More Music - Namlook & Schulze, Bjork, Lou Reed

Recent listening has been dominated by the slow working through of the Pete Namlook and Klaus Schulze multi-cd project, Dark Side of the Moog. I was surprised to discover that I have over 50 recordings of both of these musicians! Highlights have included Careful with the AKS, Peter - Part VI with one of the great keyboard solos, and current favourite, Psychedelic Brunch Part III, a short piece of droning keyboards and which I current have on repeat on my PC as I write this, and am hearing for the twenty-something time today

Pete Namlook and Klaus Schulze

The Dark Side of the Moog project

I have also been watching a number of shows recorded from the Sky Arts Channel over the last few weeks. One highlight has been a live show by Bjork from the Volta tour. I am amazed how she has been able to drag her audience with her on her musical journey, to places I'm sure they would otherwise not have gone

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Bjork in Paris

Following on from my Warhol reading and documentary watching, I have moved on to Victor Bokris's biography of Lou Reed - an ex-Oxfordshire library copy that I acquired for £2. I had expected this to be a rather fawning book, but quite the opposite. Reed comes across as a deeply unpleasant person throughout.

Reed at a recent Metal Machine Trio show

Still Reed has been responsible for some of the greatest music of the last 50 years, so so what if he is not a particularly nice person? The other week I heard, for the first time in ages, Beth Gibbon's cover version of Candy says. I remember Linda once putting her head round the door to say how nice this sounded - but I suspect she hadn't really heard the words, or indeed know anything at all about Candy Darling.

Candy Darling - late 1960s

Julian Cope and St Jerome in his study

A recent download has been a recent recording of Julian Cope in Stockton-on-Tees. I remain a great admirer of the singular path that he has pursued. A brief article in the paper earlier this week suggested that a film might be being made of his autobiography, Head. This is one of the great rock'n'roll biographies. The last major article I read about Cope was in Wire magazine. I remain very keen on hearing some of his death metal band, Black Sheep. Cope is now over 50!

On a totally different theme, I was reading an article on one of the many versions of the painting, St Jerome in his study. I have been collecting various versions of this picture and am surprised by the many variations on the theme.

Jerome looking perplexed

Jerome surrounded by the many impliments of the medieval scholar

Caravaggio's version (I think)

Cool lion

The classic old man Jungian archetype

On this day in 1993 and 1994

1993

A day dominated by preparations for the evening's concert. Quietish day again as cold continues to get worse. Lack of coordination - spilt my coke all other my morning muffin. Ethne later spilt her coffee all over the desk - it is obviously catching. Linda called - she wanted to go out with Wanita tonight and so had arranged her parents to call round. I will get Emma. But what if their car breaks down? - I will miss my show. I was not amused by this change of plan

But everything goes ok. I get away by 7:15 and drive down to Kentish Town. A bit of merchandising - I buy two posters with tour dates on which I will have framed for my study. Decide to stand near the front. No support band. At 8:20 there is a warning from a roadie that no smoking is allowed during the show else the band won't stay on - never heard that before at a rock concert! Band on just after 8:30' Lisa looks stunning as usual - still a pre-raphaelite style. But Brendan looks really older, v drawn facial features and a full beard. Odd assortment of other players. The first track is from the new album - disturbed by the sound of glasses being put away. Then a run of new songs, the same pattern as last time. Maybe half the songs were new, just two tracks from the new lp. 3 older tracks - none that you'd call greatest hits - "Cantara" and one of the very old yang tin tracks. One Lisa track with a keyboard cello backing was exceptional. Will there be a tape of the show in Camden market this weekend?

I am struck by how real this music is. And how unusual it remains to come out and play concerts with so little previously recorded material (a bit like King Crimson in 1973/74). Yet the interplay of songs is so good, an lp that just matched the live show would be exceptional. Can hardly wait to acquire a recording and live through it all again. Four encores, one of Lisa's was terrible! As always I'm left feeling sorry they didn't play one or two more of my favourites yet reflecting that this is also the reason I like them so much

Disappointed on getting home to find that Linda had only just got back in and that her parents were still round. I would have preferred to find a quiet house and would have liked to have stayed up listening to a few selected tracks. As it was, I avoided too much contact and went straight to bed.

The most satisfying evening of the year so far - and possibly since their last show!

Addendum 2010 - The band is, of course, Dead Can Dance, who I have seen over 40 times. The most sublime live band and whose music has been (indeed remains) a defining part of my life. Nothing more to say

1994

A CSFP day out quite near home today so I do';t need to be up too early. Also I can take Emma to school for the first time. She is very excited about this and gets up straight away. She wanted to show me round her classroom and is obviously very content - as were most of the other children arriving.

