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I hope it is a great day for her. I always feel for kids with cancer because it is so difficult to explain to them and even he treatment makes no sense to them.. Kids can cope with anything if there is a clear end or objective to look forward to, but everlasting and unforeseeable ups and downs with no timeframe really gets them down. Likewise when treatment to make them better makes them feel worse. That gets them down too. Not easy for the rest of the family either.

OSD please don't read into my post any hint of criticism of your ark. I feel absolutely confident that it will be a masterpiece of marine architecture, a veritable marine eighth wonder of the world, drawing gasps from all who see it as it pirouettes around the harbour.

So there you are, I can do both 'polite' and 'respectful' if I really put my mind to it.

OSD, there will be many on this board who are very disturbed to read the proposed dimensions of your ark. I appreciate that the QBT shareholders are a far smaller group than the numbers Noah had to accommodate, but your vessel cannot possibly carry all of them. Or do you expect that most shareholders posting here will have cut their losses and sold out before QBT goes tits up, and will not need to look for salvation to a lifeboat?

Or perhaps you intend to allow on board only those of them who are appropriately polite and respectful? That will certainly reduce the numbers, as you set a high (some might say somewhat egocentric) bar for politeness and respectfulness.

I am afraid that polite though every post of mine is (though some with filthy minds misconstrue them resulting, for example, in the deletion of my very helpful post in which, quoting from the directions on the packet, I pointed out that Fishermen's Friends should be sucked not chewed), I don't really do respectfulness. Respectfulness would unduly cramp my style when I send up ridiculous posts and self important posters.

So it is fortunate for me that I am not one of the unhappy cohort who will be clamouring to be selected as one of the few respectful and polite qualifiers your ark is large enough to accommodate.

Cut him some slack, UserS. There is more joy in heaven when one sinner repents than over ninety nine righteous persons who have no need of repentance.

Let us just rejoice today. He will make his full confession in his own good time.

OSD, welcome aboard! In the light of what you had to say about 'the principal', I thought it would not be long before you cut your losses and salvaged what you could of your capital here. Its not 'every time a coconut' investing in shares. It pays to cut the dogs loose.

Micky, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One man's realism is another's vitriol.

OSD 'Neither you, I, nor anyone else really knows how the principal works'.

I assume the principal you are referring to is Gardin? If so, I respectfully agree with you.

It costs a company. nothing to sign a NDA, and commits neither party to anything save to maintain the confidentiality of the other's information provided to it. Any company with any interest at all in investigating the viability of QBT's tech should be prepared to sign a NDA in a matter of days. A NDA certainly should not take the thick end of a year to negotiate.

The interview discloses the tru reason for the lack of progress: no prospective customer believes that QBT's systems work, or can be made to work. They are therefore not willing to commit staff time and equipment to testing the system. If any prospective customer has declined to sign a NDA, or needs months of persuasion to do so, it is because they see no point in signing any agreement to enable them to test a system which their experts have already concluded is unviable pie in the sky, and which they therefore consider that it would be waste of the their staff time and resources to test.

If no company has been wiling to make a rig available in order to carry out 'real time' tests, no such tests /demonstration can have been carried out. So on what basis could Gardin state a few months ago that he expected 'deals after the summer'?

Think of it this way

Fertiliser company: We have. developed a new fertiliser which doubles bean crops.

Farmer: That sounds improbable. I would need to see that to believe it

Company: you would have to sign a NDA before we show you

Farmer: Fair enough. No skin off my nose to agree not to disclose details of your new fertiliser

Company: and allow us to spread our fertiliser on one of your bean fields

Farmer: Get lost. I am not spreading a product which sounds highly unlikely to work on one of my producing bean fields, wasting me the cost of my workers' time and the value of this year's bean crop I am growing on that field if, as appears to me and every other farmer to be the case, your claims for your fertiliser are baseless.

Company: but at least sign a NDA. That costs you nothing. Signing a NDA does not oblige you to test the fertiliser on your bean field

Farmer: Sure, pass me a pen. But afterward I sign you will still have a vertical task ahead of you persuading me to waste my workers' time and risk a bean field crop trying out a fertiliser neither I nor any other farmer believes has any possibility of working.

