When I hurt my arm last year though I slowed down what I was doing at the gym, then the amount of travel I am doing for work increased… and you get the picture- you don’t eat right yadda yadda yadda- fat b@stard!.

I weighed myself about two weeks ago and was 13 stone 4.4 pounds- never been this weight in my life so decided I needed to drop two dress sizes and get down to something more realistic. Did a quick look on the nhs website at their bmi calculator and figure I need to be down to  (at most- preferrably below) 12 stone 3.

So over a stone to lose.

I have been doing the “special K diet”  eating two bowls a day- it is actually quite filling I have to admit- with a bit fruit- strawberries/rasperries etc, and it seesm to eb working. This weeks trip to Dublin did not help-  but i stayed off the Guinness (not that I drink much of anything at the best of times) and had fruit for brekkies  and a salad or sandwich  for lunch. So I did nto expect to lose much but hoped I would not gain any weight while away. I also made it to the gym every day.

So hopefully these results so far come out right, here- lost 5 pounds ish so far, and alledgedly would look better than before in a tight red swimsuit!

While I was awaiting, said bag, a guy came in that I was sure I recognised but do you think I could recall his name. Then he was joined by Steve Cram- the former athlete. Fortunately they didn’t spot me so I never had any hassle having to sign autographs.

Anyway it continued to bug me for ages after who was the mystery celeb, all I could tell people was- I am sure he was on the Holiday program on the BBC occasionally as one of those guest celebs who goes on a free holiday at licence payers expense with his family. A few colleagues asked me what he did- that made hima celeb- and then it struck me- I had no idea at all! I knew he had an unusual name though…..

It was about 4 in the morning in bed when it came to me- he was Rowland Rivron- still could not have told you what he did though- just that he was “famous”- had to look it up on the web.

Anyway- on the way back came back through T5- check in was straightforward though have to say the signage round the place while not actually inaccurate is prone to taking you miles round the place - take the signs to the “South Lounge” (BA’s guest lounge) As you come though security its actually on your right but the signs tell you to go left- past all the upstairs shops, then down an escalator and then all the way back again to effectively where you came from a floor lower. Even once you get their its a bit of a maze to get in- you almost think they don’t want you there! Its worth persevering for though as its really rather nice- beats Squeezyjet travel any day of the week.

They even do hot meals and its really huge in the lounge itself- and all free (well in the price of a business class ticket).

An observation though about T5- it has to be the only shopping centre in the world that Aircarft pull up outside at! I have been to Dubai and its world famous duty free and some others- but T5 takes the biscuit for actually looking far mor elike a shopping mall than the rest, it has a Harrods, A Gordon Ramsey restaurant, PC World, Nokia shop, toname but a few- basically load sof high street names but it does not look like a duty free type airport shopping area- its really like a shopping mall.

Anyway was OK, and almost surprisingly my bags made it through to Edinburgh too.

The Gillies Hill area is deemed to have both historical and environmental importance, being that it hosts a large range of flora and fauna on a rocky outcrop overlooking the village of Cambusbarron. Following the march last year, the expansion of quarrying did not take place but there is nothing really to stop it doing so and in so doing destroying what has become a hugely popular wild area for walking, biking, and wildlife watching.

We support the campaign to save the hill and hope you will too. You can learn a bit more about the campaign at the save Gillies Hill website.

Even got two requests played (Atreyu and Breaking Benjamin) - that has to be a first (and a second for me!). Thanks so much guyz,  you rock! and you’ve earned a new listener- You can tune in by clicking the banner on the right of the blog main page.

My workstation runs Vista Home Premium. Now really  should have Vista Business but its a long story that I am not going to go into here why I have Home premium.

I do my backups two ways, I run Sync Toy every day to an external drive and I run Windows Vista Backup to an internal drive.

Following a recent crash with my Raid array (a striped set) I went to restore my user data from a back up. I was surprised to find that none of my files with php extensions were there.

Fortunately I had the copies from by Sync Toy images so I was OK but its worth stating that unless all your interested in is the back up of “personal” files- ie images, mp3s and common file extension docs like xls or doc files you cannot rely on the back up tool for Vista to save you. Somewhat oddly it does save html files- probably due to the fact that many programs can generate html files as an output format, that are not deemed as “professional” file types.

Be warned! 

1) First issue is if you try to install it anywhere but on a c: drive expect issues. The program does not appear on the start bar, the desktop or in the games explorer in Vista (32).

All these issues can be fixed by a c: drive install.

