by Nick Louth
“Nonsense. They wouldn’t take back that bloody three-pack of tartan boxer shorts, would they?”
“Bernard, you’d worn them! No-one exchanges worn underwear, not even Primark.”
“I didn’t wear them, I merely tried them on.”
“Bernard you’re always trying it on. I’ll never forget that time you tried to take back a four-year old pair of faded orange pyjamas to M&S because the elastic had gone.”
“The Sale of Goods Act 1979 says...”
“Never mind that! It’s when you made your point by putting on the trousers in the middle of shop to demonstrate to the sales girl that they wouldn’t stay up. I’ve never been so embarrassed.”
“It worked though, didn’t it?”
“Well, it was worth giving you a full refund to get you out of the store. You looked like an escapee from Guantanamo Bay.”
Friday 4th July: Random Dog Walk
Jemima and soppy boyfriend Toby have gone away for a long weekend and left me in charge of their overactive year-old black labrador, Nasdaq. As usual, this arrangement was made with about four minutes notice. Still, the hound is a great pleasure. I got him skidding about chasing a ball on the conservatory floor, and then had an idea. I’d read some years ago, in the Wall Street Journal, that a team of monkeys throwing darts could make better stock selections than a bunch of professionals. I just wonder if Nasdog, as I’ve started to call him, could do the same for me. The trouble is that Nasdog can’t throw darts. I took some back copies of the Financial Times, laid down the share price pages right across the conservatory floor and tried to work out how we could make this work. I’ve got about two thousand pounds, and with the market this weak there must be some bargains to have. Perhaps Nasdog can help me find them. I started by throwing a ping pong ball onto the papers and trying to get him to fetch it. Unfortunately, in his over-enthusiasm he skidded across the floor, ripped several sheets to shreds and finally chewed the ball to pieces.
Next I screwed up a sheet of the paper and threw it across the conservatory for Nasdog to fetch. I was hoping for a clean bite mark on a particular share, but only got a very soggy mass of heavily chewed paper. I might have been baffled, but Nasdog was having a great time, watching me screwing up sheets of paper, his tail going like a windscreen wiper in a monsoon.
The front door’s click announced Eunice’s return from a hard day’s supermarket pillage. A quick glance at the vast soggy mess of newspaper spread across the floor brought terror to my throat. Nasdog was all for greeting, but I preferred ambush. I snatched the dog and dived behind the sofa with a hand over his jaws.
We heard the click, click of slow but authoritarian heels as Eunice paced across the hardwood floor, muttering to herself about the mess. Nasdog, whining and wriggling, could barely be restrained and Eunice soon found us.
“Bernard, what are you doing down there?” she said.
“I’m training the dog.”
“But he already knows how to make a mess. What are you attempting to teach him?”
“I’m going to make him a great investor. Better than Buffett. Together, we’re going to beat the market.”
Sunday 6th July: New Balls, Please
This is the time of year when Eunice likes to invite vegan pal Irmgard and wheelie bin-fixated neighbour Daphne Hanson-Hart over to watch television. They plan to drool over two taciturn hairy-legged Europeans smashing tennis balls at each other. Leaving them in a strawberry and Pimms-fuelled orgy of thwock (ooh!) and thwock (aah!) I walk Nasdaq the dog, or Nasdog, along deserted streets. From under a hedge he finds an old tennis ball, and after a ten minute game of ‘fetch’ in the park I suddenly have an idea.
On our return, I tiptoe around the ogling cronies and take Nasdog through to the garden. There in the shed I find 15 faded and shrunken tennis balls, mostly from the days when I attempted to chivvy a 13-year-old Jemima out of the house and away from an unhealthy interest in popular crooning groups. That of course failed as soon as I pulled a muscle in my back, which was about fifteen minutes into our first practice.
Now though, these balls have a use in my attempt to recreate the monkey-and-darts random share picking experiment. If I just write the name of a market sector on each ball, and throw them from a bucket down the garden I will be able to get Nasdog to retrieve one. It takes a good half hour to mark them up using a felt-tip, all the while watched by the slobbering and over-excited dog. I’m just about ready, when Eunice emerges from the conservatory.