I got to Silverstone at 9:30, arriving in thick fog. I immediately met Les Winnister who I'd spent a lot of time with at the Soc Gen Rugby Options market day out at Paris last year. Our first event was cast in doubt by the fog, but this cleared and we were soon out in formula ford cars. The pace car for our group was brilliant and we were definitely the fastest group and lapped all the others. So now I've driven round Silverstone at a top speed of 125 mph. Second up was skid pan driving. Unfortunately I was on first which is always a disadvantage in these events, but I came 4th out of 12. Lunch was beef stew and accompanied by lots of negative comments about Damon Hill. Afterwards I repeatedly crash going too fast at reverse steer cart driving and only did ok at Cateram car driving. My team won the pits stop event and I received the prize for the worst cart driving

Home at 5:45, hours earlier than normal and convinced everyone to go to the woods with me and collect kindling. Emma was not keen but was eventually persuaded it would be like playing.

Addendum 2010 - the joys of bank day's out for Treasurers. Does Credit Suisse Financial Products still exist as an independent entity? Driving days were always my favourite day out. This occurs the year after we have moved to Oxfordshire, so Emma is at the local primary school.

On this day in 1984 and 1991

1984

An incredible amount of work to do today. Loads of post to send off - time sheets to E&W, Mark's tapes, and my keys to Capel Road to Quadrant. An aerial has to be removed for which Granada wish to charge me £25 but which they eventually agreed to do for £4.

Then off to the West End for a couple of hours. Two books acquired at The Economist Bookshop at LSE. Also 3 records - more Iggy Pop, the new This Mortal Coil LP. Home via Stratford to restock the freezer.

Jem had said he'd be in sometime in the evening and I twice phoned, speaking to Lynne each time. In the end I went round to see her (and Jem failed to appear). So Lynne and I sat and chatted for a couple of hours which was nice. She provided some food and we had a couple of drinks. Lynne continues to be teased about her "I'm not a prude" quote which seems to have served to cast her as a prude. I think she is really nice and I had a very nice evening with her. She has a cold at the moment and may have been pleased I didn't stay longer

Addendum 2010 - this is about the time of the move from Capel Rd in Leytonstone to another property just down the road. "Lynne" is Lynne Teasdale, a friend from Ernst and Whinney. She shared a flat with Jeremy Owens (though they were friends rather than a couple). She was a very tall brunette from Liverpool who I rather liked. No idea what happened to her post E&W

1991

While Linda and Emma were off to the hairdressers in East Ham, I have a day on my own planned. First off, a quick trip to Camden. The Electric Ballroom had a record fair on which I had been really keen to go to, and where I hoped to acquire some new bootleg tapes. But it seems bootleggers have moved onto CDs as there were hundreds of these available, but mostly heavy rock rather than the indie stuff I like. Still I could have easily spent loads of money - but did resist.

Back home there was an hour and a half of loft-tidying and then the bathroom to work on which is the next decorating task. On the way to collect Linda and Emma later I discovered a book fair at East Ham library, where I bought 7 books for £2. Back home and Linda is annoyed that more progress hasn't been made - despite her having had a day out and not contributing anything. I don't think she was feeling well either, but by the evening she is really cross and has an early night while I stay up on my own

Addendum 2010 - I was relatively late switching to CDs. Hard to believe given the 3 or 4 thousand that I now have. Last week I threw out two boxes of cassettes - mostly bootleg recordings of one sort or another. How times change

On this day in 1992 and 1995

1992

Off to Kenilworth this morning by a new route - the new M40 all the way to Warwick. This also gave us a chance to see how easy it will be to get to Oxford when, eventually, we move there.

It was Stratford Mop today and we promised Emma she'd be able to go to a fair. She asked us if we were near the fair every five miles all the way there. We had lunch at McDonalds and then set off around the town to see the fair, but Emma didn't want to go on any of the more exciting rides which I thought was a shame. But she went on lots of roundabouts and we went in the hall of mirrors which she enjoyed. Linda meanwhile had gone to Laura Ashley and had somehow managed to get lost between there and Waterstones.

With Emma tucked up in bed with Grandad and Grandma to look after her, Linda and I could go off for a meal in Stratford at The Opposition restaurant in Sheep St. I am still not fully fit and found the evening quite exhausting, but Linda was full of beans and, as often happens after a nice meal with wine, really horny

Addendum 2010 - we eventually moved to Oxford in 2004. I hadn't realised we had been planning it so long before. Emma was 3 1/2 at the time and perhaps too little for the fairground rides. The Opposition is still there.

1995

Late morning we have the idea of going to Millets to get Sooty a lead so we can take him outside for a treat. Emma and I went and got one as well as more bulbs for the garden. Sooty doesn't like the collar of course but was pleased to go outside. But then there is a shriek from Emma as the knot slips open and Sooty is free. Emma is frantic with worry that Sooty is lost but he had run into Emma's garden where Linda picked him up. Emma was terribly upset and was trembling with fear that he might have disappeared. She has become very fond of him though she still disturbs him when he is trying to sleep. Emma doesn't want him to go outside again, but we re-do the knots and it is fine next time.

