the main Barclays branch in central Bristol, at Broadmead, where the bastards then wasted another forty five minutes of my life with sheer incompetence.
2980 days ago
I reflect on how we gym users suffer and on how dealing with Barclays Bank as a customer has made me so angry today. I hate the banksters and make a few unkind comments about the Isle of Man. Then it is onto Feedback (FDBK) and a detailed look at Cyan (CYN) and an awful broker note you can read HERE from Beaufort which I tear apart. I really despair at how bent AIM has become. What is the point of being honest anymore?
3028 days ago
I noted yesterday the persecution of Ofsted boss David Hoare for making a number of factually verifiable statements about the inbred chav community of the Isle of Wight and their propensity to crime, poor educational results and poverty. The old fool should have known better than to tell the truth and use empirical data in Airstrip One these days. It is far simpler to blame everything on global warming, the wicked Tories, Maggie Thatcher, Brexit or racism. Naturally my defence of Mr Hoare has already seen one chav from across the Solent send me a semi literate tweet and that prompts me to come up with "A Modest Proposal."
3029 days ago
It is rather like the annual ritual humiliation we see each Christmas when some poor sod of a Vicar mistakenly tells the little kiddies that Santa Claus does not exist. "How dare he?" scream a feral pack of dimwitted local residents and some publicity hungry, self important, local politicians on the make and the poor chap is forced to apologise as he tries to keep his job. And so today's victim who dared to tell the truth is David Hoare the head of Ofsted.
3129 days ago
This podcast contains bad language, please be warned. There are a couple of Isle of Man related issue and I then move onto: Snoozebox (ZZZ), Outsourcery (TOAST), Cambian (CMBN), Cobham (COB), earnings visibility and consumer spending patterns, Paul Scott, Nyota (NYO), Carpetright (CPR), Austin Reed and Falcon Acquisitions (FAL).
3133 days ago
My old pal Jim Mellon is an ardent Europsceptic who campaigns for Brexit although, as a resident of the Isle of Man, he cannot actually vote himself in the great referendum. But all power to his elbow and I am sure that his offshore donations will be put to good use. But there is surely some irony in today's announcement from SalvaRx (SALV) where Jim is the largest shareholder and chairman.
3151 days ago
I am not sure that this shows how "in touch" Mr David Cameron's Tories are with the zeitgeist but his former Attorney General Dominic Grieve MP does not want a hasty reaction to the Panama Papers because he thinks we must protect the, now threatened, species that is the offshore bankster.
Like many on the right, I find the idea that multi millionaires, like David Cameron's late father can pay sod all tax becuase they use offshore shell companies while folks like you and I pay the full whack a bit distasteful. It is sordid and patently unfair that "taxes are for little people". Conservatism should be about meritocracy and opportunity for all not just helping a small financial elite get even richer.
Of course one way to get the small super rich spivs back onshore is to lower UK tax rates and I am a big supporter of that.
But equally it does seem just wrong that crown colonies are allowing the uber rich to pay sweet FA and -as the Panama Papers make clear - to allow other rich folk to engage in money laundering. The former is distatsteful, the latter illegal.
Could we clamp down on what goes on in crown colonies like the BVI, Jersey and the Isle of Man? Yes we could. We could, for instance
3209 days ago
I am meant to have a Premier account with Barclays (BARC) in the Isle of Man. Fear not I declare my net interest (bugger all) each year as I keep sod all in the account. But this Premier service is dire and has tormented me for 24 hours.
3539 days ago
Nominally I have a premium account with Barclays Wealth International in the Isle of Man. Given how most of its customers are multi-millionaire tax dodgers my tiny account (balance on Monday 90p because Darren forgot to pay me in full last month) must be a bit of an anomaly but still I am meant to get a premium service. If that is the case God help the rest of you with a “standard service”
After 30 minutes on the phone on Monday I had established why the ATM was refusing to give me cash. I said thank you and did not actually need to use the card again until Friday lunchtime when knowing that I had at least £600 (thanks to Darren paying and reclaiming an annual fee taken without my wish by Amazon) I offered to buy a bloke lunch. I was declined.
Kindly he paid but I shall repay him £68.40 at a later date. I insist.
On returning home I called Courtney my account manager in the IoM.
“Why are you calling me
3574 days ago
Tara, who makes her video debut below, may not be related to Oakley but the two have lived together for all of their 13 years. She may be sleek and slim but she is the capitalist cat. Oakley does nothing all day and is thus sometimes referred to as Benefits Street. Tara believes that Greed is Good and thus eats far more than Oakley either from her food bowl or by snacking on human food whenever she can grab it. I guess she has a higher metabolic rate than Oakley and she also takes plenty of exercise patrolling the garden.
