Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

10 Days to the new cricket season and only 11 weeks to my holidays.
Not that i'm counting, you understand.............

Good to catch up with you all - not enough semi naked women though.

For those of you that are retired - you might like to take my lead here.

Working people frequently ask us retired people what we do to make our
days interesting. Well, for example, the other day I went into town and
went to a small shop down on High Street. I was only in there for about
10 minutes. When I came out, there was a traffic warden writing out a parking ticket.

I went up to him and said, "Come on buddy, how about giving a senior citizen a
break?"

He looked up, then ignored me and continued writing the ticket. I called
him a heartless Nazi bastard. He glared at me and then started writing
another ticket for worn tyres. So I called him a piece of stinking dog
shit. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windscreen with
the first. I called him an asshole and a pig. Then he started writing
a third ticket. I called his mother a slut and a whore.
This went on for about 20 minutes. The more I verbally abused him, the
more tickets he wrote.

Personally, I didn't give a shit. I came into town on the bus. I try to have a little fun each day now that I'm retired. It's important at my age.

Tee Hee

Baza

I thought cricket was a dirty word at the moment! For my holidays this year I think I might take a tour of the country and pull Baza's trick in every town that I go to - it sounds damned good to me! Not that I would wish any more problems for the downtrodden motorist.........traffic wardens though....(got nothing against them really, or tax inspectors).

If a traffic warden and a tax inspector were both drowning, and you could only save one of them, would you go to lunch or read the paper?

Nice one baza ,,Kim i would do neither i'd stand on their heads !!
no one hates Traffic Wardens more than me .

Kim, I once heard it asked a different way;

Q; You are trapped in a lift with Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and a traffic warden. You have a gun and only 2 bullets. What do you do?

A; Shoot the traffic Warden. Twice.

A truck driver used to amuse himself by running over traffic wardens he saw walking down the side of the road. Every time he saw a traffic warden walking along the road, he swerved to hit him and there would be a loud "THUMP". Then he would swerve back on the road.
One day, as the truck driver was driving along the road he saw a priest hitchhiking. He thought he would do a good deed and pulled the truck over. "Where are you going, Father?" The truck driver asked. "Im going to the church 5 miles down the road", replied the priest.
"No problem, Father! Ill give you a lift. Climb in the truck". The happy priest climbed into the passenger seat and the truck driver continued down the road. Suddenly, the truck driver saw a traffic warden walking down the road. Instinctively he swerved to hit him. At the last moment he remembered there was a priest in the truck with him, so he swerved back to the road and narrowly missed the traffic warden. Certain he shouldve missed the traffic warden, the truck driver was very surprised and immediately uneasy when he heard a loud "THUMP". He felt really guilty about his actions and so turned to the priest and said, "Im really sorry Father. I almost hit that traffic warden". "Thats okay", replied the priest. "I got him with the door."

Whats the difference between a traffic warden and a bucket of shit?


The bucket

A priest, a doctor, and a traffic warden were waiting one morning on a particularly slow group of golfers. "Whats wrong with these guys?" fumed the traffic warden. "We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!" "I dont know," said the doctor, "but Ive never seen such ineptitude!"
"Here comes the greenskeeper," said the priest. "Lets have a word with him. Say, George, whats with that group ahead of us? Theyre rather slow. arent they?" "Oh, yes," said George, "Thats the group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight while saving our club last year. We let them play here anytime free of charge!" Everyone was silent for a moment. Then the priest said, "Thats so sad, I think Ill say a prayer for them tonight." "And Im going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there is anything he can do for them," the doctor added.

"Why cant they play at night?" asked the traffic warden.

An elderly patient needed a heart transplant and discussed his options with his doctor.
The doctor said, We have three possible donors; tell me which one you want to use. One is a young, healthy athlete who died in an automobile accident. The second is a middle-aged businessman who never drank or smoked, he fell off his motorbike. The third is a traffic warden who just died after giving tickets for 30 years. Ill take the traffic wardens heart, said the patient. After a successful transplant, the doctor asked the patient why he had chosen the donor he did. It was easy, the patient replied. I wanted a heart that hadnt been used.

If there are any traffic wardens reading this thread I wish to dissociate myself from recent posts, my identity has been stolen....but if there aren't any.....

Whats the difference between a porcupine and a car with two traffic wardens riding in it?
A porcupine has pricks on the outside.

Change of Topic

Three ladies were having lunch together and discussing the merits of Cosmetic surgery.

The first lady say's, " I need to be honest with you girls, I'm getting a boob job done."

The second lady say's, " Oh that's nothing! I'm having a face lift next week.

The third lady say's, " Well hell girls, that's all very well but I've gotta tell you I'm thinking of having my arsehole bleached!"

To which the first lady replies, "Holy shit Wendy.........you know, I just can't picture your husband as a blonde ......"