Around 4:30 I departed for an evening's fishing at Ducklington. Conditions seem to have deteriorated following the recent cold snap but there did seem to be some good fish about. In the top deep hole there were six barbel, with the biggest being perhaps 7 or 8 lbs, the biggest I've seen on the Windrush. I baited up the various swims from well upstream and didn't seem to disturb the barbel I could see and by about 5:30 was settled in one of the upstream swims. No barbel from this swim but a relatively large Windrush chub at just under 4lbs. Back downstream as the sun is setting and a typical barbel bite on the first cast into the next swim - a smallish fish of about 3lbs. I thought things looked really promising at this point and I was certainly very excited as I settled in the swim where I have seen the big fish earlier. But a small chub comes out first, which is bad news as it disturbed the swim and might also mean that the barbel weren't there any more. A quick re-bait and a move to another swim, but no bites there at all. It all went rather quiet and though I stayed for another two hours moving between the three swims and constantly re-baiting each, I didn't have another bite. Quite a disappointment really - things had looked so promising

Linda was surprised to see me back as early as I was. Tomorrow's plan to fish down at Newbury might also be on hold now. I'm thinking I might have a full day at Ducklington instead.

Addendum 2010 - Sooty was our first cat - a tiny black one we got from the neighbours, and Emma's first pet after her rodent phase. He died in a car accident a few years later.

This diary entry is from the year after we first moved to Oxfordshire when I had a couple of years of fishing virtually all my spare time. My main focus was barbel on the Windrush and I had some really good trips, catching upwards of 200 barbel with a best of over 8lbs. I even had a article published in a fishing magazine about "small river barbel". I did fish for 10 hours the next day, but caught nothing - which I attributed to the cold snap we had just had. I really should go fishing more often - maybe as the trading settles down, I will be able to go more. I am thinking about chub on the Evenlode in the run up to season end in March

On this day in 1983 and 1989

1983

Hopefully this morning will be my last expensive morning. We are all in a blinding hurry because Smith overslept and only had 10 minutes to get ready. And lo and behold, a vision was on the platform in the shape of Miss Debbie Richards done up in her interview gear in case someone is swayed by her charm and pearl necklace into letting her be articled. This gave me and Smith a chance to take the piss out of her all the way to Holborn

This morning's lecture was suitably amazing. I'm sure all three of us sat there entralled. Clive wasn't there and also didn't turn up for the class that he was supposed to be taking. For my part, I had forgotten to pick up the duplicated article and so didn't know what was going on at all

So I was back mid-afternoon and actually did a bit of work after completing a long list of nwhat I think I would like to do. My main concerns are with getting a basis for History of Modern Philosophy and Political Thought. I can worry about the others in 6 to 7 weeks time

Over the last week or so, Simon has been trying to find a fifth man for our house. It would be nice if he could. Tonight he brought someone round and he has decided to take the place, so me and Andrew's weekly payments fall to less than £5 and that includes the video. The only trouble is he seems a bit of a prat to me.

I watched at least 6 hours of tv tonight, as did Fritz who got in around 7:00.

Addendum 2010 - Ah to be student! This entry is from the start of year three at LSE when I am living in Forest Gate, East London. Smith is Andrew Smith, public school boy and eventual lawyer who I shared with for three or four years in total. Debbie Richards was a law student at LSE who lived near us. I can't remember much about her except that she was friends with Ruth Thompson, the un-requited object of my affection for much of my time at LSE. Clive was Clive Davis, who I would become very close friends with later that year, and in the next two years when we became neighbours in Leytonstone. Can't remember who Simon was. In the third year at Uni I rented our house from a housing charity and over-charged everyone else, so I hardly paid anything. Simon was one of my many "victims", as was Fritz, from South America

1989

Linda's dad and I worked on the toilet and the kitchen today - he did the cistern and I did the light fitting and some painting. We had arranged for a bloke to come round and plumb in our washing machine - a friend of the downstairs neighbours - but he never showed. Surprisingly, Linda was wuite pleased with the room.

Baby returned this afternoon and we played sitting up games together. This is good practice for her and also tires he out so she goes to sleep really easily afterwards

Addendum 2010 - Emma is of course 21 1/2 years old now and is downstairs watching X-factor as I write this. She is quite good at sitting up

Ric Burn's documentary on Andy Warhol

In the continuing absence of Victor Bockris's superb biography of Andy Warhol (lost, perhaps forever, in the garage somewhere) I have come across Ric Burn's excellent 2006 documentary on him instead. Originally a US PBS programme, this is an amazing 4 hours long - perhaps in order to be like one of Warhol's own films! This is exactly the sort of detailed biography I was hoping for.