2) Once installed, don’t expect it to run easily- you start it from the Play button fired up from the DVD menu. Then it tells you to insert a valid disc in the drive! A work round for this is to run up the menu but don’t hit play, eject the dvd and insert dvd 2 inthe drive, this seems to then work oddly. However thats not a permanent fix.

The real fix for this is to install a Vist Hot fix available from the kaos website. However you need to install the 1.0.1 vista patch first and as the game won’t load you might be stuffed as it auto updates- though see bodge round in point one. The solution is to copy down the hotfix and the 1.0.1 patch to your PC as exe’s before installing the game- do a clean install then patch it then hotfix it.

This seems to sort all these issues out.

3) Finally if you have a Nvidia graphics card you may experience the game freezing every 20 seconds or so between bursts of running smoothly. As my sons PC is base don Nvidia GT8800 in SLI mode it might be an SLI problem only- I don’t know, however the fix for this is to grabe the Nvidia beta drivers for vista from the Nvidia website version 169.28

The Benefits of Spreads are- tax efficiency- its classed as a form of gambling by HMRC so your gains are tax free, there is no stamp duty or brokers commission (as such), and you have access to loads of different markes from one account  - the downside to this is you pay a little more in the spread than you would for CFD’s and shares, and you really can’t buy to hold. Trades need to be short term- by that I mean- from minutes to a maximum of 9 months. 3-5 days tends to be typical.

To be frank I have not been making money at this “game” but it fascinates me and the people I have come across who seem to be able to get it right more than not, makes me want to improve. At present I am “down” a little on my opening capital- I have a running trade I am well up on that if I factor into my balance- I am about 10% down overall. At best I have been about 25% up. Thats after about 9 months. One thing I took on board at the start was how essential money management is- and its essential not to lose more than a few % on any trade- but when you gain you want to gain big- your gains need to exceed your losses by at least 2:1 in amount.

I don’t trade large amounts but beleive me it still “hurts” when you lose even a small amount. A big problem is many markets have a minimum trade size that means getting your entry pinpoint accurate is essential when your margin is quite small.(otherwise your risking too much capital) I have done this a few times but still always set stop losses and am still here in the game. I feel this is an achievement and many noob traders get wiped out very quickly.

There is a lot of emotion and psychology in trading, and timing is everything- in “investing” you can afford to think about the purchase or sell for a day or two (usually) as a day here or there rarely makes to big a difference over 3-5 years. But in trading a split second is like a lifetime!. You need to be able to  buy when the instrument is falling and sell when its peaking- thats a real conundrum as fear wants you not to buy into weakness and greed makes you hold when  your in profit.

 To learn more I recently attended Tom Hougaards Hard Right Edge workshop in UCL London. I learned loads though to be frank much of it was hard to absorb fully on the day- it seemed simple at the time but when you come back and sit down with the very good notes, and then are faced with the trading screen its still hard. For me my biggest problem is probably lack of a system- ie a succession of triggers and indicators that lead me to buy or sell. And also fear- of losing - and being wrong.

Being wrong and losing are OK- its part of the mechanics of trading- there needs to be a loser for there to be a winner- though i sometimes feel there is a machine watching my every move and reversing the markets against me alone when I take a trade.

Tom’s workshop was excellent in that it related these emotions and trains of thought in such a way that you realise everyone is much the same, the difference is in how the “pros” can detach themselves from the emotion and trade mechanically- for that you need a system.

I feel Toms workshop gave me a couple of good base systems to get me trading more mechanically, and I do certainly feel more relaxed when taking trades on now. His colleague Dr David Paul also provided some terribly informative insights into mechanical swing trading and the psychology- I could listen to both of these guys for days.

I would highly recommend attending these seminars- though the down side is they are in London- I was fortunate I was down there anyway at the time so it kept my costs down a bit. You can read more about Tom Hougaard at Tradertom.co.uk and see him regularly on Bloomberg money Weekend, CNBC, and the BBC.

Since attending the workshop I have been monitoring some of the stuff relayed in the seminar and satisfied myself that it does work for real. Again in one instance I went to take a trade that I felt was set up perfectly (on the DJIA) and read the notes back before I did, which sort of put me off, making me hold off until morning, where the price was a good 100 points away by that stage! I should have took the trade though sometimes feel taking trades outside hours is akin to gambling again- I have been stopped out on a numbe rof overnight positions over the last year due to the spread widening and strange looping prices that have been quoted out of hours that seem to be fishing for tight stops. A couple of the trades I have put in though have come of quite well- a short in Gold and a Long on the Dax.

I continue to learn!