Member Info for BradSmith

Winni that is why we have had these restricted placings with the Doc imho. Your researchers knew it a general placing would be undersubscribed and the Doc would get them anyway. And the additional admin costs would make a general placing a disaster.

Muggins here did not help by decrying that process and losing faith in Tony. I hope I was not the catalyst for the failed placing but at the very least I encouraged TLOU to have it. Big mistake that I own up to. TG was too proud to give the reasons for the deals with Doc and there are those on here who'd have been abusive if he told us his fears?

I think we are in for a repeat with the Doc bailing out the placing again which is part of the reason I am losing money on this one as a penance. Offset that though with a firm belief that 2p and less will not be the sp for long and my small losses now will be insignificant e.g. the difference between 6c and 5.5c profit, but 6c will be across ALL the shares I have have scattered around. 6c is a random number above 4 and is ultra conservative. My only worry is that MM has not reappeared yet on here. I expected his return this year but maybe his pastures new are greener than green and he is building his TLOU stake.

Harping back to SXX days, I believe the common belief was that it needed to reach certain criteria before the big institutions would risk investing in SXX on AIM.

The criteria may have included getting into the FTSE and out of AIM?

So we may be fortunate that the Botswana Pension Fund were permitted to have backed us.

I wonder if TG was aware of that and whether it influenced his choice of venue for his 3rd project.

I also wonder if the Pension fund is not restricted at all because we are on the local exchange and ASX so the SXX experience does not apply outside of the UK?

TG has maintained a steady approach and come up with no fanciful ideas like SXX did - I suppose we are all a little exasperated by how steady they have evolved but the placing looks like a stepping up of the pace, and I think that is in preparation for further steps up involving #6 and #4 and the readiness of the Tx line. TG is frugal with money he cannot afford , I am expecting a very different TG once he is spending money he can afford to see this come to fruitition.

I am interested to see how the placing pans out in Botswana and Australia because we are on the FTSE in those countries and AIM status only applies in the UK!

Now I remember why I have the non-ISA account, please correct me if this wrong.

You are obliged to trade in GBP on an ISA account and I bought into CBA-ASX for their dividends.

The dividend in AUD would therefore be converted to GBP in an ISA costing a small fee.

Non-ISA would hold the dividends in my AUD balance so 100% of it could be used to buy TOU-ASX free of FX charges.

It explains why I have the account and why I have so many TOU in a non-ISA!

They say it is good to talk, and if I'd not mentioned it here I'd have happily bed and isa'd after the placing.

If TLOU live up to expectations I'd want to split my investments to include CBA , an expensive share , for its dividends.

And I'll want those divis in AUD commission free from CBA and TOU (in the future) to manouvre my ASX holdings.

I have been jammy to have not upset those plans - CBA will be swapped to TOU-Hydrogen if my dreams come true in time all in AUD. And there is a chance that the FX rate swings may open arbitrage opportunities in either direction with TLOU holdings split between the exchanges.

Woke up early, had a couple of tablets and my mobie buzzed.

In the final auction I guess they offloaded enough to cover most of the cost of my newly requested excess.

So I am back to funding my 4/11 on the non-ISA account from my pocket , and the ISA acccount from my Cash ISA.

At least the partial fill was not for a measly number of shares which it could have been. Got 3.1c so lost 0.4c on each if I get the excess shares. Think I'll close the non-ISA account which only exists because I had shares in a company that was not allowed to be in an ISA. Sad that I cannot remember which one it was or if that was definitely the reason.

TOU/ASX were up to 3.3c to buy when I came to bed (and I reduced my sell from 3.2c to 3.1c). Cannot get fixed price quotes on ASX like I can on LSE, such a pity!).

My non-ISA ASX account is prepared for the placing.

Several outcomes are possible ...

1. A self-financing entitlement plus excess sell will leave me with fewer shares than I started with.

2. The sell fails so I'll need to find the cash in my pocket ...

a. I can let the placing lapse.

or b. I'll have enough shares to warrant a bed and isa in April.

My car insurance revealed a renewal rise from £255 to £550+

My usual routes got it down to £354 but then I discovered USWITCH covers cars as well as Energy.