“Bernard, it’s your mother on the phone. She says her television’s stuck on CBeebies but she wants to watch Rod Laver and Billie-Jean...”
“Oh God. I’ve told her time and again to change channels with the remote, and not to touch the connections on the back. She’ll electrocute herself.”
“Look. Can you come and talk to her? She’s driving me barmy. And Nadal’s got two set points. Oh, and would you put the kettle on when you come in? And look, Nasdog’s done something.”
So I stopped what I was doing, went inside, spoke to my loopy mother and made the tea. Later, I would clear up after Jem’s dog. What a life. Come on, Bernard, are you really to spend the rest of it at the beck and call of women? Almost certainly, yes.
Monday 7th July: Consumer Electronics 1955-Style
Spent an infuriating day round at my mother’s. She complained she missed the tennis because the TV set blew up.
“I want a British TV next time. This Japanese stuff is rubbish,” Dot said, looking at her ten-year-old Sony. All attempts to convey the importance of Japanese just-in-time manufacturing, a superior industrial ethos and the technological dominance of this sophisticated nation were lost on my mother. To her the Japanese were still building railways across Burma using PoW labour, and trying to take India from our Empire. Perhaps that is why she stabbed the television.
“No TV is going to be happy about having a screwdriver jammed into the air vent. You’ve got to stop doing things like that,” I said, inspecting the partially melted back cover of the tube.
“I was trying to change the channel.”
“Mum, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times, you’ve got to use the remote. You can’t change channel like you used to on a 1955 Bush.”
“But it doesn’t work, Bernard. Look.” She pointed the remote at the screen and pressed several buttons randomly.
“It’s not going to work now because the TV’s broken, isn’t it? Besides, you’re holding the remote control back to front,” I said.
“But how can I tell? It looks the same both ways.”
“No it doesn’t, Mum, hold it so that the writing’s the right way up. Look.” I showed her how to hold the device.
She took it from me and pressed several buttons. “Well, it doesn’t work any better your way round.”
“Of course it doesn’t now! That’s because the bloody TV’s broken. As I just told you, you stupid woman!”
“Bernard, there’s no need to swear. If you’d not lost your temper, you wouldn’t have broken it, now would you?”
At this point I really did lose my temper and kicked the TV hard, at which point it fell off its stand and onto me.
Close of play: Waiting in A&E to have my foot bandaged. The fellow next to me is reading the evening paper which shows FTSE around 5400. One of those chartist chappies said we might get a bounce here. I do hope so. I’m down 23% this year, and have hardly any cash left to buy bargains.
Tuesday 8th July: Choosing A Dog Stock
With Eunice out shopping (again) I return to my task with Nasdog. I fill the bucket with marked tennis balls and hurl them down the garden as far as I can. Nasdog leaps after them and jumps into and out of bushes before finally returning with one. Will it be banks? Construction or property? However, the damn dog now seems to be a little possessive of his chosen ball, and doesn’t want to let me have it. He thinks it is more fun to pretend to drop it, but change his mind at the last minute and have me chase him.
Finally, I g
et a grip on the saliva-covered object and gently extricate it from his growling mouth. What’s written on it? Slazenger, and nothing else. On closer inspection, this isn’t one of my balls anyway. Probably one of the bloody O’Riordan’s. So I pretend to throw it back in the bushes, and the dog falls for it, sprinting back like a great black rubbery bundle to the bottom of the garden. This time he does retrieve one of my balls. The sector is chemicals. Well, that’s a bit uninspiring. I repeat the task of labelling the balls, but this time with each carrying the name of a stock within the chemical sector.
