Lewis Hamilton's money

Tuesday, 8th July 2008 15:56 - by Resident IFA

I went to see the British Grand Prix at Silverstone over the weekend. I had a great time, but am not made of money so could not help but analyse the cost in deciding if I attend next year’s race. I think a 3-day ticket cost around £370 and I spent not much shy of £600 overall! When you take into account that I shared a Milton Keynes Travelodge room meant for 2 adults and 2 children with 3 other blokes, it was hardly a weekend in the lap of luxury. I won’t forget the night I volunteered to sleep on the ‘4th bed’ – a wafer thin mattress on the floor that stuck to my skin and woke me up every time I turned over! The weekend was a sell-out, probably in no small part due to the draw of Lewis Hamilton...rewarding the spectators handsomely with one of the best drives ever seen in a GP car. The only problem was it seemed that you need be on a similar wage to his to attend. If the infamous ‘Credit crunch’ (Now an official Oxford Dictionary entry) continues to bite and a recession looms, I wonder how many people will be back at Silverstone next year, Lewis or not? Changing tack, the Directors of London South East met this morning to consider lse.co.uk’s progress and how we can continue to improve the site, its research capabilities, and ‘usability’. Three key things that came out of the meeting were: • Daily newsletter – We are testing this internally over the next few days and hope to launch it next week. This will include the key info from the day before i.e. Risers & Fallers, Closing market stories, the busiest Share Chat topics, etc. • Stock-picker – A Member function where you can isolate shares using certain criteria i.e. market cap, volume traded, eps, etc. This will include a feature to save previous search criteria. • Fantasy Game – No, nothing to do with Doctors & Nurses (!), but our very own wooden-dollars trading game, where you can practise (notionally) buying and selling shares to your heart’s content and see how good you really are at building a portfolio and trading! Right, now I have put the pressure on us, let’s hope we can deliver! Until next time...