£354 was quoted by them too but it was my 8th best offer not the best one!

They clearly have a longer list of clients for my needs that the others because that top 7 quotes were from reputable names including RAC, Coop and Swinton with RAC @ £308

The £354 did not insure me to drive other cars on 3rd party , whereas the RAC do allow that.

An extra £17 buys me uninsured drivers or vandals damage cover so I'll probably take that.

Their offer lapses on 17th February which is also blooming good. Some are only for a day or two.

For any bikers out there, Uswitch asked about non-claims on the motorbike which may have helped with 9 yrs plus on the cars and 4 yrs on the bikes. I am quite pleased.

I am pleased I have coughed up the cash for a TV licence against my better judgement.

How many times am I expected to pay for Homes under the Hammer repeats , plus may 80% of the BBC content?

The only repeats I watch is Friends , of which I never tire , no matter how many times I see them and they ain't BBC.

The Beeb have moved into the Arne peninsula with a vengeance and have laser connections across the water to Brownsea Island to add Red Squirrels and others to the birds and wildlife at Arne.

They have reduced their reliance on miles of cables and have tried to be carbon neutral (or better) by ditching diesel generators for HYDROGEN powered gennies! 72k units of Carbon Dioxide (cubic somethings presumably) saved (and maybe other pullutes?). I am desperate to see Hydrogen powered diesel engines in cars and motor bikes being powered by Hydrogen and electric cars dumped!

Somebody on here sent a video link to the JCB chairman several years back - and it convinvced me that Hydrogen is the way forward. And once TLOU has sufficient income and the Green Hydrogen programme gets off the ground - I hope TLOU will be player in African Hydrogen markets. Synergen Met is a partner - hope it is not a sleeping partner forever!

TLOU were not very specific about the targets for the new placing. They could have told us that it will be used for Portaloos, Bottled Water, Confectionary and other food, paper pens and pencils, diesel for company vehicles etc etc.

They do list completion of the TX lines and substations and a few other things but not the proportions of the cash for each. Using logic we know the TX lines are in situ at Lesedi and there is a short distnce left at the Serowe end. Those will be metal pylons but won't be that significant. We also know that #6 is dewatering very quickly and producing gas faster than previous wells.

The placing coincidentally seems to be required quickly - they gave us very little notice of it and possibly underestimated how many of those days were taken up by Xmas and New Year holidays around the world.

I wrote that my Cash Isa matured after the placing cut-off date and was compromised into only taking what I could afford from ready cash - so no extra shares!!! Did TLOU see that or get correspondence from shareholders in a similar positions who found the notice period too short??

I am doing my best on my OAP to buy 1m shares across my ISA and non-ISA trading accounts.

Those shares will raise cash for TG to accelerate production if #6 is as good as I hope, and the improvements on #4 continue to increase.

I can buy 1m shares for considerably less cash but TLOU will only get that cash if my 'seller' participates in the placing with my money!

We did not prosper from the last placing which lowered our creditability with the public!

It made no difference because the DOC took up the unissued shares - not as impressive as us shareholders showing faith in TLOU imho!

How long will it take for the sp to exceed 2p? Milli-seconds, seconds, minutes , hours or a half day?

Looking back at this placing you cannot go wrong at 3.

I am prepared to sell enough shares from my nominee account to take up my 4/11

It is financially silly - I will lose money on the deal.

But logic tells me that a healthy placing will encourage new investors to grab shares while the price is sub 2p and once TLOU starts to fly it will be a multi-bagger in very little time.

Why do I think there is some urgency in the timing? 1. the short notice, extended by just a fornight 2. TLOU could have waited for AIM's qualifying date for another placing followinf the failed one last time!

I have not checked when that is but I am sure TB got that right when this placing was announced.

2024 is going to be good - my broken ribs are improving quickly after ony 18 days whilst the doctors said it would take 6 weeks! Very little pain unless I cough or sneeze! And the Fludrocortisone tablet is helping my blood pressure stabilise when I stand up too quickly.

There is a reason why TG went full on into things back in 2012 and onwards.

