1261 days ago
As you can see here, I shall be engaging in a small act of defiance tonight. In the podcast I discuss UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) - forced by myself to ‘fess up today about what is happening at the Gatwick Dribbler. I look at Trainline (TRN) and explain why the soon to be ex CEO is not a crook, at Guild Esports (GILD), Bluebird Merchant Ventures (BMV) and at Jubilee Metals (JLP).
2010 days ago
In this podcast recorded in my car in a side street of Kambos I discuss my journey to the Greek Hovel and being recognised by a man at Gatwick. Fame! Not! Then I look at Versarien (VRS), Asiamet (ARS), First Derivatives (FDP), UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) and the most terrifying stat of all from the Chinese bubble - a warning for you all.
2048 days ago
Penned at Gatwick airport on Saturday as I waited for a train. Some bald Northern prick was blocking the escalator on the walking side. I said “excuse me.” He said “It’s not bloody London.” I suggested that rules about standing/walking up were national. “What’s your hurry you will only get stuck at passport control.” I pointed out it was my choice and rules were rules and as he moved aside I concluded my sentence “and you can fuck off” as I stormed on ahead to passport control where there was almost no queue.
2100 days ago
I travel Easyjet (EZY) often. In the winter it is Bristol to Athens and back, in the summer it is Gatwick to Kalamata and back. Usually it is no worse and no better than any other budget airline. Not that I really care but I just want to point out a quite obvious scam it inflicts on its passengers.
2240 days ago
I leave Kalamata shortly but when I get to Athens will there be a flight to take me home to Bristol or will I be dossing down at the Sofitel until the next flight on Monday? As I ponder that matter I consider the great news for we shareholders from Big Sofa (BST) and the real import of today's shocking news that Beaufort Securities has gone tits up. Postscript from Kalamata bus station: Bristol flights have been cancelled. With frightening efficiency I have transferred to a Gatwick flight. I am now working out how to get from Gatwick to Bristol in the middle of the night.
2423 days ago
Natch, the same as last year: grief. Of course I jest. The Mrs says that she has a treat lined up for me when we return to the UK. I am more organised and on our fourth anniversary have arranged a real treat for her in Kalamata. It involves olive oil but there is no need to furnish you with the full details. In a way, our bigger celebration, is 15 days later - the first birthday of young Joshua Patrick.
2516 days ago
I have two great fears when travelling. The first is that I will miss my train or plane. This is hereditary. My grandmother Lesbia Winnifrith never missed a train in her life apart from once when she arrived so early that she caught the previous one in error. I like to travel with plenty of room for error.
2930 days ago
Nick Clegg, the name rings a bell, didn't he used to be an MP? Apparently he still is and today he sent me a strong email telling me why I must vote to stay in the EU. The last time I remember Nick Clegg telling me I had to vote urgently it was to stop tuition fees for students. Can anyone remember how that one played out?
This time Nick says that I must vote to stay in the EU to ensure we still have low cost air travel in Europe. Apparently if Britain leaves the EU the low cost airlines say that "routes will be cut" and "prices will skyrocket."
Really? Can Mr Clegg
2974 days ago
I comment on my smoking - after 12 days I am still clean and on the weekend's sport. Then onto ISDX and the silly claims by whichever pompous git runs it that it is the new AIM. I explain why it is not, what ISDX shares we own or wish we own (Mechan, Chapel Down & Coinsilium) and why we wont buy any more at all. I discuss the Alba pump and dump as the Horse Hill Gatwick flusher ( of mug punter cash down the pan) saga continuies. Finally my low point of the week: Independent Resources ( IRG) - it makes me feel sick...
3205 days ago
I arrived at Athens airport at 7 PM on the dot and sober as a judge with plenty of time for a 9 PM flight to Gatwick, given that I had already checked in and only have hand luggage. Er..oh. My flight is delayed by 3 hours and 20 minutes.
That means that I am likely to arrive at Gatwick at c2.30-3PM GMT and will then have 150 minutes to kill before the first bus to Bristol departs. A nightmare journey awaits.
I head to the special needs easyjet desk and say that I have a special need, I am thick. What does this all mean? An officious lady says shows me a pack of vouchers which I guess get me a sandwich and a drink and offers me the chance to get behind 140 other sweaty Brits and escaping Greeks to queue to get the voucher of which she has a stack of in her hand. Put another way "fuck off and line up with all the other peasants, I am not even going to use the word sorry since you are only a customer and I view you with complete contempt."
I say ta but no ta and head off to get a frozen yoghurt and to wander to the terribly expensive Sofitel opposite the airport. It has a great internet connection.
As it happens my Euro to ouzo conversion programme of the past eight days has not gone according to plan and I appear to have around 1200 Euro burning a hole in my pocket. I now have four and a half hours to kill. I have no choice. The PC is plugged in. I am writing and a large ouzo with ice has just arrived. This could be a long night and I fear that my only company will be my best friend ouzo. I have eight days of relative sobriety to make amends for.
3258 days ago
I was meant to pick the Mrs up at Kalamata airport in about thirty minutes but it appears that she is back at Gatwick. Her plane was struck by lightening and so had to turn back. Now her phone battery is dead so what to do? Sit in Kalamata and have an ouzo or two? Sounds like a plan.
Meanwhile it has been a two snake day.
3505 days ago
The excitement is mounting at Horse Hill, the oil prospect near Gatwick. But what is the timescale and what is the upside. Soon and big! But caveat emptor.
The six companies involved (Stellar Resources, Regency Mines, Alba Minerals, UK Oil & Gas, Solo and Doriemus) announced that drilling had started on 3rd September and was targeting a total depth of 8,680 feet. As I understand it the first few hundred feet is drilling by one rig then a larger rig goes onto site. I have no idea when exactly that will happen but when it does the excitement begins as the larger rig can drill at such speed that the whole project will be completed within sixty days.
3515 days ago
I am a nervous traveller at the best of times. But right now the thought of flying into London really scares me. The Mrs left today. I had to drive her half way across the Peloponnese so that she could catch a ferry to Zakynthos to get a direct flight to Bristol. But it was cheaper than a flight from Kalamata, my local airport here in the Mani, and her plane did not land at Gatwick.
Bristol gets mostly domestic, Western European and holiday flights. The Mrs can pick me up from the airport and the passport line is not three hours long.
Gatwick is a schlepp of a bus/train trek away from Bristol and I am convinced that my flight will land just between one directly in from Sierra Leone and another from Turkey packed with British born men with beards who have just spent a few months in Syria and Northern Iraq. I thus face being stuck in the passport queue with a mixture of returning Jihadists - just looking for a chap with an Israeli army T-shirt on to behead - and highly contagious Ebola virus carriers.
It is s 35 minute cab ride from The Greek Hovel to Kalamata. It is an additional five hour bus, taxi, ferry, taxi ride to Zakynthos. But the idea is growing on me.
PS The Mrs suggests that just in case there are any Quindell Moron type jihadists reading this I should not publicise my final travel plans until I have landed. As ever she is a wise woman.
