Funny Money: The (Investment) Diary of Bernard Jones (Bernard Jones Diaries)

by Louth Nick

  Chapter Thirteen: Perfect Peter Advises

  Sunday 2nd April: Dinner at the Edgingtons

  All morning up in the loft, putting together the signal box and seeing where on the layout it will go best. Have refused to look at the ‘Heart hugging’ book or DVD. What utter tosh!

  Elevenses: Small sliver of treacle tart, while I read the Compass annual report. Dismal stuff. I really should sell, but what of the losses?

  Later: Dinner at Peter and Geraldine Edgington’s. Endured alleged Ardennes pate which tasted like a briquette of Kit-e-Kat. While Geraldine held Eunice spellbound with details of her cellulite removal cream, Peter guided me away up to his office. He claims to keeps a simple portfolio and never trade, except regular as clockwork to sell in May before they go off to their villa in Capri. Reckons to beat the FTSE 100 every year by at least a point or two.

  “Did you find out about that company history?” he asked. I tell him the entire Marconi tragedy, how it was a certificate in English Electric left to my mother. I do not, though, let on to the scale of the loss, and feign a c’est la vie attitude.

  “Sympathies, old man,” he says. “I know you’ve had a few rough patches, what with Compass, Spirent et al. Perhaps it would make sense to go the funds route?” I takes me a while to realise what an insult this is. Fuming.

  Monday 3rd April: Builder’s bum

  Hammering on the door at 11.15am, shortly after Eunice had set off for Waitrose. Open it to see three spotty oiks in overalls and beyond a giant van parked athwart the pavement.

  “Winduz?” says one. I beg his pardon.

  “New winduz, rahnd the back, yeah?”

  “Ah, you’ve come to build the new conservatory?”

  “Yeah, s’mostly winduz innit?”

  “I was hoping for a roof and some foundations, if it’s not too much trouble,” I respond, adding that I was expecting them at 8am.

  “Facking M25 innit,” was the concise explanation. After copious cups of sugary tea, they start work and as I retreat to the loft I hear the ululation of Radio Liquid Brain 78.2FM punctuated by hammering noises and the f-word without which no communication, however basic, can be conveyed.

  Elevenses: Crunchie bar, munched noisily to drown out the din.

  By 2pm all has gone quiet. Hear Eunice arrive, the rustle of upper class supermarket bags and then: “BERNARD!!!” With a sinking feeling, I scramble down to the dining room where Eunice’s finger is quivering towards a large gap in the wall, where our french windows used to be, and through a sheet of plastic, a heap of bricks and rubble on the flower beds beyond. No sign of the oiks, but dirty footprints, crisp packets and scattered mugs indicate some activity. The room, open to the elements, is absolutely freezing.

  I know with the certainty of experience that despite this being her idea, her conservatory, her £50,000 extravaganza, this ultimately will all be my fault.

  Tuesday 4th April: Team coach

  8am: No sign of builders. Firm’s HQ is on answering machine. Incandescent! Just about to try again when phone rings. It’s an American voice, and irritatingly cheerful.

  “Hi, is this B’nard Jones?”

  “No, I’m BERnud Jones. And who pray are you?”

  “Praying’s not part of the course, Bernie. I’m Josh Fenderbrun, your life coach.”

  “No you’re not. You’re a damn nuisance. I have no need of a life coach. Please send my wife’s money back, forthwith. Good day.” Slam phone down. Thirty seconds later he phones back, all breezy chat, insisting my previous conversation just proved how essential life coaching was to me.

  “Your wife knows you better than anyone, B’nard. She’s investing in your future. Trust to her instincts and let me teach you to hug your heart.”

  At this point I use the builders’ favourite word, together with several of my own. This time he hangs up.

  Elevenses: Five shortbread biscuits and two paracetamol.

  Close of play: Up a couple of hundred, which is encouraging, except Qinetiq is falling again. God, it’s freezing in here. Tried securing the builders’ plastic sheet when the rain started tipping down, but the carpet and coffee table got damp, including water company’s notification of drought order.

  Evening: Peter Edgington phoned at 10.15pm, v. late for him. Seems he’s been ruminating over the Marconi fiasco.

  “Bernard, you know this e-mail from Telent. Did it mention anything about British Aerospace?” I respond that yes, I vaguely recall a mention.