One highlight was the discussion with the collector who had bought the Warhol 32 soup can set for $1,000 and sold them the Metropolitan Museum of Art for $15m. Individual cans (additiions to the original 32) sell for $2m+, so the original set might be worth $100m. Amazing. Another was a section on the Jackie Kennedy screen prints following the death of JFK. I hadn't seen these before, but was much impressed.



Just superb in my view

Annual acorn-falling day

There are a couple of events by which I see the passage of the year. For instancde, the period in the spring when the sun shines through the right hand study window and I can't see the computer screen between about 9:00 and 10:00 (and the corresponding period in the autumn) Or the first day on which I see the constellation of Orion before bed.

One other event is the first day on which our oak tree starts to shed acorns - that is today. The oak tree is about 20 metres from my left hand window and as it remains warm enough to have the window open, I am disturbed by the constant sound of acorns falling. Peak flow this morning was about a dozen a minute, but finally I start to play music loud enough to drown out the sound.
Two years ago, when crashed out in a motorway service station in France in August, I saw Orion just as I was getting going in the dark at 5:00a.m. Now that completely confused my sense of the passage of time.

A quiet morning as I am on trading duties this afternoon. I have learnt from experience that to over do it in the morning has a very bad effect by 9:00p.m. Current reading, Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational - a light-hearted look at behavioural economics. Hopefully William Poundstone's book on the Kelly Criterion for gambling systems will arrive today from Amazon and provide this afternoon's reading.

Thinking about my hedge-fund start-up

A recent book I've been reading - Lars Kroijer's Money Mavericks - concerns a hedge fund start-up during a period that pretty much corresponds with the period that I was working at my hedge fund start-up. I had thought the book would be an enjoyable read, but actually I have found it tougher going than expected as it contains so much that is similar to our own experience. The book says it is a real insider view of hedge fund start-ups and that is really a pretty good description. Negatives outweigh the positives much of the time - especially related to fund raising which I remember as just totally soul-destroying. The fickleness of investors is a another major gripe - and then the constant problems of fund performance. So it has tended to be a disquieting read, but also good to hear that someone else experienced pretty much what we did.

On the other hand, there was much that was enjoyable about the period too, mainly the working with Jerome, Sam and Ellie on the project. Jerome is, of course, involved in the current trading project but I haven't seen Sam for four or five years now, nor Ellie for more than two. I really should try and get in touch

Sam and Ellie at Glastonbury as few years ago

Reading The Marquis de Sade

A month or two back I watched the movie Quills, starring Geoffrey Rush and Kate Winslett and based on the life of the Marquis de Sade. I rather enjoyed this and have been inspired, in this post MSc period (focused mainly on trading), to read something more of the Marquis writings

Geoffrey Rush as the Marquis de Sade, with Kate Winslett

Kate Winslett being flogged - bound to happen in such a film one might think

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I have also recently downloaded an episode on the Marquis de Sade from the Channel Four Masters of Darkness series. This was a surprisingly academic programme featuring Camilla Paglia and Andrea Dworkins among others.

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I have also come across an old film from the 1970s - a version of de Sade's Justine staring the rather gorgeous Koo Stark. I hadn't thought anything about her for years, but I do remember her as someone that most of us at school had rather a crush on in the late 1970s/early 80s.

So on from there to The Marquis de Sade: A Very Short Introduction by someone called John Phillips from the excellent Oxford University Press series, to be followed by the novel Justine which I bought a secondhand copy of this week

Somewhere we have a copy of the collected works of the Marquis de Sade - one of the many books "lost" in the garage in a box somewhere.

Our first really good week

This week we have rolled out a second counter-trend system for each of the 4 markets we are trading. Jerome has expressed some scepticism about how to monitor this, but has been persuaded that we are ready for this next challenge. We still retain one of the fast counter-trend systems (which makes about two-thirds of our daily trades on its own) but recent research is beginning to cast doubt on whether even this one should be retained.

But regardless of these deliberations, we have had a really good week posting +146, +189, +379, +172, +119 (equalised for points over the whole portfolio) over the week for an average of +201 per day versus our long-term target of +75. This is a really excellent result and produced a return of just over 7% for the week. Some of the trading has been quite uncanny. For instance, trading US and German equity futures we made 134 trades over the week. 89 were profitable (66%) and the total winning points were 2179, versus -246 for the losing trades. So the average win was 24.5pts while the average loss was -5.5, a win/loss ratio of 4.5x. An average trade of +14.4 on 134 trades! This is quite exceptional - trading doesn't come much better than this

Other highlights include Jerome's work on the daily spreadsheets. This records a significant amount of data in addition to the trades. I will now be working on this to add further detail helping the reconciliation to broker statements, and various performance data on the individual systems and the overall portfolio. For the first time since we started, we have no plans to change anything for the next week. Maybe the week after next we will up the trading size again.

