I think I might take up shop lifting. Three times now we've bought The Boy some clothes and the shop has forgotten to take off the security tag. We've been in and out of other shops without any problems or alarms going off. Of course, it's going to be a bit embarrassing walking round with those enormous magnetic tags hanging off a sleeve or a leg, but just think of the savings. On balance, I think it's worth it!
I've never been a gambler...it never seems a clever or productive way of spending money. When The Boy was five of six we did go horse racing once...in the shadow of the Sussex Downs, and we each put on £1 a horse in every race. Remarkably as we were choosing more on the colours of the jockey's shirts, or the names of the horses, we came out with a profit...about £12 if I remember rightly. We were pleased as punch.
And recently, Gay John (he's not really gay at all) pointed me in the direction of a Spanish city banker that had turned tipster (well have you seen the state of the Spanish economy - makes it look as though we've never had it so good!). So I allocated some money...not a large sum...and have blindly been betting on the tips. They've mostly been tennis, but recently some Spanish football games. I'm not entirely surprised that I'm running at a loss - about 25% of the money I allocated. But bearing in mind the tips are coming from a city-boy, I guess that's not surprising given the state of the world's economy.
I've also taken some money out of my savings and chucked it into two companies...BP (yep that's the one that could stop a leak. They should've called a plumber) and De La Rue...they print bank notes, but were careless in a few cases, and then went and lost their CEO. In both cases, I 'bought at the bottom'. And in the case of the bank not printer, there's a take-over bid. I think I've got a farily hefty profit.
So the first lesson from this...is that the city really did indulge in uninformed casino capitalism, and their advice is not worth the paper it's written on. And secondly I haven't hesitated to profit from other people's misery. Oh.