What does Nasdog bring back? Zotefoams. I’d never even heard of it. I look the firm up on its website: ‘A world leader in cross-linked block foams.’ I’m none the wiser, quite honestly. Now I’m in a bit of a quandary. I’ve got £2000 to invest, but I’m not sure that Zotefoams is really going to set the stock market firmament ablaze. A bit of research shows that it has a market cap of less than £30 million, and a lowish P/E of under 10. The shares have been falling all year, but there is a 6% dividend yield and little debt. Still, if this year in the stock market has taught me one thing, it is that my own judgment has not beaten the market. Perhaps the dog’s judgment will serve me better. So I go online, and spend my hard-earned cash on Zotefoams shares at 82p.
Wednesday 9th July: Insider Tip
K.P. Sharma is looking a little glum as the rest of us arrive for share club. Harry immediately starts needling him, a tactic that he has down to a fine art.
“How are those lovely HBOS nil paid shares doing, then?” he asks. “Have you doubled your money yet?”
“No,” K.P. replied “I sold yesterday at a 40% loss when it was clear that there was not going to be a bounce.”
“That kind of thing is all very speculative, isn’t it?” said Martin Gale, a pot never too proud to call the kettle black. “I’ve got a real bargain. I borrowed some more money from my sister and bought three thousand shares in Persimmon at 217p. Her lodger’s sister in law’s boyfriend works for them as a plasterer, or did until they made him redundant in 2006. He says they are really cheap.”
“Another quality insider tip from boardroom sources,” murmured Chantelle, as she dried glasses behind the bar.
Thursday 10th July: Blazing Comet
Drove back to Dot’s yet again, to take her to buy a new television. We arrive at the local Comet warehouse, where every wall is lined with gigantic TV screens. The only snag is that every single one is tuned to the same channel. It is presumably a David Attenborough programme, because shambling across the screen is an androgynous giggling yeti, apparently dressed by Oxfam.
“What on earth is it?” Dot asks.
“That’s Russell Brand,” the assistant explains.
“Oh. Same make as my old kettle,” she nods. “They have branched out, haven’t they? I knew they did toasters.”
“No Mum, you’re thinking of Russell Hobbs,” I say, asking the assistant if we could find a different channel. Eventually we got my mother down away from the 40” widescreen monsters to something in keeping with her style.
“These are all plastic, though,” Dot complains. “Don’t they have one in wood? My first telly was made of wood. And it only cost thirty guineas. I mean, look at the price of these!”
“It also only had a ten inch screen, and the sound was as crackly as a reverse-charge call from New Guinea,” I say.
“Well, I’ll only buy a British one,” she says.
The assistant looked dubious, but consults a manager who comes over. There had used to be several TV plants in Wales, he says, but most of the work had now gone to Eastern Europe. The JVC plant in Scotland and the Philips plant in the North East had closed too, he admits. “What about Belgium? We’ve got a portable TV made in Belgium. Would that do?” he asks.
Eventually we settled on a robust-looking flat-screen Panasonic for £200, made in Taiwan. Dot agrees only after I whisper in her ear that it’s actually pronounced Daiwan, and is a new eco town in mid-Wales.
Sunday 13th July: All Creatures Grate And Smell
Today should have been a Friday 13th. Heavy, overcast weather and a grim sense of foreboding. Worse was to come. Toaster conks out at breakfast, so forced to use the grill. Burned four slices of bread (distracted reading Chronic Investor magazine) before finally getting to the last pair before immolation set in. After request from the Windolene Witch, I look again at her washing machine, which leaks more often than MI5. Can’t find anything wrong with it, but when Eunice tests it with a heavy load of bedclothes it makes an ominous grinding sound and now it won’t work at all. She then sent me to vacuum up my burned crumbs from the kitchen floor. However, our Electrolux, which even normally has only the sucking power of an asthmatic mayfly, gave one giant slurp and died.
“What’s the matter now?” said Eunice, as I started a detailed Anglo-Saxon dressing down of the blasted device.
“The damn thing’s just stopped,” I said.
“Oh no! Still, it wouldn’t have happened, Bernard, if we’d bought a Dyson,” she said. “But you’re just too tight, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean? These retail at nearly £200 don’t they?”