We have settled into the rythmn of trading. Jerome very much likes this; I tend to get a bit bored. I need to find things to occupy myself with while trading and am beginning to think of reading some academic articles

Freshers' Week Remembered

The Times had a feature last Saturday in which various writers shared their memories of Freshers' Week. Giles Coren suffers from severe hubris and will not join any society or be involved in any student event. Jeanette Winterton talks of the racism, sexism and snobbery of the Oxford Dons in the late 1970s (and doesn't really mention Freshers' week at all). Someone writes about their love of drama fostered by university and the many friends they made while at Manchester. Mary Beard writes a nice piece on starting classics at Cambridge in the early 1970s.

What are my abiding memories?

The overriding thing for me was that I had thought that Uni would be a clean start in comparison with my home town. Like many teenagers, I had felt that I didn't really fit in, and I had very much thought that at Uni I could make a fresh start. But it took less than a week for it to be become apparent that this wasn't going to happen. And it would be another half-dozen years at least before I really gained much insight into this.

I found my first few weeks at Uni really quite distressing. Everyone seemed to make new friends so easily while I didn't. The result? I changed degrees at the end of the first term and threw myself into my course. I attended 3 or 4 music concerts per week. I did experience much of the culture that London offers. But I made no lasting friends - and it is quite sad to read the writers in The Times as they talk of the many long-lasting friendships they made at University.

Emma is back from Africa

An early morning drive to Heathrow to meet Emma - back from Africa after more than four weeks away. Her trip has gone very well it seems. I was less sure about this trip than the Asian trip she went on previously, but it seems I was entirely wrong. This was a much-more touristy trip, with very little contact with the local population. It was mainly spent away from the cities and was dominated by viewing animals, camping and long drives.

Highlights including viewings of all the major animals that people want to see, plus a swing over the Victoria Falls - something that Emma is vowing never to do again.

Emma spent most of the rest of the day sorting out her 1,400 photos - we have a show in the afternoon and I am very impressed by it all.

For the next few weeks Emma's main priority is sorting out accomodation for herself and her three friends prior to starting work in November. I have a slight worry that this will prove harder toi do than Emma and her friends imagine - but we'll see how it all goes

Back listening to the Velvet Underground

Post reading the Edie Sedgewick book, I have run through a sequence of related material. First up, the really bizarre film Ciao Manhattan, Sedgewick's last movie. The write-up in her biography indicated that this was a very strange film indeed - highly exploitative of Sedgewick in her final decline. And it has to be said that this is a very appropriate description. It is a strange mish-mash of what looks like several films, in which, in a somewhat self-referential manner, Sedgewick seems to play an actress playing Edie Sedgewick. She is clearly well passed her best, indeed it is hard to say it is the same person who was at the Factory just five years earlier.

I would have never guess that this was Edie Sedgewick


A very wasted Sedgewick, playing an actress playing Sedgewick - with a large picture of Sedgewick on the wall behind her
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Then on to the Sienna Miller movie, Factory Girl. This has mixed reviews, though I rather enjoyed it. True it is not a deep psychological profile, but it is factually fairly accurate. The actor who plays Andy Warhol is pretty good I thought

Sienna Miller as Edie Sedgewick

Then onto a Warhol film, Vinyl. This appears briefly in Factory Girl, and is a fairly typical Warhol film. The single camera angle, little or no script. I though Gerard Malanga was good in it. Edie just sits to the right throughout - not doing much

A brief search reveals that I can't find Victor Bokris's book on Warhol that I had intended to read next, so instead I have moved onto his book on the Velvet Underground, Uptight. I have been trying to remember when I first heard the Velvet Underground. I remember that the first time I came across them was in the NME Encyclopedia of Rock Music which was my constant guide in the late 1970s as I became more and more obsessed with music. I think the first track of their's I heard was "Run, Run, Run" on either John Peel or the Friday Rock Show. I bought the first album and White Light, White Heat when I was 16 with some of my earliest pay packets from working at the restaurant

I have all the Velvet's albums now of course and have decided to have a serious re-listen over the next few days. So today I am listening to the 5cd Peel Slowly and See, then moving onto the Quine Tapes Bootleg set from a few years back.
The Velvet Underground, with dancers Gerard Malanga and Edie Sedgewick (yes, really the girl above)

On Youtube there is the following extraordinary clip of the Velvets playing Venus in Furs with Malanga and Sedgewick. Dramatic stuff - to think this was the mid-sixties!

