Sing Blue Silver

Today's P&L: GBP 310.00

Today's Booze: Still nothing

Today's Soundtrack: Duran Duran


Well the markets sold off again and for once, I was, (kind of), paying attention but my capital position is so weak right now I have to be cautious. So I had a few short, (ie I sold the futures, anticipating the price to drop), spread bet trades on the DAX30 and The FTSE100 and made one hundred and twenty and one hundred and ninety pounds respectively. I know it isn't much but as they are spread bet trades, the profits are tax free. When I had more capital I used to take a cash position and hedge it with spread trades, so if I thought the market was going down I would short with a spread trade, thereby avoiding paying tax on any earnings and go long the cash futures because as they are taxed I could offset the losses on my tax returns.

The market seems worn out, people are beginning to ask questions as to what happens next. I always felt that even though there seemed like no alternative the massive liquidity injections would lead to trouble further down the road and it seems that the rest of the market is catching up to this idea. The pressure to keep things going is intense. The Euro is also still being slaughtered as Portugal is the next in line for a potential bail out. This is ridiculous and if Greece and Portugal receive aid, why shouldn't Spain and Ireland and what about all those dodgy eastern European nations. Predictably, all the free capital is rushing back to the US dollar and the treasury ,market but this is foolish, there has to be a better way to employ capital than this.

Today's soundtrack is Duran Duran, it had to happen. Duran are the reason I got into a band. In the grim old UK of the early eighties Duran Duran blew the world away. I have seen them in concert loads of times and they are always great. They were a band who at their peak generated the kind of hysteria that only the Beatles and Elvis had generated before. I love all their songs and picking just five is hard but according to iTunes the ones that won today are:

Is There Something I should Know - A brilliant song , very simple and a request that most men have made when trying to figure out girls, (don't forget Duran Duran's target audience was thirteen to eighteen year old girls and their boyfriends). For a feel good song, this is actually full of paranoia and doubt "don't say your easy on me babe, cause your about as easy as a nuclear war" - only in the eighties and only Duran could have come up with a line like this. This song reminds me of drinking with my guitarist. I left the room to get some more drink and as I walked in he had his beautiful red Schecter guitar, which was seemingly permanently strapped to his body, and he picked out the notes that run through the song.

Lonely In Your Nightmare - Grown up music from Duran on the Rio album. To me this song is about loss.

Liberty - Strange song but quite apt for me, for me it seems to be about how tired you get from all the games man and women play with each other. The stalker is currently ignoring me. Apparently I have done something terrible to offend her - bothered! I often feel like pointing out to her that she was the one who forced her way back into my life, I didn't ask her any questions about what she had been up to all those years apart. OK so I am a bad boyfriend, but she knew this before. "Don't make it every night don't wanna be the love of your life, So if you are inclined to spend a little time I'll be here"

The Reflex - Is this the song of my life, who knows? I doubt if I would have lasted so long if I was just living on my wits. What is the reflex, I guess it is instinct we all have it. If you have ever been in a life threatening situation and due to drunkenness and reckless living I have been in several you know what the reflex is. Its the time I blagged my way across the Mekong after bargaining my way out of jail in Laos. Its the time in Burma I avoided getting married, its the time I escaped a machete attack in Douala in the Cameroons and its the time me and my father got into a bar brawl with five likely lads in Bexley on his sixtieth birthday. Sometimes you stop running and take a few licks, like that line at the beginning of Goodfellas, "Every once and a while I took a beating, the way I saw it everyone takes a beating some time".

New Moon On Monday - A song that was playing the first time I got laid, so good memories for me. Who knows what the lyrics mean "shake up the mixture, the lizard picture", Whenever I hear this song, I remember when I was young and nothing, absolutely nothing seemed impossible.

The ones that could have made it and on any other day might have are The Chauffer, Girls On Film, American Science, Meet El Presidente, Hungry Like The Wolf and Come Undone.