I first met the two of them in the Isle of Man after the sudden death of my previous cat Kitosh. His ashes travelled with me in the years that followed and are now buried in a wooden cat shaped urn underneath a newly planted thyme bush at the bottom of our Garden in Brislington.
At the MSPCA sanctuary as I wandered along seeking a replacement for Kitosh the sweet young kittens grabbed all the attention. But in one cage there were two much older cats Tara and Oakley. Well I was told there were two. Oakley
3675 days ago
For tomorrow at the Real Man Pizza Company it is not Halloween but Hop-tu-naa, the Celtic New Year which on October 31st is celebrated all over the Isle of Man but also at the Manx restaurant outpost in Clerkenwell, the Real Man Pizza Company.
Back in the Isle of Man the kids will be going round houses asking for sweets but this is not the American import of trick or treat this is a very Manx Tradition. The kids, some of whom might still carry lanterns made of what the Manx call turnips but what you might call a Swede, knock on your door and sing:
3934 days ago
Kitosh came to me as a kitten and had a varied life in Islington, Shoreditch, France and finally in the Isle of Man. I remember well the Paris to Douglas train, taxi, train, train, ferry and taxi journey we made together. His sudden death in Douglas a few years ago was a real blow. His ashes have travelled with me since then but have remained for almost two years in a wooden urn hidden at Real Man Pizza in Clerkenwell. Now his final journey begins.
Born on a council estate in Walthamstow he would not have imagined that he would have been so well travelled. But the travelling is now over.
Now that I have a sense of permanence, the Mrs and I have agreed that Kitosh’s urn can be buried in our garden underneath the fig tree. We are not sentimental enough to contemplate some grand ceremony. It will just be the Mrs watching as I dig a deep hole and in goes the urn. The tree marks the spot.
During some years of upheaval for me Kitosh was the one constant in my life and a portrait of him already hangs in the new house as a reminder of that. I am not sure the Mrs is that impressed but she has let it go. So this weekend it is the final farewell, RIP Kitosh my good friend.
3973 days ago
As I am off to London tomorrow and as our Christmas tree is a good two foot taller than the Mrs it must come down tonight, 24 hours early. A sense of guilt now descends as I prepare to lug the bare tree onto the Street where it will next week be collected by the Council and head off to meet its maker.
When I was a boy my father planted a tree in the garden. Each December it would be uprooted and find its way in a few days before Christmas. It would be dressed and watered and looked after. And on January 6th it would return – feeling rather tired and over-heated as it sat in a room with an open fire – to its real home in the garden. By the end of the spring it had shed its dead leaves from its Yuletide horror and by the next December it was a bit taller and ready to go again.
Now that we have a garden of sorts we plan (okay I plan but the Mrs has not objected) to do the same thing. And so this 2013 will be the last year of wasting a Christmas tree in this way. Come the early spring I shall plant a five foot tree in the garden hoping that by Christmas we have something on which to hang my global decorations.
Luckily the Mrs was not big on Christmas trees and so this is one area that in merging possessions it is just a straight takeover. I have always picked up a little something from wherever I have been to add to what goes on the tree as well as a bit of tinsel and the normal baubles. And so there are two, three legged Isle of Man Christmas decorations, ornate elephants and also stars from India, a small soldier with moving legs, some red and also white wooden stars and a mouse from France, a couple of stars from Israel, there is a tortoise from Ecuador and from Greece a small picture of Christ. Next year’s travels? A trip to the USA in April is planned and I shall return with something else for the tree.
4003 days ago
The Shareprophets team writes: A number of writers on Shareprophets used to work for and/or own shares in Rivington Street the Plus listed company now going through administration after almost three years of being chaired by offshore Isle of Man investor Jim Mellon. But this process is throwing up a number of questions.
The administrator Resolve has worked with Mellon, who is still refusing to go to South Korea to answer allegations of insider dealing, before on transactions which allowed him to buy assets from companies that had encountered financial issues under his chairmanship, notably Speymill.
Since the middle of this year Mellon has bought four companies out of Rivington.
4041 days ago
Taking a brief break from the kitchen where the Manx crab and turnip creamed soup is taking shape and before Reda and I turn our attention to Soddag Valloo (dumb cake) there are a few minutes to raise the Isle of Man flag inside Real Man Pizza in Clerkenwell.
Hop-tu-naa may be the Celtic New Year but it is a uniquely isle of man celebration. And so the flag goes up.
As of tomorrow it will be joined by a few other items. If you are Manx and in London on Wednesday & Thursday and wish to celebrate with us remember that we offer a 20% discount to any customer paying their bill in Manx bank notes.
