It just dawned on me that we are almost into the final Week of February and March kicks off on Friday - seems incredible that 2 Months of 2019 have almost disappeared already but I guess with Winter not exactly being my favourite season, I really shouldn’t lament its passing too much.
There are 28 Days in Feb this Year so as a result this is not a Leap Year although the wonderful Spring weather might be bringing the Tiggers out !! Of course this also means that we are merely 5 Weeks away from the Legislated ‘Leaving Day’ for Brexit and we are most likely in for some ‘interesting’ Weeks with this coming one probably likely to throw up plenty of Parliamentary drama and perhaps a few more rebel MPs joining the Tiggers. From what I understand, Theresa May is due to speak to the House on Tuesday and then there should be some Votes on Wednesday. I don’t expect T May to be bringing forward a ‘Meaningful Vote’ on her ‘Deal’ yet but it looks like the key element is getting the Attorney General, Geoffrey Cox, to agree to some sort of accompanying document to the Withdrawal Agreement which essentially says that the Northern Ireland Backstop is not something that lasts forever and that the UK can escape the EU at some point (not a ‘Hotel California‘ Brexit where you can check out but you can never leave….) The thinking seems to be that if Coxey makes such a statement to Parliament then that will give enough MPs the ‘political cover’ to enable them to support T May’s Deal without losing face.
1 Comment
I’m convinced that we are through the worst of Winter now and Summer is just around the corner !! I base this on the simple fact that I was sat out in my garden on Friday for a couple of hours in the sunshine and it was such a welcome change to feel some warmth after the grinding chilly months. And on top of that, there was a Preview programme on Eurosport last night for the World Superbikes season and when Bikes are back on the Telly you can be sure Summer is here !!
Of course this means yet another distraction for me as I start to think about digging the garden and what crops I’m going to shove in this year (current thinking is not very much - I got a bit fed up with stuff not really delivering the veg last year and I might just go for Spuds and Courgettes and not much else this year. They are easy to grow and reliable and I will actually eat them !!) and I want to focus all my efforts on doing the things in life that I enjoy this Summer and this will probably mean lots of trips to the Pub !!
2019 has started pretty well on the Markets with a strong bounce in January after a very difficult end to 2018. It is hard to be convinced by this though and I am of the view that the focus will now go away from individual Stocks which were perhaps boosted partly by the Results Season and now the minds of Market participants will start to focus on the ticking clock regarding Brexit and the growth slowdown that seems to be infecting many parts of the globe and Europe in particular (Italy is now officially in Recession and Germany is just about staying positive for now).
It is something like 7 Weeks to the date that the UK is due to leave the EU and despite attempts by assorted MPs to delay this date with an extension to Article 50, they have so far not succeeded and arguably it would not be particularly helpful anyway because at least the time pressure is focusing minds and more ‘can kicking’ would just prolong the agony (and of course it would undermine the UK‘s negotiating position). Anyway, the EU have to agree to such an extension and they claim to only be prepared to do this in a few circumstances such as a Second Referendum, a General Election, or if a Deal just needs finalising but is pretty much in the bag. Of course the problem here is that the first 2 are pretty unlikely and we seem to be impaled on the Irish Border fiasco which is stopping a Deal from being completed.
Don’t worry, that’s not my words !!
I caught most of that Peter Jackson WW1 in Colour thing which was on BBC2 on Saturday Night and was extremely impressed by it. I remember seeing this recently on the BBC News and the essence was that Peter Jackson had got a team of IT Wizards to take original WW1 film footage and then to ‘colour’ it and also where there were people speaking he got a lip-reader to decipher what was being said. They then took this new colour footage and put in representative voices for the speaking bits and also overplayed explosions and bullet noises and tanks rumbling etc. to make it extremely life like and sort of ‘up to date’. It is astonishing how much this transforms the previous Black & White footage into something so real and it makes you much more able to ‘relate’ to the Soldiers etc. involved and it without doubt increased my understanding and appreciation of what the Trenches and stuff would have been like. However, it doesn’t include ‘SmelliVision’ and I would imagine this is a godsend for viewers because as much as we crave realism, the awful stench of rotting flesh must have been utterly all consuming and truly miserable. |
Stocks & Markets WheelieBlogsThese tend to be more Markets and Stocks related and timely - the Blog Page on the Main WheelieDealer Website has the 'Educational' stuff (well that's the theory anyway !!). Archives
October 2021
Categories
All
|