Company, to its shareholders: A farmer has signed a NDA to enable him to test our wonder fertiliser on his growing crop, and we expect a commercial deal with him to buy our fertiliser after the summer'.

Sounds like a non sequitur to me.

Anyone contemplating buying QBT shares, or with significant capital in a QBT shareholding some which can be salvaged by selling that holding, should note that not even a single one of the most optimistic QBT bulls and (dare I say it) rampers on this board have disputed the accuracy of my synopsis of Gardin's recent interview, or suggested that anything material has been omitted from that synopsis.

They should also look at the video of the interview and compare it with the video of some earlier Gardin interview , and note the contrast in Gardin's demeanour, and ask themselves when they last saw a CEO looking and sounding so old, dejected, and defeated as Gardin now does.

Bottom line - QBT has nothing which can be rolled out commercially. It is no closer to that than it was two and a half years ago when Vlad was hired to head up sales. It is now hoping to find a partner to provide the expertise and capital to take theory to practical reality. What are the prospects of that happening when even Gardin admits that not only does QBT does not have anything which can be shown to work in practice as distinct from theory, but the sector insiders and heavyweight players do not believe the objectives are achievable?

Over two years ago Gardin claimed that a deal to roll out the hardware commercially was on the stocks and that QBT's and its [un-med] customer's lawyers were working on finalising the terms of the contract. We have never been told anything more about that. In the light of the subsequent complete silence and the contrast between what he said in the recent interview and the expectations (revenue by y/e '24 and 'deals after summer '25) I regret to say that it is very difficult to reach any other conclusion than that Gardin has knowingly and deliberately misled us.

Last year, in a a lengthy and thoroughly researched article, the FT went about as close to saying that the prospects held out by QBT were baeless as was possible without risking a defamation claim. When a paper like the FT puts the resources it did into a 'red flag' article about a minnow, unknown to all but a very few investors, like QBT, it seems a fair to conclude that it did so only because it considered the statements put out by QBT as utterly reprehensible and a stain on the integrity of the AIM market.

If those conclusions are wrong, and there is an honest explanation for the prospects held out by QBT over the past two to three years and the failure (without any explanation) of any of them to come to fruition. If so, QBT should explain in detail the facts which led to those expectations being held out, what occurred to cause those expectations to come to nothing, and what (if any) reason remains to hope for better things in the future.

If no such explanation is forthcoming , the silence will be deafening and the conclusion to be drawn from it will be inescapable. The answer will lie in the fact that 'the dog did not bark in the night'.

Phimx, that is my reasoning too. Were it otherwise, there would not be many patent applications made. Gardin seems very confused about it. I hope he is not on 10% [cf his 10% of any Sipiem recovery] for the patent expertise he brings to the QBT table!

Abandonment of he application (and write-ff of the significant sums spent on making it) seem inevitable. I expect the abandonment will be rewarded with a performance bonus for Gardin.

Another good sermon OSD. You are on a roll.

Re: patent applications. I agree with the comments on what is patentable. My query is as to whether patent application documentation becomes public when a patent applicartion is rejected or abandoned, as Gardin appears to assert.

If what he asserts is true, it was pretty bloodty stupid to try to obtain a patent for an 'invention' which lacks the necessary novelty or other attributes for it to be patentable, as the application serves only to put the material in the public domaine, whereas absent the patent application it would have remained secret and could have been kept out of the public domaine by contractual terms, as a trade secret. A case of QBT shooting itself in the foot by making a duff patent application - bioth incurring the expense of the application to no purpose, and inadvertently putting into the public domaine, unprotected by patent, the very information it was trying to protect!

Qustion to anyone knowledgeable about patent applications:-

Is Gardin right that on the abandonment /rejection of a patent application, the application documentation becomes public?

That seems surprising to me. It would make any application very risky, as the grant of a patent cannot be assured. If it is right, surely it is something QBT should have thought about before making the applications? QBT can't keep a duff application 'live' for ever, and it is a costly business to keep on with the applications after serious hope that any patents will be granted is gone.

