905 days ago
We have sad news today from ECR Minerals (ECR), the sudden death at the weekend of its CEO Craig Brown. I have known Craig for almost two decades since his days floating what was Kryso Resources, now China NonFerrous Gold. When I was at a low point Craig was not – like most folks – someone who joined in the kicking. That marked him as a decent guy in my book and I returned the favour when he fell out with China NonFerrous. Naturally, my thoughts at a time like this are with his daughters and other family members especially as Craig was only 51.
968 days ago
It has just been brought to my attention that ADVFN has been hosting a (brief) thread dedicated to discussing my demise. It has been live since February 17 as you can see below. It’s only point is discussing my demise something spurred on by my exposes of and obtaining the suspension of, the fraud that is Supply@ME Capital (SYME). Does ADVFN really think that offering a platform to discuss such a matter is appropriate. Will it take firm action and not only can the thread but ban the sick mind who created it? I have asked the question of ADVFN Boss Mike Hodges this morning?
1212 days ago
Death, like taxation and the sheer awfulness of Mrs Brown’s Boys, is something that cannot be avoided or denied and must be confronted by all of us in the end. When you bring a child into this world, you know that one dreadful day you will have to explain to it that he or she will in the end die. It is awful and unavoidable. We all die in the end.
1226 days ago
The argument for the biggest assault on our civil liberties since World War Two and for actions that are wrecking the economy, causing suicides and job losses to soar and bankrupting businesses across the land is that we must act now to save lives. The monumental folly of this is demonstrated in this one chart below with data sourced from the ONS. Read it and then I challenge any one of you to disagree with me that all those responsible for lockdowns and other measures should be put on trial for their crimes.
2458 days ago
I have written before about how I do not celebrate the death of anyone, not even a bloody murderer like the IRA's Martin McGuinness. But are there some folk whose demise really should be celebrated. I think of Sally Jones, a graduate of SOAS who lived her entire life on benefits in Britain before marrying a home grown jihadi and eloping to Raqqa where she has been a key recruiter for ISIS.
2607 days ago
It appears that the health of Martin McGuinness, the former commander of the IRA in Londonderry or, as he prefers to be known, former deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, is deteriorating fast. His date with the grim reaper is almost upon him. Can I honestly say that i am sorry about this?
2671 days ago
My wife is younger than I am and her social set here in Bristol is younger than she is and thus on New Year's Eve I found myself with a group of folks in their mid thirties. I shall be 49 in ten days time. There were a stack of babies and young children there and one adult opined "it is just as if everyone is having babies, is it a Bristol thing?" No, dippy snowflake, it is a function of how old you are.
2707 days ago
Jeepers, to think that this drunken elitist fool Juncker thinks he is speaking for me. Fidel Castro was an evil bastard whatever the BBC says as I noted earlier. Back in 1968 he cheered on as the Russian tanks crushed the uprising in Prague. Do you think that the people of a, now free, Czech Republic are mourning Castro today?
2711 days ago
On 13 June I started my 21 stock Death list portfolio - 21 shares heading for zero or being booted off the market - see HERE. Until now 27 stocks have entered the portfollio and I am claiming ten kills - not bad eh? Today I go over the four kills since the last update and add four new entrants to the portfolio. Do the Cloudtag morons really want to bet against me with my current kill rate? I review all 21 now current members. The stocks mentioned are: Worthington, JQW, Jiasen, Camkids, China Chaintek, Trap Oil, Mosman Oil & Gas, Monitise, Outsourcery, Magnolia Petroleum, Arian Silver, Sareum, Avanti Communications, Daniel Stewart, Mariana Resources, Sefton Resources, Golden Saint Resources, Sovereign Mines of Africa, Afren, Wandisco, Tungsten, Blur, Auhua, Afriag, InternetQ, Servision, Igas, Cloudtag, African Potash & Slater & Gordon.
2765 days ago
Seventy-five years ago, eighteen year old men and women were dealing with the Luftwaffe bombing our cities to oblivion, with death all around them and the stresses of war. Some had psychological stress but they were relatively rare and, frankly, who could blame them? Wind forward to today and 26% of 16-24 year old women report suffering at least one mental health issue a week. 9% of men suffer likewise. It is hard to know where to start.
