Energy expert Q&A. While thermometers have been well into the red across the northern hemisphere, people are panicking about the cost of energy bills once winter starts to bite. According to the latest forecasts in the UK, the minimum price cap for households’ electricity and heating costs is set to more than double over the winter. […]
Life comes in focus as the day approaches It’s odd how a man facing heart surgery hears from friends who seem to have more on their minds than they’re willing to say. “How are you?” they say and, “Thinking about you”, in a way that suggests maybe they asked me months ago for a blurb […]
Welcome to a slightly delayed 2022 half-year review of the UK Dividend Stocks Portfolio. My original plan was to review the portfolio in July, but work (mostly a slew of interim results that needed analysing) got in the way, so here we are with a mid-year review in mid-August. As usual, I’ll review the portfolio’s performance […]
In a sector where outdated practices are a matter of life or death, providers need to value their buildings in a way that recognises health technology. Originally published June 2021. If 2020 taught us one thing, it’s that global healthcare capacity is critically low and one factor essential to its effective delivery is constantly overlooked […]
Real assets are not what they were. Just as those of us in the West were starting to get our lives back after the pandemic, Russia invaded Ukraine, provoking a dramatic and unified response from much of Europe and the USA. At the same time, China rolled out widespread and severe lockdowns in many major […]
Keen sport watchers will have witnessed the use of ‘head-fakes’ to deceive an unsuspecting opponent. Indeed, the phrase is used generally to describe not only using a fake move with one’s head to wrong-foot opponents, but legs, arms and even – with the head remaining motionless – one’s eyes. Whether one considers such behaviour unsporting […]
A considered outlook. International integration has faced numerous challenges over the past decade. Brexit and the Trump presidency are clear examples where traditionally outward-looking trading economies turned inwards. More recently, the tragic war in Ukraine points to a shifting world order. Meanwhile, the pandemic has severely altered the way people behave, as well as how […]
Originally published December 2021. How uninvited guests can bring unexpected delights Farmers are apt to rail against uninvited people on their land. I am no exception, yet the farm would be a poorer place without them. ‘The 1066’ runs out from Pevensey Castle’s Roman walls and Norman keep, along our riverbank and on across the county. […]
In his 2005 book, Everything was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, Alexei Yurchak introduced the term ‘hypernormalisation’. The book concentrated on the circumstances that existed in the Soviet Union during the time following Stalin but before perestroika. Yurchak contends that, although everyone was aware of the system’s flaws, politicians and […]
The Bank of England (BoE) projects the UK will ‘enter recession from Q4’. I will only accept we are heading into recession if the OBR says so when it next updates us in October. Only those close to 60 will painfully know what a real recession feels like. While 2008-09 was a difficult period for […]