Two documentaries

In the past couple of days I have finally got round to wathcing two documentaries that I saved from Sky Arts. First up, American Grindhouse, a documentary about various sub-genres of exploitation movies. This featured some quite incredible clips of various movies, virtually all of which I hadn't heard of, of course - grindhouse not really being a UK phenomena

Surprisingly perhaps, I was able to find loads of AG films available to download - classics such as Blood Feast, Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS, Psych-out (with Jack Nicholson), various biker movies and women prison movies, including the classics The Big Bird cage and The Big Doll House. Finally, the extremely odd Beach Party from 1963

If nothing else, as one interviewee says, they certainly had some great movie posters

My second documentary was Warhol's Factory. For the past few days I have been reading Nat Finkelstein and David Dalton's Edie Factory Girl which I acquired from the £2 remainder shop in Oxford last weekend. It is years since I read Victor Bokris's excellent biography of Andy Warhol and first came across Edie Sedgewick - apparently she was once considered for the Nico role in the Velvet Underground!

I was also able to find Warhol's Vinyl for download. I'm pretty sure there was a recent movie about Edie Sedgewick, I just can't remember what it was.

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Addendum - turns out the recent film is called Factory Girl with Sienna Miller in the lead role

Winona Ryder - back in the news

For the first time in ages, Winona Ryder is back in the news - at least to the extent of reading the top of Yahoo's trending list. These have been sparse times for us card-carrying members of the Winona Ryder fan club. In fact, apart from the recent Star Trek role, I haven't seen a film with her in since Alien's Resurrection.

As good an excuse as any to look for pictures of Winona

Apparently a very recent picture of her - she is now nearly in her forties. Can it really be nearly 25 years since Heathers first brought her to my attention?

Looking very fit and healthy!

One of my favorite Winona pictures - very sexy in my view

I have this t-shirt, bought when Winona was on trial - on the rare occasion I still wear it, it still gets comments!

Perhaps my favorite Winona picture - the cover of a US magazine years ago

Week three of trading begins & current music

Hunting round other spread betting sites, I have come across Worldspreads and their claim that for ten markets they are willing to quote prices with no spreads attached. We estimate that spreads will consume about one-third of our gross profit, so the idea of lower spreads is hugely significant for us. Searching their website, I discover that it only applies to one type of account but we seem to meet the criteria for this. Also, three markets that we either trade or plan to trade are including in the ten. So I have applied for an account and we'll wait and see. I can't help thinking that there must be a very significant catch somewhere in this

We are now just about ready to trade multi-systems on each market. So from Monday, it will be two systems for crude oil and euro-$, and one for US equities. We might also be ready to add the DAX equity future if I can finish the research in time

Then I stumbled across a supplement with the Independent on Spread Betting which featured the chief executive of Worldspreads claiming that punters will take advantage of the zero spreads but then also trade other things with them at normal spreads - he could be right about this. It has certainly attracted our attention

Also in the last few days I have rediscovered the music of SPK - now there was a band to be reckoned with. I saw them once at the ICA and they nearly burnt the place down.

Typical SPK live scene
Sinan - briefly the singer with SPK and someone I rather fancied at the time

And also PJ Harvey, who I haven't listened to for a while. I have been enjoying youtube clips of her at the Reading Festival where she wore her amazing boots, mini skirt and bra outfit.


One of the sexiest photos of anyone ever in my view

A productive Saturday - Iron Chef Japan and Date Night

Linda out - J to Oxford

Our first really good trading day

After a week or so in which we have generally lost small amounts of money, we have finally had a decent winning day. All three markets made lots and we have eliminated half the small loss we had incurred.

Having said that the systems were now frozen for the next couple of weeks, I have been working on one or two other ideas and one of these was rolled out today (and did really well, making about half the day's profits). The new innovation is another counter-trend system, but one that trades less than the current systems, makes a very high percentages of winning trades (>75%), but has the occasional big losing trade (when a really strong trend gets underway). It seems to blend well with the other systems as well. So that was rolled out this morning and we are both pretty happy with how to trade it.

It was actually me trading for most of the day. This should have meant that I had a quiet morning so I'd be reasonably fresh to take on the trading shift from 2:30 to 9:00. But inevitably I ended up working on stuff in the morning.

So Jerome collected his kids in the afternoon from school and then took them to Ikea in search of one of those chairs that you kneel on and which are really good for your back. He then proceeded to lose one of his children in Ikea and when he eventually found him, he had managed to lose the other's coat. Nonetheless, even after this trauma, he was willing to take over the last hour of trading as I started to wilt.

And some other good news - the final block of initial capital has been arranged and should arrive this week. Then I can open the proper accounting books and we can start to build the trading size. I do have to do some thinking about where the un-margined cash is held though. At present we are trading about one-fifth of full size as we hammer out the day's routines, etc. I would like to be full-sized in perhaps a month's time. Then a day like today will make over £2000 and an average week maybe twice that.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed

Last night, our chosen movie was The Disappearance of Alice Creed, a low budget English film starring Gemma Arterton, who seems to be everywhere at the moment, what with The Prince of Persia (where Emma thinks she is great as the fiesty princess) and Tamara Drewe, which I am very keen to see having re-read the "graphic novel" recently.