2814 days ago
It appears that Kadiza Sultana, one of the three schoolgirls who left Bethnal Green to join ISIS in Syria has been killed in an air strike. At this point are you weeping? Me neither. I feel sorry when innocent folk in Europe or in Syria and Iraq get butchered by ISIS. I feel sorry for the women rounded up for rape camps by ISIS. I look at the sickening executions and despair of humanity. I view ISIS as repellent. So Kadiza is not someone i mourn. The world is a better place without her and if - like so many victims of ISIS - her death was slow and painful then I really don't care. Well done to the Russians for taking her out.
2841 days ago
The route from Shipston to the hospice in Myton takes you past Warwick School which I attended between eight and eighteen. As I headed back to my father yesterday, having picked up the effects of my step mother and a death certificate, curiosity got the better of me and I swung left into the Car Park of the Junior School which cares for you between 7 and 11.
The place has changed beyond all recognition. It is far smarter and more developed than in my day when three of the classrooms (those of Miss Jagger, Mr Wilkins and Mrs Birt) were portacabins. Some things remain. There are wickets painted in white on the wall of what was "the New Gym" but is now the Sports Centre which faces on the junior school playground. Or what is now the playground, we used to have two. The second, where the violent game of British Bulldog, now I am sure banned, was played is now a car park.
As I looked at the video display on the wall of another new building, I saw pictures of boys on ski trips and school trips to Russia and India. In my day it was Telford Gorge or the Museums in London or maybe just a short walk up to Warwick Castle.
The old outdoor pool has gone, replaced by an indoor facility. Political correctness
2842 days ago
I was just writing about the subject of writing about death when the call came. My father and I had said goodbye to my step mother twice yesterday but by the afternoon he was not sure if she took it in. By 11 PM she was unconscious and so today my father, sister N and I just sat in Shipston joking and laughing about times gone by and the political pantomime and not mentioning what was going on fifteen miles away in Myton.
2898 days ago
I once read a short story but for the life of me cannot remember its title or author but it comes to mind as I toil in the fields at the Greek Hovel, slashing away with my frigana cutter below.
2925 days ago
Desperate to avoid speculation as to the cause of death of weirdo pop legend Prince, the death of the singer and songwriter dominated the news channels last night. It was the lead story on Channel 4 News with Jon Snow paying his respects to the man. Sod Syria or the amazing investigations by Michael Crick into how the Tories broke election law in a wholesale manner ( great work by Crick), Prince was the main story of the day.
He was at his height when I was young. His music played as Abbe Aronson spurned me so cruelly and broke my heart, a trauma the heartless woman still refuses to acknowkledge, so causing further agonising heartache when we chat every couple of months or so. Shall I ever recover? I digress. I was not much into Prince himself although he was clearly a pop genius writing hits for a stack of other artists as well as for himself.
I still remember heading to the Birmingham Powerhouse
3087 days ago
Don’t misunderstand me: Jihadi John, the Brit who cut folk’s heads off for ISIS was a bad man. The world is no worse off for his death. He will now be discovering that there are no 72 virgins and I rather hope that he is burning in a Judeo-Christian hell for eternity. Having said all of that…
The man was executed without trial. The US – our ally in our idiotic Middle Eastern meddling – targeted him and executed him from the air without trial, no doubt with the blessing of the British Government. Should we really be celebrating the fact that State can execute its own citizens and is doing so repeatedly without trial?
Does this not set a rather dangerous precedent? I shed no tears for Jihadi John. But state organised extra judicial executions are bad things. They were bad things when we executed Irishmen in Gibraltar thirty years ago. Yes those Irishmen were members of the loathsome IRA but as British citizens they deserved a trial.
We should not be celebrating
3106 days ago
You will remember that AIM listed Golden Saint Resources (GSR) is out of cash and trading while insolvent as it burns up to £6,000 a day but that its rescue plan was to raise £250,000 via a crowd funded debt death spiral masterminded by Northern slum refugee the talentless little shit Richard “Gollum” Gill and crowdforangels. So what is the update on day 15?
