uk

I’m not really a betting man. Mainly because I’m a scientist. On Grand National day, we normally nominate two or three horses each and someone wanders to place our bets at the bookies round the corner. My daughter normally wins. Also, we might cut up the runners from the Daily Mail supplement and do a lucky dip sweepstake. I also used to routinely bet on the final score and first scorer in the FA Cup Final to add some interest (if United weren’t involved)....

Saturday 18 July A beautiful, sunny Saturday morning but instead of sitting in a field in Hook Norton, drinking real ale, laughing, chatting rubbish and analysing the football season with my mates, instead we enjoyed a long overdue visit from my wife’s hairdresser. She is self-employed and a mobile hairdresser. We opened up the garage door and prepared chairs, black bin liners (to avoid using her capes) and an extension cable for her hairdryer and clippers....

A lot of people write in and ask ‘Norman - whatever happened to that SIPP you started 10 years ago ? Has it produced enough to retire on ? Was it a lot of work ? Did it outperform the FTSE100 ?’ I took the ’long term buy and hold forever and ‘strategic ignorance’ ethos to its logical extreme and forgot about the SIPP completely. Once all the pension funds were transferred and a collection of high yielding UK shares purchased, I forgot about it....

The Arundel House Hotel is a decent, clean, tidy and reasonably priced hotel in Cambridge. The hotel is ideally located adjacent to Jesus Green so you can easily walk into Cambridge for sight-seeing. In addition, it has a large car park which is free to residents. However, one unfortunate incident at breakfast means that I will probably never return there or honestly be able to unreservedly recommend it. I am grabbing some fruit and yoghurt and returning to our table in the light and airy conservatory....

I think it is entirely right and proper that Sir Fred Goodwin has been stripped of his knighthood. After all, I am a shareholder in the Royal Bank of Scotland and his incompetence has cost me a significant amount of money and pushed back my retirement age to 87. In fact, why stop there ? Personally, I find it objectionable that Freddie’s surname includes the word ‘Good’. This man is not good - in fact, he is a very bad man so I suggest he should henceforth be known as ‘Fred Win’....