Tha main comment I had read about this movie was that it was a brave performance by Arterton - afterall she is tied naked to a bed with a ballgag in her mouth early on in the film. Indeed I read an interview with her when the movie first came out talking about this very fact. But any suggestion that her performance has an sort of erotic undertone is completely incorrect. The film is a little odd with two really surprising moves that rather took Linda and myself by surprise - the shock when she finds out that she knows one of the kidnappers and the shock when it turns out that the two male leads are gay and were lovers in jail.

But overall we rather enjoyed it. Arterton is very good, though I doubt we would have guessed it was her if we hadn't known beforehand. Indeed all three members of the cast are pretty good - yes, it only has three cast members, only two indoor locations and hardly any outdoor shots - this really is low budget!

Not sure we would have recognised Gemma Arterton


She does have very nice legs!

Plans for our "naughty" weekend away

In a few weeks time we have a short and we hope rather naughty break planned in Wales. Much planning is going into this and we are hoping to have quite an experience! Among the many plans we have is that we are going to play a role playing game of "model-photographer" with Linda choosing some racy outfits and me (hopefully) producing some very naughty photos

As part of this plan, we are both looking separately at an adult toys website where we will both be buying something for the trip. The item that has most caught my attention is something called a "force orgasm tower" to which one may attach one's slave, position one's favorite vibrator in the "handy holder", switch it on and leave your slave to "enjoy themselves". Apparently, the item breaks down into a convenient form for transport, but at £332m it is a touch pricey I thought. I do rather like the idea of this though. I wonder how Linda would react!

There is a rather racy photo on the website of a young lady apparently enjoying this apparatus. I briefly copied it here but have now decided it is too racy

Another choice, and somewhat similar is the "Doggy-style sex-machine". I was rather struck by the rather attractive young lady who is demonstrating this on the website. I wonder if she was a regular model hired for the session and was then presented with this? This kit is £550 however.

Finally, and far more in my price range is a remote controlled vibrator. I rather like the idea of going down to dinner one evening with Linda dressed up but alway wearing this. Of the three items reviewed so far, this is defintely the most likely choice!

First full week of trading with Jerome

Even though I had done quite a lot of practice trading, this has been a huge learning experience for us both. Indeed I am quite shocked about the huge number of issues we have come across and which we have made numerous little changes to our routines. I had thought we were in good shape a week ago, but so much needs to be addressed - much of it the sort of thing you only discover when you actually start

Jerome is coming up for the day tomorrow and we have a huge list of points to address - 26 at the current count. One or two are now perhaps academic, and one or two are not high priorities, but most of the other issues are urgent. Most importantly, we are simplifying some of what we do. I tend to be a constant tweaker and I really have to stoo doing this. So I have vowed that whatever the systems that we agree precisely on this weekend, that I wont make any changes to them in the the next two weeks. Some of the changes I made this week were poorly thought out and resulted in loses we needn't have made. So it is back to basics - the raw system that I've had in place since June. No bells and whistles, just the raw result

So one thing I am rather thankful for is that we started small. We haven't made a profit this week, indeed we have a medium sized loss. Nothing out of the ordinary but at least half the loss reflected the failure to stick to the raw systems. So hopefully we will simplify things this week and get going properly next week

Week one of trading starts here

It is Labor Day in the USA and markets will be quiet. After much thought, I had reached the conclusion that this could be quite good for us. Maybe markets would gently ebb and flow all day enabling us to take 10 or 15 points all day long.

Sadly it was not like that at all. Markets were deathly quiet, staying in tightly bound ranges all day (often as low as five points for hours on end). When they did move, it was a sharp spike move up-down or down-up, which again doesn't suit us. So not a good day. The one bright spot is that our slippage for the 47 trades we did was negligible. Maybe 2.5 points in total. If this is representative of the real figures, then things will be better than we thought by some way. Indeed, the actual result could be 35% better than I expect - now that would be something.

So it is not all doom and gloom on day one of our trading adventure

Camille visits Spiral Jetty

A couple of years ago, daughter Emma and I ran a yoga retreat at the Chateau de Rodie in the Quercy region of south-west France. This was a property that could have held many guests and so I persuaded one of my yoga teachers, Camille, to come and stay with us - bringing her mum and dad, and baby Ina. She really is a great yoga teacher - somewhere I even have a 30 minute video of Emma and myself being taught by Camille. Wonder where that is?

Now it seems she has moved to Utah - not sure why - and she has been to visit Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, one of the great land art works and something I am desperate to see one day (that and Walter de Maria's Lightning Field)

A stunning photo - and it seems Camille is pregnant again

Another fine photo - I am greatly impressed

What we've learnt in just the last two days . . .