3474 days ago
Quindell (QPP) took on the bears and Quenron is losing. I first cited red flags about this fraud in April 2013. A year later Gotham City Research took it apart and now the shorters are upping the ante. The smell of Death is clear and now the best known US Bear Muddy Waters has also chipped in via twitter.
3678 days ago
One wonders how seriously I should take an email received last night from a Mr Tony Hartnett of Ireland ([email protected]) - one could read it as a death threat. Just in case I am found underneath a No. 8 bus this week, I reprint it in full so that the Old Bill can know where to start looking.
Good evening, Shorty
4024 days ago
The cook is off sick at Real Man Pizza Company, my quirky Celtic Italian restaurant in Clerkenwell. As luck should have it I am in town and as luck should have it we enjoyed our busiest Friday lunchtime in living memory. At 3 PM I emerged from the kitchen a sweaty wreck, cursing poor Fabio for being ill on this day of all days. And then I saw a long, long line of red buses parked outside.
I wandered out. The road was taped off. I asked what was up. It seems that a cyclist was killed at the junction just up the road. It rather puts my temporary issues into perspective.
4035 days ago
Bugger. I wrote a cracking piece on the train but Microsoft 8 saved another file on top of it and it is lost. Anyhow, I am now six down in five days with one piece in my head to rewrite and then I shall be zero columns in arrears with 24n.biz the online magazine for SMEs - my series on small business tips. Catch up continues...what the hell did I write on the train that was so good?
Of course you are immortal. Er… no you are not. One day you will die and the stresses and strains of running your own business might just make that rather sooner than you think. And so what happens when that sad day happens? Have you planned for it? As someone who owns and runs an SME your death planning is a touch more difficult than that of mere wage slaves.
No doubt you already have a will. You have left everything to your nearest and dearest. Or alternatively to the ex-wife. Good. That is the easy part. But what is your business worth without you and how is that going to benefit your heirs?
4047 days ago
It was the articles penned by analyst Aubrey Brocklebank that started the sharp decline in the share price of Cupid (LSE:CUP). I have no more to say on that matter, my views are well known. But I just thought that I’d flag up that he is also looking closely at funeral business Dignity (LSE:DTY) and I do happen to agree with his conclusion. I explained the bear case myself a few weeks ago in a piece “Death is not a one way bet.” Given the new found prominence of young Aubrey (being interviewed by the FT today I gather) you may want to take note and read more about Dignity HERE
4125 days ago
God I am getting old. I knew Aubrey Brocklebank’s dad about twenty years ago. And now I find myself talking to the son. It is ather like hearing the name Potts at West Ham. I think gosh Stevie must be getting on a bit and then realise it is his son Danny on the pitch. Anyhow AB is a fund manager now doing a spot of writing and being a switched on fellow I am happy to help promote his ideas. As it happens his first article as a journalist is on Dignity (DTY) which I wrote about earlier today as well. We seem to agree. ‘Natch. Over to Aubrey…
“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” [1]
Price 1,088
Market Cap 5952
Price/Earnings 20.0
Price Book 35.1
Yield 1.3%
Dignity is a much loved small-cap stock. Panmure, N+1 Singer, Numis, and Investec are all bullish on DTY and have buy notes written about it. Only Peel Hunt is less bullish, though not enough to write a sell note. Supposedly this is a very secure and stable business and is deserving of a PE ratio of 20. Certainly from the price chart alone I might have to agree.
4126 days ago
AIM listed Funeral homes group Dignity (FTY) is one of those companies whose shares always look expensive, but then always seem to head higher. You always kick yourself for not buying the stock, after all we have an ageing population and so death ( like taxes) looks a sort of one way bet. As it happens, that is not the case. At a share price of £11.02 the company is now capitalised at £603 million. Is this justifiable?
The group has expanded largely by opening more and more funeral parlours across the country. I had assumed, as I suspect had you, that an ageing population meant that it would have more, er .. customers. But it is pointed out to me that we actually face a bit of a demographic blip. The effects of WW2 and improved health care mean that for the next decade or so the number of “customers” will not actually increase but will fall marginally. It will start picking up again in c2022.