Just like Sirius it looked as if everybody was backing them to the hilt, whether local Govt, National Govt , the public in each country? Yorkshire had its Nimbys of course but Chris Fraser was on a trip to China alongside PM of the day , David Cameron, and the odds were in Sirius favour.

In Sirius's case the Yorkshire Moors Planning authority admitted they could not afford an independent study into the potash business! Fraser was so confident he offered to pay for one!

Amec were given the task of producing the independent study and they crucified Sirius big time! Talk of thousands of lorries on country lanes and doubts that they even had a ready made market for potash eere absolutely incredible and Sirius were stpped in their tracks and never recovered! Potash price had risen from £50 per tonne to £850 per tonne and there was no market????

TLOU were thwarted by the Govt through BPC being lazy in preparing the tender documents and nobody was able to tender because of a prerequisite that tenderers must have a history of providing Botswana with CBM power. An impossible prerequisite in 2024 and that killed the momentum in Botswana.

I don't half pick my companies!

A few years ago an engineer who spent his working life in Africa working on Hydro-electricity gave Botswana a glowing report when he told me about the country. He said nobody needed to work in Botswana ecause diamonds were raising enough cash to finance the whole population and he thought Bots was a leding light in Africa.

Bots , I do not recognise your description of the country

e.g. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/botswana/overview

seems to present a different place. The Govt are frugal , just like TG is , and that mutual attitude is probably why TLOU still exists! If Botswana had pushed TG to get it all done yesterday we'd have risked being submerged in debt thorugh deatering and Covid. Imho , the Doc sees this clearly and possible agrees with me that we are fortunate to be on the verge of becoming an IPP in 2024!

Why else would he be happy to join TLOU and TG when at our sp of 1p+ he could have had a hostile takeover and TLOU would have had to succumb to it? Botswana wanted Botswana in preference to his native country. I am sure he has wondered about that decision with the RFP mess, dewatering being so slow and then Covid lockdowns.

But he is still at the helm and avoiding the biggest waves. And he has stuck to his guns through it all. I am pleased you think the Govt is improving , TG does not need further unexpected problems.

5p not %p - a half-gard shift problem perhaps?

Good post BOTS - helps with seeing your point of view but I think you have underestimated TG before and still have not twigged how he thinks.

I have no access to board members etc so my views are based on the same sources as most people on here. What I do have is a vivid imagination and a degree of intelligence (especially when I was younger) that looks at the logic of what is going on at TLOU. I misunderstood TG ONCE! I thought he was pandering to the DOC and giveing him the backing that he was denying us!

i WAS PROVED ABSOLUTELY 100% WRONG!

They had a general placing that FAILED COMPLETELY with too many of us not supporting it! It wasted a lot of time and effort and showed WHY THE DOC WAS FAVOURED! Admin costs were minimal , TLOU got their working capital and TG knew what he was doing!!

TLou have been consistent since - the Pension Fund and the Doc were and will be in the immediate future the company's main supporters. On their backs 2024 is being planned and once this latest placing is complete imho it will be the end of undersubscriptions as a mad panic to get into this company strikes around the globe. We all know 1.68p is a joke! %p would be a joke too!! Even 11p would raise a titter perhaps!

This company was worth 11p per share when the Pension Fund was our largest shareholder and the current TLOU is over the hill with the their backing and the Doc!!! 2024 is going to be downhill all the way or I am Van Gogh's uncle!

I hope I will be Uncle Brad and not Uncle Charlie! The first 100mph steam train was claimed in my home town and it was not the Flying Dutchman ....

https://railwaywondersoftheworld.com/first_100.html

Dogs perform brilliantly BOTS!

Before I busted my ribs I could walk unhindered though a little unbalanced if the room was spinning slowly.

If Poppy was in my path , she knew I wanted her to stay put (rather than move) , so I could step over or around her.

Now it is painful if I contort my body she simply gets out of the road without being told.

After coming on for a decade of posting here and on ADVFN I am trying to remember a Donkey post that said it was a good time to buy TLOU shares or that he had just bought a hefty number?