“Perhaps. But this one was £130 at Somerfield, in 2006. A bargain, you said. It was on special offer because the box was crushed where it had been dropped. Don’t you recall? No wonder Comet, Currys and Dixons sales are in such a state, having to cope with cheapskates like you.”
“Well, it’s a competitive marketplace, and the supermarkets are muscling their way in,” I said, as I began to work on the cleaner’s plug. “With any luck it’s only the fuse.”
“Not with that burning smell, Bernard. It’s destined for the hoover happy hunting grounds I should think.”
“That should be something for the fossil hunters to find in a millennium or two. I mean, we should get David Attenborough over here to catalogue this. With the microwave dying last week, your hair tongs, my electric razor and all this lot today, this has been the greatest mass extinction since the end of the Cretaceous period.”
“Ah yes,” Eunice replied. “I can see the headline: ‘Life on earth to end. Humanity expires. Bernard Jones blamed. Too tight to pay for five billion-year extended warranty’. Still, I expect you’re going to say it was all caused by a Comet impact.”
Monday 14th July: Bastille Day Massacre
Markets dropped to the floor today faster than Marie-Antoinette’s severed head. Everyone says that FTSE’s going to drop below 5000 at some stage. It’s a shame Peter Edgington has fallen out with us, I could do with his advice at a time like this.
Close of Play: Market ended where it started after a failed rally attempt.
Tuesday 15th July: Worse Still
Market plunges well below 5200. I feel I should sell something, but what? Only two stocks are doing well, Compass and Domino’s Pizza. Should I ditch those before they drop sharply too? Or is it better to sell losers like all the pundits say? I’ve had Lloyds TSB for years, but I’ve lost more on the share price than I ever gained from its dividends. I’m tempted to ditch it, but then I might miss out on a recovery. Even oil stocks and miners are looking weak.
Elevenses: An enormous fresh cream éclair, savoured while renovating a branch line on the railway layout in the loft. I’ll ignore shares for a while, too depressing.
Wednesday 16th July: Share Club Deserted
HBOS shares, of which K.P. Sharma was a champion, are well below their rights issue price. Not surprisingly he doesn’t turn up for share club at the Ring o’Bells. Neither does Harry Staines nor Martin Gale. Only Chantelle is here, working behind the bar.
“It’s amazing, innit,” she says, serving me a pint of Spitfire. “Here we are, with share prices more than 20% cheaper than a year ago, and no-one turns up at the club to discuss what bargains to buy. Yet last summer, with sky-high prices we had a full house every time.”
“It just shows we don’t buy shares like we buy toasters or vacuum cleaners,” I said.
Russ
ell Traugh, who overheard our conversation slides up, his nylon trousers whistling with every step. “I can get you more than 20% off a Dyson, if you’re interested.”
I obviously did look interested, so Russell continued. “It’s reconditioned, looks good as new. Ninety quid.”
Chantelle looked at us both. “Only those who never have to use a vacuum cleaner themselves would ever buy a cheap one.”
“That’s settled, then,” I chuckled. “I’ll take it.”
Chapter Nineteen: Equitable Treatment
Thursday 17th July: A Kiss For Ann
Oh Joy! Finally, parliamentary ombudsperson Ann Abraham has released her Equitable Life report! She confirms that we victims have been short-changed by regulators as well as the company. Though I wasn’t one of those whose annuities were over-generously guaranteed, when the courts ruled that Equitable Life did have to compensate them, it was my with-profit policy that got ransacked to pay for it. Perhaps now we will finally get some compensation. If so, that woman deserves a kiss.
Close of play: Huge rise on Wall Street. Perhaps the market really is turning around. Feel happier than I have for some time.
Friday 18th July: Death Or Glory
Market recovering sharply today, including Zotefoams which fell from the 82p I bought it at, hit 75p and is now back unchanged. Good old Nasdog! Maybe I can get the animal to choose more stocks for me. Eunice, however, has other things on her mind.
“Look,” she says, showing me the Daily Mail. “The government is going to spend £286 million extending consumer choice, by allowing us to choose how we want to die.”
