Member Info for Bonz1957

Did you get caught in the 'Beer' stampede at Tesco's in Greenock??? ATB.

If my recent experience on a Stagecoach bus is anything to go by then they have a lot to learn when it comes to customer relations. I was in an unfamiliar area at the weekend i asked for a return ticket into town at 5.20pm, handed over my money, and enjoyed the journey. When i arrived at 5.50pm i politely asked what time the last bus back was. Do you know what he said?? "I leave at 6.00pm" was the reply!! What the feck did he think i was going to do for 10 minutes. I couldn't even use the station toilets in that time as they were shut!! When i said i wouldn't have bought a return if he had said i only had 10 mins before the return he said don't worry the other bus company - First Bus - will accept your ticket. He even looked up the times they ran, although as it turns out he was completely wrong. OK i said and off i went to enjoy my evening. On getting back to catch the First bus home i was informed that "no way do we accept Stagecoach tickets and that the other driver would have known that. So i had to pay again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Needless to say although i will be keeping my SGC shares - although i have complained most strongly both regionally and to head office - i will NEVER get on one of their buses again. If that is how they are boosting their profits then they can do it without me. Rant over. ATB.

I don't think i've ever been 'On Topic'!! In 1400 posts probably only about 3 have ever contained anything relevant, tho' i did post the BT results on that board earlier today. So let them report away!!!!! The wife's just got all excited about your Organza bag - What?? - and asks what colour it is? I really envy your lifestyle at the moment, mainly 'cos i don't have one. Your B/hol w/end sounds action packed and quite glamourous. Mine was spent on my hands and knees weeding and edging all the paths that cross my lawn. By the time i'd finished all the trimming and pruning and taking the 35 bags of assorted garden rubbish to the dump it was time to drive back to London, picking up my Son from Portsmouth Uni on the way. You indulged in a "spot of eating of fine foods and drinking" whereas i had to make do with bowls of Shreddies and cheese sarnies and a stolen couple of hours at a Beer Festival!! Where am i going wrong????? ATB.

Well look at you ordering online. The local shops in your area will be worried lol!! Beer Festival was OK but a couple of the ones i was really looking forward to failed to turn up, rats!! If this sp falls much further i won't have enough to buy a decent box of Continental Selection!! ATB.

Give us a break!! Changing boards half way through a conversation, how am i supposed to keep up?? Yes, it certainly is a small world, and getting smaller by the day. I only have the one sister, slightly younger, and as you know i bought the house next door to her in N Devon so she could look after my garden for me. The only spooky date in my life is if i had been born a day later i would have been an April Fool!! ATB.

WOW 3 posts to me - i am honoured!! You know i could never "say farewell" to you lol!! Interesting how you used my REAL initials after my 'nick' in your post of 12:29. Are you Miss Marple in disguise?? Have been following you on EO and HMV and trying to work out exactly where you stand regarding profit/loss. I do find it interesting how (certain) people are all over the boards shouting buy or sell, then completely disappear when it goes in the contrary direction. There are very very few people who admit to selling at a loss, or having sold at the wrong time, but it is those that i would tend to put more faith in. There was someone on LMR giving it large at 15p on how it would recover and he never lost money in a deal and was a large holder. Now the sp is at 5.5p he is no-where to be seen - i wonder why?? I don't have that problem as i NEVER sell. What i have is what i'm stuck with, a tracker fund that will continue to do well as long as the FTSE stays around 6000, and more shares perform well, ie BT, than do badly, ie THT. I'm aware that Greg is Lennie is Netley, and that all three of them seem to enjoy winding you up. But it is mainly good natured and gives me the odd laugh so long may it continue. I enjoy reading about your daily excursions, you do get out and about a lot. I rarely get out these days, being stuck up in London for the forseeable future. Maybe i'll get my life back when we eventually rid ourselves of this millstone, then our lives can be taken off hold when we relocate to North devon - God's country. With my son due back next Tues and my daughter back 10 days later, may have to ship them down to Devon or move their beds to the garage so we can carry on with the refurbishment. It's virtually impossible to have a new roof fitted while replacing all of the ceilings and skimming the walls with 4 people living in a three bedroom house AAAAAARRGGHH!!! As for personalised plates i love them, the wife has her name on her car, i have a 'family' one on one of mine and i had BO**NZO on my work van. I love it when i spot a star in their car, have even met and spoken to the owner of MAG1C in a local camping shop. He was really nice and offered me some advice as to where i could get some custom made tarpaulins made-up locally!! And no i do not support Millwall, there is and only ever will be one love in my life. I just comment on MWH as i love the game of football and am a bit more objective than most. I also post on the TTNM site, usually having a sly dig at them as they are the sworn enemy of all Gooners!! But please don't tell them lol!! Am making a rare excursion west for the North Devon Beer Festival http://www.northdevonbeerfestival.com/ over the Bank hol w/end. 2 days of glorious ale and proper food, while being driven to and from by my sis. What more could a boy ask for?? Try to keep everyone under control in my absence, and may HMV continue today's upward trend. ATB. x

