Tuesday 21 July 2015

Jupiter Asset Management and Hargreaves Lansdown are in business together!

'What, Mikey?! A merger?' I don't know, man. Something crazy like that. Fundweb has all the details. 'But did you approve this, boss?' No, Voice. No one asked for my permission. I wasn't even told that it was happening. 'Shit! You're angry, aren't you? What are you going to do about it?' I haven't decided yet.

You see, the problem, dear reader(s), is that Jupiter is a firm packed to the rafters with financial shamans. And Hargreaves, as far as I know, doesn't have one financial shaman. Not one! 'Christ!' So the idea of their working together is a total nonsense, I'm afraid.

Richard Pavry at Jupiter says: "Our current administration service is no longer able to meet our clients' expectations." Ha! I mean ... 'Sounds a bit like Aviva Investors, boss. They've just shut down their Asia Pacific Property fund because it was too much like hard work.' Well, okay ... if Jupiter is winding up its business and spending more time in the pub or the park maybe it's something we should welcome. But forget about a merger!

I'll phone one of my mates at Jupiter later, see what's going on.  / Oh, anything else?

...

'Your fresh start!' My fresh start? 'Tell us!' Well, well, er ... it wasn't a perfect start yesterday, I have to say, BUT(!) ... let's just call it a soft launch, yeah? 'Soft launch?! You take the piss you do.' Oh, why's that? 'You're like all those hedgies who say they're going to launch a new fund and six months later haven't even got a name for the blasted thing.' Shut up! I have made a fresh start, a very good one. Man, I played my guitar for more than three hours, and I did some incantations, and - 'What?!' Incantations! 'Okay. Whatever.' It's not easy, Voice. / And one other thing I did, dear reader(s), is realistically assess my playing ability, and I reckon I'm closer to becoming a world-class guitarist than I previously thought. 'Really?' When I'm playing lead guitar I can move my fingers around the fretboard as speedily and as accurately as anyone. Clapton, Young, Prince, anyone! 'Nice!' But what I need to work on is (are?) my phrasing and timing. 'Oh.' Because at the moment my solos can sound like a jumble of notes. I've got to slow down a bit and play small phrases, four or five notes at a time. And using backing tracks to improve my timing would be a good thing, too. I'm definitely staying positive though. 'Great!' My massive action plan is to play every spare moment until Christmas (when I'm not blogging, sleeping, etc.) It's going to be tough. [It might be impossible.] But if I do it I'll be in the same league as someone like Clapton in five months, not eighteen - like I said recently. I need to get a move on, man, you dig? 'Of course you do!' I've been messing about for too long. / Now, where's my cheese sandwich?