An old lady walks into a plastic surgeon's office and tells him she wants a facelift.
He says, "Well, we have three models. The first is for $1000 and is guaranteed for one year, the second is $3000 and is guaranteed for 3 years, and the last is $5000 and it is guaranteed for 5 years."The old lady says, "Well tell me about them."The doctor says, "For $1000, you are going to get a half-ass job that you pay very little for."She responds, "Forget that one, what about the next one?"He explains, "For $3000, we do a much better job and pay close attention to detail, but it's only guaranteed for 3 years."The lady says, "No, that's no good either, what about the last one?"The doctor replies, "For $5000, you are going to get the best facelift with a feature that is on the cutting edge of plastic surgery. There will be a screw attached to the back of your head and if you notice your face sagging, just come back in and we will tighten the screw."The lady is delighted and has the surgery.

About 6 months later she comes back to the office very upset. "Doctor, I want my money back because I look horrible. Look at these bags under my eyes!"

The doctor leans back in his chair and says, "Lady, you aren't getting anything back. Those bags under your eyes are your boobs and if you keep messing with that screw, you're going to have a beard!"

best joke i've heard for ages. nice one :))

Well its my chosen part of the year for doing a mid price valuation of my current portfolio, so at close of business today I will be working out value + dividends + amount drawn - amount added to compare with this day last year and see how much I've lost on what feels like a poor year.
I always target myself to equal the FTSE (after costs), but I don't think I've even come close this year. :-((
Let you all know later, how crap I am.
Alan

Al
I do my portfolio at the end of December
Year ending 03 my port was up 37%
04 was 7.2%
05 was 35%
This year from Dec Im up about 25% already how does this compare with yours.

I'm an amateur, Driver.
Had good years ending 02,03 and 04 based on a couple of lucky ones (20%+), but 05 was poor (evens) and 06 looks to be about 16%, but I am still working it out, so it could be much worse (or better).
I have had a couple of disasters in the last year, so even the successes like CSB and BRW and MKS look like they'll be wiped out by YOO, BRY and others. (BRY-75%, ouch).
Will make my "state of the Union" address over the weekend, and you can see what an ill informed tit I have been for the last year!!
Alan

Al
Im not in any of the ones you have mentioned MKS have done well and I wish I got in early the next retail success could be ALY I have only got a hand fall been sitting on them for years and should of topped up. YOO are not down that much youre probably in to heavy.
Have a look at SCO, top up your DCD, and get some ERX long-term stick with me and we can loose money together.

everyone have a nice easter :))



i do like eating chocolate ;)

Al, I do sympathise as I've had a few teething difficulties myself when it comes to that slippery concept known as profitability (aka why didn't I just keep my assets as cash and invest it by sticking it under the mattress?). However, it beats me why you say you don't invest in oil companies and/or metals miners. Given that the product is certain to sell and you can find the prices published just about everywhere, I'd have thought you'd see some of these plays as dead cert multi-baggers . . . ??

Mr. Smug Traders has been holding/adding NOP for a couple of years, just did a bundle on SBE, plus am currently riding VOG and expecting great things from BLR. Am into some miners too. I won't bore you with the details - you'll have seen my name on the threads. As usual, DYOR and Don't Blame Me :o)

Anyway, Happy Easter one and all, and more successful speculating in the spring!!

ST.

Twas a worse year than I suspected. After accounting for cash injections to my portfolio I am just 8.4% up on the year. :-((
As usual, there are 3 groups of shares. The flyers, the plummeters and the I aint going nowheres.
You all know that SEO is a large(ish) holding of mine and that has done nowt for me in the last 12 months which is probably my own fault for failing to trade it, and just sitting on it. ITV did much the same till I got shut of them, as have BBC, but I still have them for the divi, as my entry point was very low and years ago.
WIL is quiet, but this will not remain that way, and the same can be said for CTG (worth a look for when the hostile takeover nonsense is sorted).
HYC continues to serve me well, as does BRW (may be time to leave after a 500% + rise since purchase some years ago) and CSB (showing double bagger +).
MKS has given me a good year, with more to come (7 next year) and BGY did well till I sold out.
I was in NOP prior to the consolidation so i am showing good on that.
BRY was a major brainstorm for me. Lost a mint, sold out, then lost some more buying back in, but it will rise again this year. I'm not actually that heavy on YOO, but its an easy target for my frustrations after I saw it drop like a stone. Still in there though.
Most of my newer acquisitions have changed so little through the year that they have had little impact on my results. PCM, DCD etc.
Funny thing is, had I calculated the 12 months as Mar - Feb, I would be about +28%.
Stranger still, the last 2 years have seen my returns fall, coinciding with a shift in weighting from blue chip dividend payers to smaller cap bets. Perhaps the larger spreads are what i am reflecting, and now the transition is complete, my margins will return.
That also explains why I get nervy about hole-in -the-ground companies. I am fairly new (2 years) to the smaller companies and less used to buying on potential.
Rules for the coming 12 months;
1) Do not increase the weighting on small caps
2) Be quicker to sell if it goes tits up
3) Unless you have money to burn, ignore everything I say.

I commend this budget to the house.
Alan