I’m pausing after completing a chapter of the book I’m working on at present. There’s a choice filling in the 2007-8 tax return or posting or a variety of other activities. So I choose posting.

I’ll start by reporting on the recreational stuff today; I’m not feeling very in touch with the 2008 zeitgeist. The most enjoyable event since lasting posting was a trip over to East Sussex last Saturday to visit Bodiam Castle. A great place in a lovely situation but you need to have knee joints in good working order to cope with all the spiral staircases.

We came back along the coast with brief stops at Beachy Head – a relative had lost their passport and had been trying to get in touch most of the afternoon to see if I had any ideas about where it might be – Orange coverage in Eastbourne-Bexhill area is extremely poor – and Birling Gap. We also drove along the front at Brighton; this is the first time I’d seen the West Pier in its present state – disconnected from the beach, just a pile of old iron.

On Monday I took a walk mear Hambledon. This started from the bottom of Vann Hill (regular walking territory for me) but included a stretch on the aptly Breakneck Hill. The best thing about walking in this area is the ‘big’ views you have of the Weald and the South Downs. The woods on the flank of Breakneck Hill are ruined. Although the standing trees are full size, the trunks of fallen trees are everywhere. Presumably, it’s been like this since 1987 but because the hill is so steep no one has been able to thought it worthwhile to cut them up.

===================================================

Most of this post, including the following paragraph, was written yesterday but I didn’t get around to actually posting it. The business news yesterday evening and this morning was all about another lurch downwards on the stock markets which would have made my ‘down a bit but mainly sideways’ look a little untimely. But I think I’ll stick with that as my longer term view.

It looks as if the stock market is going to drift down a bit but mainly sideways for a few more months. I’m hoping that it will pick up from October onwards. For British banks to have such low share prices seems strange when you consider how unlikely it is that the government would allow any of them to get into serious trouble. Barclays, HBOS and Lloyds have dividend yields of 12%, 19% (!) and 12.75% respectively. But these days, what government want (such as lower oil prices), they don’t get.

If the high oil prices are mainly due to hedge fund speculation, things could get even more difficult if and when the oil prices fall. Exactly what the effect of all these bets on high oil prices going sour would be, no one seems to have worked out yet.

There’s been more about stock shorting in the press since I posted on this, specifically about hedge funds shorting UK bank stocks. It looks as if they short the shares, knowing that the banks will be turning to them for capital injections (because their capital ratios aren’t strong enough). They can then buy the shares in the bank for even less than the lower share price that has resulted from the shorting. It looks like a good line of business.

====================================================

There’s been a lot in the news about speculators being responsible for the rise in the price of oil. The US Congress in particular seems to be looking for someone to blame for problems the high oil prices are causing. In this case congressmen were blaming hedge funds (again) and oil companies. By a very small margin the balance of (expert) opinion seems to be that ‘real’ demand is the real cause of the surge in oil prices.

Incidentally, this seems to be Gordon Brown’s view on the matter and, whatever his other mistakes, he does seem to be persevering with getting energy policy right (oil supplies – nuclear - & renewable). There was a first anniversary comment in today’s FT that was slightly more upbeat than the current norm – you might say that the fashion is to ‘short’ Gordon. David Cameron is easy on the ears but I still haven’t heard any Conservative policies to get excited about.

I've been having a break from my normal Sunday read - The Observer - because it seems so predictable. Last week we bought the Sunday Times and this week the Sunday Telegraph, which was quite good - especially the coverage about Afghanistan and Zimbabwe.

It’s difficult to see where things are heading right now. Stories like David Davies by-election and the Lisbon Treaty (Treaty of Lisbon ?) just seem to trail off to nowhere in particular. However, the fact that voters in the Irish Republic were so concerned about their neutrality answers the question of the future of European integration as far as foreign policy is concerned. You can’t have a single foreign policy if some members are neutral and others are not. Nor will it work if the different member states are at odds about their willingness to put their armed forces into danger.

====================================================

Do supporters of Zimbabwe's MDC draw strength from Western leaders condemnation of President Mugabe or do they think it just makes them look like a colonialist fifth column?