Jerome has been working hard on the details of trade execution and has discovered one or two interesting things already. First of all, he placed around 40 actual trades, getting 38 trades more or less exactly on the expected fill. But in 2 cases, his fills were out by a cumulative 25 points, which is pretty poor. This revealed that his orders were taking a long time to reach the broker, and the price had moved by more than the broker's filter, so were rejected - by a "long time", we mean about 7 seconds.

This prompted a long series of tests of Jerome's computer equipment eventually involving the need to investigate the computer's registry. This is always a slightly nerve-wracking thing to do, but revealed, with the aid of a utility, that there were a number of registry problems. Fixing these and re-testing with the broker suggested that the time delay had been cut to less than 0.2 seconds. That might mean that we get filled more or less exactly in line with the market.

One of my "key variables" that still needs adequate testing is trading "slippage" - the difference between what we think we should get for a trade price and what we actually get. For modelling purposes I have assumed this is at least -25 points per day. But Jerome seems to think it should be lower than this, maybe even less than 10. A 15 pt gain on slippage would be excellent news. In about two week's time I should know the actual number to high accuracy.

Then Jerome discovered a method to load our trade size into pre-set deal tickets and to have these displayed all the time. Previously we had been pondering on the occasions when several trades are supposed to be done simulaneously and had assumed that they could take 30-45 seconds to actually fill say, three trades. But the pre-set display might cut this to as low as 5 secs to do 3 trades, so a major possible source of slippage might not apply.

Finally, my own research has suggested that we should only use the wide stop methodology rather than more complex methods that we have been looking at over the past few weeks. Each market still requires one more key variable to be set, but we have initial estimates which should be ok until the research is finished on this point.

Friday's economic data gave a good case study again in what we should be doing. We were the right way round in 2 markets as the news hit, wrong in 1 and neutral in the 4th. So good gains in a few seconds. But if we had been wrong, no stop strategy that we have looked at would have done better than the single, "big stop" idea.

We then discovered that Monday is actually a US holiday so trading will be lower than normal This could be a good thing, so maybe we will just trade as normal and see what happens.

Jerome's first trading day - the joys of ipod shuffle

Jerome has set up a "test" account at our brokers where he can trade in tiny size while we sort out the day-to-day mechanics of trade recognition, execution, follow up, etc. So today, at 6:45 a.m, he placed the first four trades he had identified and set about trading the entire day in line with our chosen methodology. By the time we stop at 9:00pm, we have learnt an incredible amount. Generally Jerome was able to identify the trades and execute them - maybe just two cases where things didn't go exactly to plan, which is not bad for day one.

All day we had an instant messenger programme running so Jerome could ask questions as the day progressed, and tell me what trades he had done. This could be what we do most days. Meanwhile I tidied the study, which, as the dissertation work progressed, has become increasingly chaotic.

For the duration of the day we both have our ipods on shuffle and chat about what each of us has heard during the day. I was pleasantly surprised by this way of listening. Several songs I didn't know, some I knew well and haven't heard for years, some I was tempted to jump over. Highlight for me - a track I'd never heard before by someone called Daniel Lentz from a CD called "On the Leopard Alter".

Not a student any more!

I am sort-of officially not a student anymore.

One last check through my dissertation first thing this morning, then a careful print out of two copies and a version in Word format. Around 8:00 I am off to London to deliver it. In chill out mood now it is finished and so reading Posy Simmond's Tamara Drewe on the coach up. This is coming out as a film in a week or so and is being heavily advertised. Stars the lovely Gemma Arterton in the lead role it seems.

Gemma Arterton as Tamara Drewe

I was at LSE around 11:00 having gone shopping at Camisa's Deli in Soho on the way down. Strange to think that I have been shopping at this deli since 1981.

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Then, with no further ado, it is time to drop everything off with Tom in the Philosophy Department office and by 11:30, that is it. Technically I am a student still until the results come out in December. But it feels like that is it

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Haircut at the LSE barbers, then a walk to the National Gallery to see the show about fake paintings. There is a rather stunning Japanese girl walking round the exhibition ahead of me. I was reminded of a book I read years ago called something like All the Girls. It was a "travel" book in which the author travelled the world bedding girls in each country he visited. I remember thinking once that this would be a trip worth doing - and an interesting cultural experience too! Would any nationality be really hard - maybe Innuit?

But I am actually keen to get home and catch up with Jerome about our planned approach to starting trading. We have two practice days this week and then go live on Monday (though in small size). This remains a tremendously exciting thing to be starting. So I am home around 5:00 and we have a chat for an hour or so. Then I set to work on next version of the trading schedules.

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Recurring computer problems over the past few weeks have been put off as I finished my dissertation (written on a different computer). Tonight I may have fixed the main problem by deleting my existing anti-virus software and loading a different one. Fingers crossed.

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A "celebratory" meal tonight of M&S chicken tikka masala which I don't enjoy