  “It’s just that BAE bought a chunk of GEC in 1999. From memory I think they paid in shares. Perhaps you should check it?”

  I mumble my thanks, though I’m still a bit doubtful. Seems irrelevant though. If Marconi went up the Swanee then it hardly matters what they were given, does it? Eunice, a vision in puce housecoat and fluffy slippers, thrusts a mug of BournVita into my hand.

  “Bernard, leave it to the morning for goodness sake and come to bed.”

  Chapter Fourteen: Getting out the Calculator

  Wednesday 5th April: Down to business at Hell’s Bells

  No clean underwear, so forced to wear those awful M&S tartan boxers. Phoned builders at 8am. Blew up at manager, who said they would send someone over to review the work so far. Review what? They haven’t bloody done anything except make a giant hole in the back of the house. Windows and skip to be delivered today, apparently. At least it’s warmer now. Life coach Josh Fenderbrun phoned again, and was particularly difficult to get rid of. Asked about my ambitions, to which I offered: “To be left alone by nosy Yanks”. He seems v. hard to offend.

  Elevenses: Packet of pork scratchings followed by a ploughman’s. Ring o’Bells share club meeting finally gets down to business i.e. what are we going to buy. Mike Delaney notes the FTSE has climbed five per cent since our first meeting in February while we dithered. K.P. Sharma has an explanation: “You all drink too much. We can’t make decisions like that. We have to be analytical, but alcohol makes you emotional.”

  Harry Staines, florid-faced as ever, says, “Well, I’ll drink to that!” drains his pint, and orders another. Mike suggests we all each make a pitch for a share to buy this week. So, in turn we do. Harry, after two decades as a car dealer reckons we should go for luxury car distributor European Motors Holdings, I suggest newly cheap Qinetiq, while Martin Gale is all for going for some tiny oil explorer called Fortune Oil. K.P Sharma is the most convincing though, he’s a big fan of BHP Billiton because of its exposure to all the commodities including oil. Explains the super cycle theory that reckons we’ve got a couple of decades at least of higher prices for copper, zinc etc. Though BHP’s gone up a lot, at £11 or so the forward P/E is just over 10, which he reckons is cheap. In the end we mandate K.P. to make the purchase. Sadly, we’ll only be able to afford 100 shares. Still, it’s a start.

  Close of play: Return to find a skip on the drive blocking the entrance to the garage. Impotent rage (the purest kind).

  Thursday 6th April: A-day

  Between bombarding the builders with calls about the skip, peruse acres of newsprint about the A-day pension reform. Doesn’t affect me, thanks to the MoD pension, but I know perfect Peter Edgington had high hopes for getting a buy-to-let in his SIPP. Can’t restrain my feelings of schadenfreude now that he can’t. Perhaps I’m just an embittered and envious old goat.

  Elevenses: An eccles cake, which once again exploded over my keyboard. Took me 15 minutes to get the crumbs out. Must remember to re-read that enormous e-mail from Telent to see if what Peter said makes sense. Still doubt there’s any money in it.

  Don’t get the chance because Eunice, claiming she has a painful bunion, wants me to drive her to the chiropodist. She hobbles like a war hero into the Volvo, biting her lip. On arrival, notice the chiropodist is now a podiatrist, just like opticians have mutated into optometrists. As I once said to the osteopath who complained that I called him a chiropractor, it makes bugger all difference except we have to pay more. He gave my head an extra sharp twist for that.
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  Post-treatment, Eunice then finagled me into taking her on some extensive shoe shopping (“Bernard, I really don’t have any comfortable shoes”). She was across the threshold of Clarks’ like a bloody greyhound.

  Later: While we’re watching TV, Eunice complained about my alleged ‘harrumphing.’

  “What do you mean,” I asked. “I don’t ‘harrumph’.”

  “Bernard, you’ve always harrumphed. Ever since Harold Wilson got back in. But you do it more and more. At the BBC news, Newsnight, the Today programme, in fact anything on Radio 4. But it’s really got out of hand now. Good God, Bernard, we’re watching Emmerdale! What on earth is there to disapprove of in Emmerdale?”