http://www.pennon-group.co.uk/pennon/dlibrary/documents/2PennonGroup-PreliminaryResults-PressRelease.pdf

Profit before tax up 1.5% to £188.5m. Dividend: Recommended final dividend per share up 9.9% to 17.15p. Full year dividend up 9.3% to 24.65p. Ken Harvey, Chairman said “I am pleased to say that it has been another successful year for the Group. During the year South West Water continued to improve its operational performance and Viridor has once again delivered strong profit growth. Looking forward, South West Water is well placed to outperform the assumptions for the current regulatory period. Viridor’s long-term profit momentum is underpinned by its recycling business, its major Energy from Waste planning successes, and its strong PPP pipeline.”

Due to Liverpool imploding in their last two games Spurs have qualified for europe next year. OK not the Champions League they were hoping for but it's still European football. Will that be enough to tempt in the signings they need to get back into the top four places, or will all those extra games for very little revenue turn out to be a millstone that ends up dragging them further down the Prem table??

Sounds like your F-I-L and i have a lot in common when it comes to dentists, teeth and choice of chocs - except for the gingers!! As for Father's Day choccies there is a long standing tradition in this family that dictates i get the largest Toblerone and bar of CDM that my two can find and, if i'm lucky and she's passing one, i also get a bag or two - depending on the value of the voucher being used - of my Viennese truffles from the misses Yummy!! Pretty certain you can only use the vouchers in-store, don't think there is any code - as with Tesco - which would allow them to be used online. I do have a lot of time on my hands as i'm not one for doing things that can be put off until tomorrow. I do admit to recommending a couple of your posts on THT as i thought it appeared to be your turn to hit the top of the list. But assume it's someone else responsible for the other 650+. Thought it seemed to be a Nettley/Thistle/etc conspiracy to share it around. I'll never make it as i post on so many different boards - mostly rubbish - so it would be hard to find all of mine. While i was waiting for a page to load the other day i must have clicked somewhere i shouldn't, as i was greeted by the message 'you have successfully reported this post' OOOPS!!! I have no idea whose post it was so hope no-one got banned due to my vote. By the ever increasing number of your posts i would say you seem to be spending a lot more time on here than i do these days, and very often into the wee small hours!! Most of it 'debating' with UTCIAD, Netters or Gregory, as to who is really who and who has the most alter egos. Like your very good self i have only ever had one 'name' and never intend to change. I have learnt to ignore or filter those that annoy me, it's pointless to argue with a cyber-personality as they are probably a saddo in a bedsit with no friends or personality, or a sadist who just gets their kicks from winding people up!!! Not a good day on the markets today with the FTSE down 100, my porfolio is a sea of red with a very small island of blue called THT. Strange!! I would send you a music link but don't think you would appreciate my taste judging by your musical offerings. I'm very much a child of the late 60's and 70's, all prog rock and heavy metal, before heavy metal became popularised by the likes of Iron Maiden, etc. ATB.

20% off online sales until 30/5 and reduced postage. http://www.money.co.uk/article/1006715-20-percent-off-at-thorntons.htm ATB.

Next div due to be paid 1/6 - as long as you were on the share register as of 22/4. The following one goes ex-div on 19/10 and will be paid 30/11. Chitty is one of my all time favourite films, great name. ATB.

