A new year, a new world. There are good things in it – looks like Pine Martens are building their ranks in England, after having been persecuted to extinction by the landowning aristocracy, which have a dreadful attitude to the entire mustelid family.
I collected £1500 from, Monevator’s Mogul’s tips, which pretty well covers the cost of entry. I had built up a pin-money stake in PSH sometime in May and June on the back of this tip article. Obvs Monevator disapproves of that, but reading ‘twixt the lines of his GFC era posts has served me well. I liquidated this holding not because I believe PSH is going titsup, but because it’s come to my attention that the main protagonist has a penchant for pursuing personal vendettas a la Elon Musk, and the Twitter share price is the cautionary tale. I don’t give a shit about the vendetta1 or the issues, it’s neither my circus nor my monkeys, but I don’t want to yoke a wagon to a horse with the emotional incontinence of a two year old, no matter how clever. Collecting a 25% uplift made the choice easier. I don’t generally have principles in investing, but when the lead has such a key influence then character matters, and emotional incontinence is not good. I’m happy to hold Tesla in VWRL, even if the CEO is sociopathic scum, but I don’t want to hold it explicitly due to CEO brain-fart risk.
Moguls can drift into Rich Kids of London territory in rarefied air these days. I read this broker article and thought to myself well, yes, I share the viewpoint that the FSCS £85k cap makes the guarantee not tremendously useful, but as for the tribulations of a family office, that is way above my pay grade 😉 Mind you, I didn’t know that Hargreaves Lansdown cap platform fees at £0 on a GIA if you avoid holding funds so I learned something new.
Like Monevator’s FIRE-side Jake I’m nominally better off than I was this time last year, though of course that has to be sat against double-digit inflation. I collected my £12k CGT in the GIA last year, and it will be easy enough to hit the 6k this year. After that, well, who knows what the rules will be. I’m not ideologically opposed to paying more tax if I get a Britain what works less badly than it does now, but I’m not going to volunteer for it 😉 The ISA continues to chunter away, the VWRL holding doing most of the work now, though my legacy HYP produces a useful amount of income should I need to go that way, though at the mo I reinvest that.
New Years resolutions – January’s a terrible time to do that, all dark, and cold, and dreitch. I don’t get the Calvinist Dry January thing, surely it’s better to ease off on getting hammered in December rather than going bonkers and then running into the abstinence when you could really do with some cheer 😉 I see some poor souls going running on the cold roads, and I wonder if we would do well to heed the words of Paul Kingsnorth.
it has helped me to understand something about the world I grew up in: we wanted the feasts without the fasts.
In the original Christian traditions, the fast came before the feast. We have this all ass-backwards, fasting after the feast, to shake off the lard of the excess mince pies and booze. I wonder if those previous generations were wise and knew a thing or two about the human condition, and fasting before the feasting is better for the spirit, including the secular form of the term.
We took time to go to Avebury in the brisk and short January days. The car park was closed due to flooding, but I know the site reasonably well, so there were other ways. Punters were thin on the ground, and the skies, though leaden had an attractive character.
After a bracing walk into the site we stopped for a coffee and then lunch at the Red Lion. It’s a standard Chef & Brewer so not gastronomic excellence, but it served us well enough and the fire was welcome.
Refreshed and renewed it was time to take on West Kennet Long Barrow. The winterbourne of Swallowhead Springs flooded the path at the start, I tested the quality of Grisport Exmoor walking shoes and can report they are up to the job.
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