  Friday 7th April: Fabulous discovery

  Following Peter Edgington’s advice, finally got round to re-reading the Telent e-mail. Yes indeed, British Aerospace did offer shares in itself in exchange for acquiring Marconi Electronic Systems for £7.7bn. After reading the whole thing through twice, the penny finally dropped. BAE wasn’t giving shares to GEC/Marconi the company but to the shareholders in GEC/Marconi. Each shareholder got about a half a share in BAE for each GEC share they held, on a separate certificate. Plus some loan stock, which has since been repaid. So Dad’s 100,000 English Electric shares, which became 333,332 in GEC, then each inherited 0.428792819 shares in BAE which, my lying Woolworth’s calculator assures me, is 142,930 shares in BAE! Multiplied by £4.20 that is £600,000. I can’t believe it! Those 100,000 English Electric shares have finally come good, and dotty Dot is going to get her money.

  Chapter Fifteen: Unwelcome Interruptions

  Saturday 8th April: In the forests of the night

  Dot phoned at 2am, in some anxiety. Tigers are apparently growling under her bedroom window.

  “Mum,” I respond. “There are no tigers in Isleworth. Not any more. I believe they went extinct in the 1970s. Domestic cats perhaps?”

  I hear the sound of her opening the window. “No, look. One’s got stripes,” she says in finality. “Oh, and a bell round its neck.”

  “Not likely to be a tiger, Mum. It’s a size thing really. If they bother you, throw a bucket of water over them.”

  “Hot or cold?” she asks. Cold, I explain, will do fine. Mollified, she hangs up and I can get back to sleep. Except I lie awake, wondering at what stage to try to explain to my dotty 89-year-old mother about her vast increase in wealth. Eunice, meanwhile, snored through it all. Perhaps I should phone Dot back: “That,” I would say holding the receiver over Eunice’s open mouth, “That’s what a tiger sounds like.” Eventually I fall asleep, dream of gaining power of attorney. Wake up drenched with guilt.

  Tuesday 11th April: Mr Annoying calls

  Awful day. At 7.45am the doorbell is persistently rung. Pad down in bathrobe, hear cheery whistling as I open front door. See besuited Alan Titchmarsh look-alike, rows of biros in breast pocket.

  “Morning, Raymond’s the name. I’ve come to inspect the conservatory.”

  “I presume you can see invisible objects?” I retort.

  He pads through, gets out his clipboard. Starts sucking his teeth, tutting, jotting notes. He even says “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.” Finally, he turns to me. “They’ve not even started the foundations you know,” he says.

  “Yes, I know. I’ve been trying to tell you for a week!”

  “That’s all wrong.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “The Dartford foundations team should have been here last week, but the Colchester office seems to have sent the windows boys. Now, I’ve been in this business a long time. And you can’t start with the windows, you know. It’s got to be foundations, every time. Then floor, then walls.”

  “Oh, really, can’t you start with the roof?” I growl.

  “Sarcasm, sarcasm,” he tuts, getting back to his jotting. He looks through the side window.

  “Ooh, look where they left the skip. They shouldn’t have left it there. I expect that’s blocking in your garage. Still, that’s Colchester for you.”

  I’m just about to strangle this brylcreemed gnome, when Jemima hisses down the stairs “Daddy, someone on the phone, says it’s urgent.”

  It’s the bloody spread-bet company. They want another £562 right away or they’re going to close the M&S short position. The shares have just leapt to 593p from 561p yesterday and my equity was apparently already too low anyway.

  I concede defeat. From 482p on Friday 13th January, M&S has soared 113p, and at £10 a point I’ve lost £1,200 or so including the interest. Dot may have £600,000 worth of BAE shares, but right now I’m short of cash.

  Elevenses: Lock myself in the loft with two slices of battenburg for consolation. Ate the yellow cake squares first and re-wrapped the marzipan around the red cake squares before nibbling off the corners. Childhood, I decide, is wasted on the young.

  Wednesday 19th April: Mooning for profit

  Share club meeting. K.P. Sharma starts explaining his company refs with all its moons, half full, empty or whatnot, as a way to spot what you want in the investing firmament. Harry Staines is dubious. He says his own experience of mooning, involving a minor member of the Royal Family, would have got him a dishonourable discharge in 1961 except the lady in question was too short-sighted to see from the Portsmouth quay to the deck of HMS Repulsive. “Moving swiftly on,” as K.P. is wont to say, we discuss commodities again.

  Just as K.P. is talking about copper prices rising again, the dark spiky-haired barmaid (she of the eyebrow rings) says: “Nah, you’ll get clouted if you do that.”