The full Hop-tu-naa menu is almost ready and you can view what is on offer here.
4046 days ago
In case you had forgotten next week (the 31st) is Hop-tu-Naa. Not Halloween (All souls night) but Hop-tu-naa (the Celtic New Year). We will be celebrating at Real Man Pizza in Clerkenwell on both Wednesday and Thursday.
The turnips (what the Manx call a Swede) have been ordered and will be carved out for lanterns. And the Hop-tu-Naa Special Menu has been finalised:
A Manx crab and turnip ( swede) creamed soup
Followed by
Our Hop-tu-Naa pizza – Crab, Queenies and Olives with a strip of parmesan on a fresh spinach base
Followed by
Either:
A special dark chocolate Hop-tu-Naa pizza (pictured)
or
Reda’s Fames chocolate mousse cake
With all meals a small piece of Soddag Valloo ( you don’t want to know) is on the house & Manx Spirit ( again you do not want to know) is only £2 a shot with your meal.
Two courses - £12, Three courses £15.
I cannot imagine any other restaurant in London will be celebrating Hop-tu-Naa next week so if you wish to make an early reservation please call us on 0207 242 3246
4171 days ago
It emerges today that Nigel Farage the leader of UIKIP set up an Isle of Man Trust to try to reduce his tax bill. As it happens he never used it back in 2003 and it seems to have cost him a few quid. Farage is being panned as a tax dodger, albeit of the failed variety. Wrong.
Farage was using a perfectly legitimate avenue to minimise his tax bill. He is a minimiser not a dodger. Other folks use ISAs as a perfectly legal way to reduce the tax they pay. They too are minimisers not dodgers. There is no moral code that says you have to pay as much tax as possible. It seems perfectly legitimate to me to pay as little as possible without breaking the law. And that is all that Farage tried to do.
That he cocked it up and so in fact did not use the Trust is irrelevant. From a PR perspective this is clearly not helpful but Farage should be honest and say that the reason folks use IOM Trusts, ISAs etc. is that UK tax is so high. If it was less onerous then the whole industry of tax minimisation would die at once.
4172 days ago
4272 days ago
Adnan Siddique used to work with me in the Isle of Man, indeed he was also my lodger. He is now preparing to embark on an MBA (silly boy) but is doing the odd article while he waits to start. He will be an introductory speaker at the UK Investor Show and he is a good man and so I am happy to assist in publicising his work. This piece is on a company that I know absolutely nothing about. Adnan writes:
APR Energy (APR) launched onto the stock market with much fanfare in 2011 promising to be another Aggreko Plc. For those of you unfamiliar with the Aggreko story, if you had invested into the company at the start of 2009 you would now have quadrupled your money. Both these companies operate in the utilities space by providing power generating mobile units to governments, other utility companies and large industrial firms. When power demands spike during a particularly harsh winter or if a storm has knocked out infrastructure, APR mobilises its power-fleet from several regional hubs to plug into the local grid. As you can imagine, most clients are in developing countries – 70% in fact.
There are three great reasons to buy APR:
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.
4317 days ago
I am sitting in Real Man Pizza Company trying to catch up on my writing backlog before heading to Paddington and yet again the bastards at Camden Council have sent little men to dig upo the road outside our door. The drill is incredibly load. You would think there was gold buried on Clerkenwell Road as this is about the tenth time in two years that a small patch of tarmac has been dug up and resurfaced. I am assured that the racket will end soon but what is the point? Perhaps it is a cunning job creation scheme where Camden pays men overtime rates at weekends to dig up the same few square metres, resurface and then dig up again every few months.
I have no idea. I just feel that Camden Council hates me. Why can’t they go and plague some of the other restaurants around here and drive away their customers for a change? I am promised the pain will within an hour or so. Meanwhile I have turned the music up full blast so poor Aldo is suffering a CD Punk Compilation 2 prepared by my friend Paul in the IOM and which we play on Monday evenings as well as the drilling.
4542 days ago
I shall be on the overnight ferry from Heysham to the Isle of Man one last time tonight as I pick up my stuff from Douglas. By Saturday morning I shall be sailing out of Isle of Man waters for the last time as a resident. I expect to return as a tourist and to deal with a few business matters which remain IOM based but I am on my way back to bankrupt Britain for good in terms of residency. That is until I retire to bankrupt France or bankrupt Greece in 20 years time.
The IOM gets a lot of stick for various reasons and it is not without its faults. But I leave with a lot of happy memories and will miss various things. A list of my top 10 good things from the Isle of Man.
