"Well, Mr Clarkson - how do you rate your prospects now, for receiving an OBE in due course?" It's pretty unlikely that Jeremy Clarkson has the remotest interest in getting any kind of award - which is just as well really because disappointment is always a bit of a shame. He apologised to Broon, of course - and rightly so in the eyes of this Scottish person. There was no need whatever for the "one eyed" comment he made about the fellow and you may be sure that IW will never, ever, be nasty about any kind of physical disability - Wee Allie's eyebrows excepted of course. But why all the waving of claymores and chip - shouldering from politicians north of Carlisle? Of course Broon is Scottish, and of course he's an idiot (the rest of what Clarkson said about him). In the words of any Glasgow hard man you might dare to ask, "Dae youse hiv a proablem wi' that?" EVERYONE in the UK has a problem called Broon. Maybe people are beginning to wise up however - after all, he claimed to have "saved the world" the other month but look at him now - his supernatural powers are clearly deserting him - he has failed miserably to ban snow......and in Wednesday's PMQs he even uttered the "D" word, although his parliamentary opposite number (also an idiot?) failed to pick up on it. Oh well - who really cares? ("D" for "Depression" in case you hadn't worked that out.) And you never know - Jezza might well still get his gong from the other lot if and when they manage to oust the Broon gang...

Anyway, moving rapidly along, it seems that the "blame game" is well and truly gathering steam, as predicted often enough in these ramblings. The Grauniad - some kind of fluffy bunny tree hugging rag sold in the UK - is conducting a "major, really really important investigation" into tax avoidance by Big Bizness, and seems to have worked out that lots of companies are doing all sorts of "unethical" things such as moving trademarks to "low tax regimes" like Switzerland or Puerto Rico. Well, gosh - if that kind of disgusting behaviour could be banned, every family in the UK would benefit by zillions of poonds according to the reporters involved.....or maybe not. Compared with what governments squander, the amounts involved are pocket change - and you can rest assured that even if Broon DID get his grubby paws on the dosh, he would simply waste it as usual. Now don't get the wrong idea - IW is NOT a huge fan of the multinationals - they have caused more harm than good overall in my opinion - but for all that, tax avoidance is not a crime (at least not yet!) and it provides a whole lot of employment to a whole lot of accountancy practices. But in times of depression, it's all too easy to point the finger at just about anyone and blame "them" for everything. We can certainly expect to see loads of "letters to the Press" from "Outraged of Oundle" and his ilk, as this year goes on. In fact, Job Centres will soon be advertising new vacancies - "Scapegoats wanted".......

Still with UK jobs, it seems that the planned bribe of £2500 for companies to take on someone who has been unemployed for over six months, is dead in the water. "Too many people seeking work and not enough vacancies" - gosh, that's a surprise, eh? And in China, it's likely that the fireworks will last well beyond their New Year, with over 26 million people heading back to the countryside, having failed to find work in the cities - and with a massive drought likely to reduce the wheat harvest by 50% China's economic boom is certainly over for some time to come. Not at all funny - just as all these terrible fires in Australia are causing such heartache as well as hurting the economy, which is already in recession. And yet the Brits (or some of them anyway!) are bleating about a wee drop of snow?? It seems there have been 15000 complaints to the polis about snowball throwing. Oh dear - something else to ban then!

Next, on to some mildly amusing stuff before you get the idea that this guy despairs of the human race, and we see that according to a UK headline today, "Chancellor Probes Bankers' Pay". That would be with a bargepole I expect? It was also amusing to see that some HBOS ex directors got their payoffs in folding stuff - I wonder if they'll stash it under the mattress?

Coming back to the Broon one for a moment - it seems that he has already fallen out with M. Sarkozy, his French one time sidekick. All that schmoozing last Spring (WICS of March 30th & April 6th 2008, to save you having to trawl for the references) has proved to have been only a wee fling, not a long term relationship. Seemingly Sarko has told Broon the truth to his face - never a good idea if said truth might hurt a little. Oui, Gordy, your stoopid VAT reductionne was a leetle crazee and deed not make a hoot of difference to anything other than reducing your government revenues....ho ho.

Broon's new flame of course is the Chinese prime minister, and clearly their recent Downing Street meeting went tremendously well, with the Broon one declaring that "UK exports to China are going to double over the next 18 months..." That will be two Bentleys for Beijing instead of just the one then?

More silly stuff - it appears that some Indian firm is going to produce laptops that will sell for around 500 rupees, which is meantime equal to about £7 or so. They won't be running Windows then.....and Ryanair has lost €101.5m - about a euro for each bag lost by British Airways in fact. Aviva has reneged on the promised £1000 bonus to about a million policyholders - if that's all it reneges on, consider yourselves lucky. And Baugur (Icelandic company that had massive interests in the UK High Street - ie massive debts therein) has gone bust - nae surprise there of course. And as hinted at before somewhere in these ramblings, others with big High Street stakes are going to suffer a similar fate, of that we may be reasonably certain - but for now, no names because I could be wrong. We'll see! Oh yes - still on the "silly" theme - Halifax Bank is suggesting that house prices in the UK are rising slightly, and that there are "early signs the market may be stabilising." Time to get out there and buy! You'll never see such bargains again!.....or perhaps not.

Finally, on to scams and the biggest one brought to my attention during the week - by one of you good people (thanks Godfrey!) - has to be one of the criteria used for calculating "pensions credit" in the UK - ie "means testing" to establish how much of a topup of the basic state pension (if any) people might be entitled to. The interest rate on pensioners' cash deposits is assumed by your caring, sharing government, to be....10%. That's correct - TEN percent. That's just plain disgusting....oops - I'm getting outraged......

The Office of Fair Trading is getting in on the WICS act - ie reporting scams. They're currently running "Scam Awareness Month" - ho ho. According to the OFT experts, scams cost the UK consumer about £3bn a year. Older people seemingly are the worst hit - they "tend to be trusting, and they have money." No wonder they have money if they're getting 10% interest......They fall for "all the usual things" according to the OFT spokesperson - overseas lotteries, pyramid schemes, cheque cashing and so on. Interestingly, no mention was made of Premium Bonds, fund manager fees/commissions/bonuses, bank charges........they must simply be keeping these for their next Scam Awareness Month surely?

Finally before we look at a chart or two, it was amusing to note the outrage that has followed Facebook's decision to sell its user profiles to advertisers. I had no idea that Facebook membership was compulsory - you learn something new every day in this game!

Anyway, moving on to a chart or two, we'll take a look first at that of Burberry, which shows a really nice countertrend channel - a formation that's pretty common at the moment as markets try to gain a bit of upside traction. Then we'll revisit the Wolseley chart that we looked at on January 25th this year - was it a windfall? Next there's Balfour Beatty's wee triangle and the expected breakout thereof - nice to note that some of you had been watching that one - thanks for the (several) emails! Finally we'll look at another triangle on the Nasdaq - this time the breakout is likely to be a "false" one and we'll discuss why that might be so.

And on that note, it's off now to clear a freshly fallen (but pretty unimpressive by current British standards!) couple of feet of snow from the driveway, before the next lot arrives some time tomorrow evening.....oops - just looked up from the computer and it seems already to have got here - darn!

Anyway, all the best until next weekend.

Ian.

'IMPORTANT NOTICE: These WICS charts are for EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. They represent only MY understanding of what is happening in the market for any particular share, stock, commodity or index. In NO circumstances should they be construed as recommendations to trade. If I choose to trade what I see, that is MY decision. YOU must, in turn, come to YOUR OWN conclusions about what action, if any, YOU might choose to take'.