Up to a decade of criticism of EVERYTHING TLOU is absolutely crazy? How much time has he wasted on the company?

But why???????????

Does he criticise TLOU so we counter his criticism and effectively ramp the company?

I wonder. Nothing makes sense - how can TLOU be so close to their lowest sp at the current time?

We paid up to 17p (I don't think I paid more than 8p ever) when there was risk and with production getting near the price is a tenth of that? No wonder the Doc is happy to underwrite the placings!

Is it surprise that the growth of third world countries under the rule of France, Britain, Belgium and other countries bit have declared independence once they felt they were capable of ruling themselves once they had running water , electricity , communications and other modern facilities/infrastructures have less demand to add to them than they had to get them? Especially if they have to finance the improvements themselves?

I am sure that the more advanced countries can build pylons if they are faced with getting electricity from A to B.

I reckon most Southern African countries can produce Solar energy so building the infrastructures to receive energy from neighbouring countries or producing their own Solar energy and distributing that power within their borders must be tempting.

I am hoping that the links from Eskrom to Botswana will soon be needed for Botswana to reverse the supply South Africa if Eskrom does not recover. Where there is a will , there is a way. Where there is a commodity there will be a way to distribute it. TLOU will be providing A and B for the first 10Mw to 25mw , and when that 25Mw is met the least worry is what to do with the next generation. With money coming in TLOU will have prepared the next lines well in advance. That is if they do not build their own distribution centre at Lesedi. Lesedi is closer to Gabarone and parts of South Africa than Serowe so it makes sense unless the terrain says otherwise. I don't know how SAPP works but you'd think their plans would be based upon where the IPPs are. I read that the Pension Fund financed the Serowe link so if that is profitable perhaps they'll want to repeat the exercise. That article said as least 25MW as a maximum and read as though Lesedi is in South Africa so could be wholly wrong?

Found the link in my history ....

https://constructafrica.com/news/transmission-line-connect-south-africas-lesedi-power-plant-botswana

Saint Tony could rule the world for me :o)

TG CEO of Table Mountain and Mount Olympus

Andoni Iraola manager of Spain

Eddie Howe manager of England after managing Bournemouth as European Champions.

Colm Cloonan CEO of TLOU Hydrogen MotoGP racing.

Jeremy Vine mentioned a couple who sold postage stamps from their front room and Horizon claimed they were £11k short. Was it just a corny anecdote used as a joke? What did become clear was the Post Office was up for sale and a defective Horizon accounting system made public would render the PO worthless. The PO clearly wanted to believe Fujitsu were not poking live data. Fujitsu culpability is not the near 100% I thought perhaps. How complicit were the two companies? Did the PO tell Fujitsu to deny they had a group of clandestine people manually changing data?

Chat rooms are really weird.

Personally , I am most annoyed when I tune in to one and find the same content as last few times.

Eventually I don't bother looking.

Over the past months I have decided 2024 is going to be memorable for me personally.

TLOU are expecting to be connected to the grid and will start earning cash that will kick-start their commitment to plough all early profit into expanding the supply as much as possible. The size of the new placing suggests large scale expansions are envisaged , and the urgency (getting it done during the AIM ruling on our LSE placing) indicate that timescales are likely to be short. Is Solar going to be targetted? That could be quick if there is a glut of panels begging for a quick sale - or is #6 performing so well than CBM power is about to explode?

And the Cherries manager's plans have been understood by the selected squad. Basically playing as a whole so they are not wasting energy over the whole pitch. Solanke is proof! Previously he has been covering the length of the pitch , heroic running up and down, but it meant he was wearying by the time he had a scoring chance!! Now he uses his height and abilitity in defending set pieces like corners but conserves his energy for his primary role as strike. All players are seemingly working harder but in truth are doig the same! Putting in the work for themselves and their nearest team mate in short bursts! We still have a few who have not woken up to it yet but they are all going to improve their understanding given game time or , no doubt , they'll be out of the door. The team got the idea against Sir Eddie Howe's Newcastle - secretly I suspect Eddie was over the moon seeing us play like it! It needs all 10 to play like it or play grinds to a halt when a non-participant gets the ball and throws the expended energy away that gave him the ball.