OSD, yes ,ideally it should be 'gloves on' for barnacle scraping and 'gloves off' for typing! Easy to get it the wrong way about after few glasses to while away the time until the rain stops, of course.

Never mind, even a couple of boats and a car provide ample scope for a lifestyle cost /benefit analysis. I think you have correctly identified most of the major elements to be factored into the equation. It is a pity QBT has to be brought into account on the debit side, but happily with only a small weighting now in your case.

Don't be too upset about the rain. Time spent in the pub /taverna is time well spent, and a rain break is a convenient explanation if 'She who must be obeyed /her indoors' holds a less enlightened opinion about that.

No news is good news. No news is bad news. How many thousand posts here debating that?

Good to see that OSD is prospering though. Not only is he adding to his fleet of boats, but now cars are pouring down on him too, not to mention dogs.

Perhaps the board should be debating 'How many boats /cars are enough /too many for one man?' That should prompt some fascinating technical cost /benefit analysis, as well as driving /sailing as against maintenance time ratios. As for the dogs, I hope his army of supporters are as knowledgeable about where to access cheap dog food and poo collection bags as they are second hand portholes!

If you want an explanation of corporate personality, see Lee v Lee's Air Farming [1961] AC 12.

Mr Lee was the sole shareholder, director, and employee of the company. He was killed in the course of his employment, and his widow sought compensation under the Workers' Compensation legislation.

That was what the litigation was about, but you may care to reflect upon the process which would have occurred when Mr Lee negotiated the terms of his contract of employment with his employer (the company), or as an employee sought a pay rise or performance bonus. from his employer....or when Gardin negotiated the revision of the terms of his share sale and buy back agreement, or his 'performance' [quaere what performance?] bonus. On the plus side, no very large room would have been required to accommodate all the human parties to the transaction.

Mr Lee was the sole shareholder of the company. Regrettably, that is not so in the case of QBT. QBT has many other shareholders besides Gardin. It also has other directors besides Gardin of course, but they were all nominated for appointment to the BOD by Gardin, and are all beholden to him.

Please don't let your reflections upon the process of these transactions spoil your evening.

That is rather the point. The original transaction was, in effect, a secured loan at interest. As I understand the position, it has been converted into a sale, with an option for Gardin (but no obligation) to buy back. It is amazing what deals can be done when You (Gardin) negotiate with QBT (acting through yourself, Gardin, and /or others you have put on the BOD). What a wonderful thing corporate personality is.

I am sure the shareholders are right to trust Gardin to act with complete disregard for his personal interest, and soley in the interests of the company and its shareholders when, acting as CEO of QBT, he negotiates agreements with himself.

Maid, does it in efect amount to this - Gardin has a (currently out of the money) option to repurchase 5m shares at a stipulated price, but no obligation to re-purchase any shares at all?

OSD, I'm unsure how to post an imaginary post - another miracle required perhaps? Be that as it may, it wasn't in fact my post, merely a reference to another poster's observation, on a far away board. Anyhow, i still don't understand the fuss. Maybe I have led too sheltered a life, but I thought Fishermen's Friends were cough lozenges, and reputed (by their manufacturers) to be very efficacious.

Sadly, one or two others of my posts, though more on point as commentaries upon QBT and its prospects, have also failed to find favour with some on this board.

The moral seems to be, if you want up ticks /thumbs ups / accolades on a BB, avoid references to medicaments, and be a QBT bull. I have just been reviewing developments in two of my holdings, AAZ and HICL, and checked the relevant ADVFN boards for them where I had posted some positive views a few days ago. Narry a brickbat. Effusive responses all round. Would that I felt able to post enthusiastically about QBT. I await the miracle.

Until the miracle occurs I shall just have to find solace in tales of fishing, of wondrous ancient diesel engines, sun, sermons, and the joys rustic Greek cuisine, as I queue for my Greggs sausage roll.

PPS think hard about that last question beforee posting. It is what the great S Holmes would have described as a 'two string vest problem'

PS A question for tomorrow, exclusively for those of a philosophical or semantic turn of mind: -

While anyone who holds QBT shares is, by definition, a shareholder, is he an 'investor' if he holds only to put to a practical test his confidence that the age of miracles is not passed?