  Open-mouthed, we look up as she clears the glasses.

  “Copper’s riding for a fall in the next month or two,” she says. “I know ‘cos Dad’s in the recycling business. You wouldn’t believe how much copper scrap is worth now. He’s buying lorry-loads of old computers and stuff, plumbers leftovers, you name it.”

  “Why computers?” asks K.P.

  “A PC is about 10 per cent copper by weight,” she says. Lots of it is tied in to circuit boards, and isn’t easy to get at, but the new EU recycling directive regulation, really aimed at batteries, will mean lots of PCs and laptops will now have to be taken apart. There’s huge amounts of metal in a PC power supply and back-up batteries, and Dad is getting in now while it’s cheap.”

  Chantelle, as we discover, is a bright young thing. In the end she asks if she can join the club. She can only contribute £20 a month, but that’s fine by us.

  Friday 21st April: Cyst assistant

  Disturbed breakfast. Happily sitting eating a boiled egg and reading the Telegraph when Eunice, who’d been on the phone for more than half an hour thundered downstairs and announced breathlessly: “Janet’s got an ovarian cyst.”

  I examined Eunice’s face for clues as to how I should react. Clearly there was a cause of some excitement. I took a wild stab: “Is that one of those Irish designer handbags?”

  “Bernard, the doctor’s sending her straight to hospital. It’s endometrial and they’re going to perform a laparotomy.”

  “Didn’t Daley Thompson do one of those after he won gold?”

  After being berated for a few minutes for my lack of knowledge or interest in women’s bits, Eunice laid out a plan of campaign with a practised ease that would not have disgraced Rommel. Our daughter-in-law would be heading off to hospital this morning, with no time to do the supermarket run. We’d need to shop for them, pick up Digby from school and baby-sit until Brian got home. He’d then head off to see Janet in hospital, Eunice would go with him (presumably to lecture the consultants on exactly what they should do), while I would entertain the mephistophelian munchkin until his bedtime, which was 8pm.

  Elevenses: With the household’s mental air raid sirens ringing, I was not allowed to retreat into the den. Instead, forced to partake of half a pear with Eunice while she reeled off gynaecological horror stories that had happened to her friends over the years, culminating in the tale, dredged up from the early 1980s, of Daphne Hanson-Hart’s ectopic p
regnancy. Eunice interprets my lack of interest as ignorance.

  “Bernard, it shocks me that you have no idea what an ectopic pregnancy is.”

  “I have never heard of an ectope, so how they breed is of no interest. If I wanted to know I’d tune into Living Planet.”

  “You’re just trying to twist things. You’ve misquoted me again, word for word.”

  3pm: Headed off to Sainsbury’s. Eunice is reviewing Janet’s shopping list, which is almost the size of Whitaker’s Almanack. We, apparently, are going to need three trolleys. The supermarket turns out to be the size of the Cardington airship hangar, and has an entire aisle labelled ‘deodorants’. A little put off by the size of the place, Eunice circles the trolleys by the lager section and stands guard while I’m dispatched with a hand basket for some long-range reconnaissance. My task, should I choose to accept it, is to hunt down mysterious and rarely-seen items, to wit: cinnamon grahams, pimento-stuffed Tuscan olives, the 18kg industrial-size drum of salad cream in the ‘Basics’ range (the only approved fuel for the family’s satanic offspring), and some half-fat organic Welsh goat yoghurt.

  “Is there a brand for that?” I ask Eunice.

  “Yes. Janet wasn’t sure of the name, but it begins with an L.’

  “An L? That’s a handy clue for a Welsh name.”

  “Some Ls anyway. And there’s a Y in it somewhere.”

  As I trudge off, Eunice squawks after me: “…And don’t get any other brand. Brian won’t eat Muller Lite. And Digby comes up in boils when he eats those little Danone things.”

  Fifteen minutes later, I’m lost. I’m at the intersection of ‘patio heaters’ avenue and ‘feminine hygiene products’ boulevard and I can no longer see anything edible. There are no staff around, and the only other customer nearby is a dumpy cross-eyed woman, whose trolley is a clinking emplacement of Carling, sandbagged with jumbo packets of Hula Hoops. Hanging from this all-terrain vehicle, three shrieking children are fighting for possession of an Armalite-sized plastic water gun, presumably stocked in ‘irritating and antisocial toys’ drive.