The incredible thing is both TLOU and Cherry chat rooms have both gone so quiet at the most exciting time of my life.

I hope you lot are as expectant as I am - Cherries are scoring 3 in so many games in the PL - and TLOU and TG are soon going to join the Southern African league of electricity producers. I hope the acceleration in Botswana is as 90 minutes versus Newcastle! I could have won £6500 on the Handicap betting for the Premier League with odds of 800 to 1000 to one! We ain't even double figures to do it this year with a handicap of +50 this year. 56 last year!

We are second favourites to Villa at less than 5/1

Quite right Winni, if he filtered me years ago my contributions here would have been a fraction of the number.

BOTS needs to be the centre of attention as he may have been on ADVFN until everybody stopped posting.

I moved to these pages , away from Donkey/BOTS/other guises, but he followed me here between bans from LSE.

What he was saying in today's post is "how dare you try to take attention away from me!"

Fujitsu are emerging as the bad boys in the PO affair , cannot see them getting away from compensation claims.

CBE has been returned , hopefully in advance of a £2m bonus?

I'll never get over the Fujitsu takeover of Britain's leading computer manufacturer, ICL.

As a George III and George IV operating systems advocate - produced by magnficent British brains - I was gutted to see their products dumped into the Sea of Japan.

George IV was decades ahead of its time and I could do things with it you'd find it difficult to do in 2024 with all the innovations since the 1970's.

Imagine a single disk file opened on a read channel and a write channel. Read , decide if the record i s wanted, and write it is so! So at the end the read channel is at EOF , and the write channel is at the same way point or behind it with data gone unless the file is restored from a backup.

Using George IV the app could be saved 100% , reloaded , channels assigned appropriately and no restore needed!

I loved it! But Fujitsu killed it!

ICL replaced the County Hall 1900 mainframe with a 2900 . The Police machines were PDP11's (Digital Equipment or DEC) and by then I was at the Police end. We emulated ICL dumb terminals/VDUS and of course we needed to be plugged into the 2900 eventually. County Hall said we are plugging you across NOW!

I related the welcome message on my VDU to the County hall man! He was staggered! My job was done - nothing to do!

Blooming incredible! But that was the power of the RSX operating system on the PDP. Asynchronous read and writes!

Late on Friday we issue a read that would not be matched until early Monday morning and we'd be online to the County hall machine! Changing from 2900 to 1900 was just another weekend to us! Dorset lead the world on Police Systems in those days imho.

IG have just confirmed I should send written notice (signed) on or after the 15th because they are obliged to complete the ISA transfer within 14 working days so I'm glad I am in talks with them. Should be OK to send it earlier though I really want the transfer to be late so I get ISA interest for a few days on my easy access version.

Did my monthly Frequent trader trades today and benefitted a little bit from observations in the past.

First trade was 1.6875p and the other 2 were both 1.68 and I bought more shares at the lower price?

I noticed my first tranche is often the most expensive shareprice which makes little sense? I thought brokers were obliged to give you the best price but I am guessing they can discriminate

e.g. BUY of 100k required

Sells of 99k and 100k on the books? Would they really give you the 99k and 1k of the 100k? Two partial transactions rather than one?

I am all set for the placing - a bit of cash to allow for FX fluctuations, ISA transfers prepared , and every cent that is available will be used on new shares - no commission - barring the FX from GBP to AUD which is quite reasonable on IG.

Mike Parry on Jeremy Vine agrees with me - Fujitso should be paying all the compensation along with the liars in Royal Mail who said Horizon problems did not exist outside each post-masters realm. Take their houses off them if necessary and their £1.6m bonuses for their efforts in introducing Horizon!

Had a thought about poking data in banks!

Years ago an Italian section of a British bank used to produce a useless multi-page document, rubber stamped for their Govt that needed changes!!!

Testing was tricky but the document used the current balance on each account to determine whther the CREDIT or DEBIT ledger code applied!!!

I ran my amended app against a database to produce a reference document!