I'm sure your home already is, but if you need that finishing touch or fancy a day out follow this link to get Free Ideal Home Scotland tickets: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/cheap-days-out#Ideal We went to the London Show and really enjoyed it. Am currently working out how i could fit the 30 foot 'Sports Swim Spa Pool' into our garden!!! ATB.

We're going to need more than a "Retail Guru" to improve things on the High Street. The biggest hurdle to small businesses are the local Councils. 1) They increase Business Rates by 100-200% when it suits them, and 2) they paint so many lines on the roads in order to raise money from parking tickets that they force the punters away. In my local town i can either pay though the nose to park - if i can find a parking space - or park 3/4's of a mile away and walk. Or, i can park for free in a Tesco, B&Q, Halfords, Comet, etc, and get everything that i could get in town - and probably cheaper. If Govt, Councils, etc, are that interested in keeping the town centres vibrant, then reduce Rates to the small guys to a peppercorn level, remove the yellow lines so people can get to the shops, and increase the Rates bill to the Tesco's etc, to compensate for the lost revenue. To the big guys it would probably only mean putting up ticket prices by 1p on a tin of beans or 50p on an LCD telly, and the small guys would be able to reduce their prices to compensate for their lesser buying power. Simples!!! Rant over. Just how considerably younger are you?? You can tell me, i promise i'll keep it a secret. Sorry to hear about your share news, i do realise that you're struggling with both HMV and EO. THT aren't helping and do you also own DEB? Did you follow Cherry into SXX? That's down about 1/3rd since he switched out of IPR. Although, whereas i'm stuck with what i have, at least you are active in the market and can probably trade your way out of this. I'm taking the 'tonic' and chocolate twice a day, but am intrigued by the 'medication' you refer to. Would it taste nice lol!!! ATB.

Not sure your research relates to this MCB. This company is the UK's leading supplier of Private Label Household and Personal Care products - soap powder and shampoo etc. ATB.

Thanks for your replies - they sound promising. But i'm afraid it's a case of 'Old dogs and new tricks' with me when it comes to charts, bollingers etc. ATB.

Friday's upward revision to first-quarter construction data narrows the gap with industry surveys but won't eliminate suspicions that the official data is still understating the strength of Britain's recovery. The Office for National Statistics said on Friday that UK construction activity shrank 4 percent in the first three months of the year, less than an initially estimated 4.7 percent fall but still acting as a powerful drag on the economy which has stagnated at best since September. Industry surveys, however, show construction bounced back after a snow-hit December and has grown steadily since the start of this year. Put simply, evidence on the ground seems totally out of whack with figures churned out by official statisticians, who -- purely coincidentally or not -- changed the way they collect the data last year. Britain's biggest housebuilder by volume Barratt Developments and smaller rival Bovis Homes both issued upbeat trading statements this week, while building materials company Marshalls posted a 10 percent rise in four-month revenue. Surveys also paint an improving picture, including Markit's construction purchasing managers index, which has held comfortably in expansionary territory, while the FTSE 350 Household Goods index, dominated by big-name housebuilders, has rallied more than 15 percent in the past two months.

You're correct in that the 2010 final div will be paid Jun 1st - that's what i have written down so not sure why i put 30/6 in my post to lobbage, old age maybe!! But the 2011 Interim does go ex-div on 19/10 and will be paid 30/11 - these dates come from BAE's website. ATB. http://bae-systems-investor-relations.production.investis.com/financial-calendar/2009.aspx

Alex, welcome aboard. The dividends for this year are as follows: 2010 Final, ex-div 20/4, record date 26/4, payable 30/6 (10.5p); 2011 Interim, ex-div 19/10, record date 21/10, payable 30/11 (2010 Interim was 7p). Not sure if there is anywhere to find out who pays what all in one place, but think one of the papers lists what is being paid for the coming week. If you look on these pages, there is an icon called 'XXX Financial Diary' which sometimes lists the forthcoming financial events, or of more use is the link at the bottom of these pages which has the companies website highlighted in blue. Also on this page under the graphs you can find figures for the last full year dividend in pence along with the yield. BA.'s is currently 17.5p and 5.3%, which while it is not the best it's better than most are currently paying. ATB.

My body may be giving up, but my mind is as sharp as a new pin. And Google helps lol!!! ATB.