Then I poked a few Credit balances so they were now Debits! So e.g. +500 became -500

Ran it again and compared the documents - the relevant ledger codes were the only ones that changed and were comensurate with my delta changes - so that was one element proved!

And this is what I meant about design problems! I neglected the fact that DEBIT balances were NEVER negative numbers!

A number was a number ALL POSITIVE and a bit flag in a code number said whether the value was a credit or a debit!!!

So I should have been flipping that bit!!! I had a bust up with a Business Analyst rejecting my mods out of hand!

My error was insignificant. CREDIT a negative number and it becomes a debit! So my test was ok for the wrong reason.

It was Xmas and I was taking xmas and New Year period off! The analyst had a database that was corrupt - transaction numbers were not unique (in fact duplicated 3 or 4 times) so her transaction number testing was crap! She was comparing apples with onions!! I thank a permie at the bank who was working the holiday period and took over!!! He used a decent database, all was well, and the bank was happy with everything but me!!! I had reduced her to tears when she was drinking wine and eating mince pies on Xmas Eve whilst I was working my socks off trying to find a non-existent bug!!! Another analyst told them they were mad when I found that 6yr problem for him on my final day (no renewal) and worked until 7pm. I h

HB just seen Richie on the news - I think recompense for the victims could be an election issue if he does that!

I might be the single factor that people latch on to - spread around the whole country - no North / South divide.

Time to check the election betting odds.

Paula Venells is an ex-Anglican priest and was CEO of the PO from 2012 to 2019.

What an advert for her religion she is. I think Jeremy Clarkson described how she should be treated when he was referring to Megan Markell. Over 700 sub-postoffice managers suddenly changing their spots and becoming dishonest would have alerted the thickest CEO in the universe to a common external factor. She thought she'd been promoted above her previous boss by the look of it.?

Watched some of Double Jeopardy today and a question came up about which country The Central Kalahari Desert is in?

Could not believe nobody knew the correct answer , especially me! Not South Africa, Kenya or Tanzania which were our stupid answers.

I was hoping there was an old codger on here with some useful advice because it is too embarrassing to see a doctor.

I am anonymous on here but for one or two people.

Have amended my excess to 800000 which racks up another million at a bargain price. My heirs have a hedge on the GBP fx rate now. And if I live long enough to use it myself I'll have money in AUS to consider buying CBA for their beautiful dividends or to stick with TLOU if they get into the Hydrogen business or dividends appear on the horizon.

Brilliant presentation by ITV on this - tear jerking in so many ways.

I am totally confused by events - imho Fujitso are the villains here , as near 100% as it gets!

The PO were pathetic in believing Fujitso that nobody could but post-masters could enter the data that was codemning those post masters!

It hardlysounds like a bug to me - it was surely a poor design or poor coding or both - and instead of Fujitso sorting it out properly they tried to do manual calculations and poked values into the data manually too! At the very least they should have generated a memo for the post office telling them about the error , the actual values that were wrong , and what they consider is the correct value. They might even have produced a noddy app for them to use - but the crucial thing was to have an audit trail so the post-master was not vulnerable.

When I worked at a bank that bank gave me the task of finding a bug that half a dozen programmers had failed to find!

The bug surfaced once in a blue moon - a genuine bug - the PO systematically clearly got something wrong in the design because as the PO manager said - the software was too clunky!!!! They obviously could not put the offending logic right without buggering up other threads and compromised on a solution that needed least work to correct manually ! Clowns! They certainly got that wrong as well creating the situation! And lying about it!!

My bank problem was a subtle error.

At the start of the app all values were defaulted and compared with new data to break the logic into currency , country , account number etc etc.

The fault was two accounts in different currencies would be merged as one -so 1USD + 1GBP was neither 2USD nor 2GBP but was 2!

The programmer was using the defaults to decide if it was the start of the app - so if the running totals hit that default there was no break in the processing until that faulty check activated. The default was zero - and extremely rarely that value could reach zero. All it needed was a second way to confirm it was the first pass or not - simples - but finding it in the first place was the difficult bit. I refuse to be beaten by such things - a strength and a weakness (budgetwise) but the Business Analyst at the bank was chuffed to have got it sorted after years!