Zyzygy

God and religion have featured much in my recent musings but unfortunately,
mammon cannot be excluded from human lives, especially
those of pensioners, where all too often, poverty and unhappiness
follow after a lifetime of toil.

For self employed people in the UK, providing for pensions in old age
is harder than for many. One has to use self employed income
for everyday living but then twice a year, to dig deep to pay what
seems like a huge % of money, that has not even been received from
clients/customers yet, to the government for its over sized tax spending.
This leaves little left over for investing for old age. Unfortunately
to make a little money into a large sum, often entails investing risks.
Pevious generations used to advise private individuals to diversify their investments
as regards shares anyway, over a large wide spread.
This advice may still hold good but I'm currently wondering if thoroughly researching
into a companywhose services etc meet my personal ethical criteria yet are appreciated/needed by society and whose finances and management seem good; then putting a good % of the available savings into that,
is more likely to propel my savings to the multi% gain level needed for old age
than the traditional wide but thin investment spread?

This like any other "all eggs in one basket" aspect of life, creates some obvious
difficulties. Less obvious are those illustrated by my letter this week to the
editor of a personal investment magazine, about a company called
ZYZYGY which is listed on the London Stock Exchange AIM section (epic: ZYZ).
The letter read:

"Zyzygy is an AIM listed microcap investment company.
Its December 2006 results showed profits
more than doubled to £1,058,000 and a maiden dividend paid.

A significant Zyzygy investee is Nicetech ltd, about which the December results
stated: "NiceTech have now secured their first major contract with an internationally
renowned media corporation, as well as having produced their
first on-linecomputer game which will soon be available for sale to the public."

No mention in any investing media, not even ...Magazine, of these great results
and with flotations of Nicetech and another Zyzygy investee Marinetrack (ship
security and tracking company) expected in the first half you (or I anyway)
would have expected the shareprice to go up. Instead it has fallen, to
0.39p to buy. I've been adding at this price. Profitable dividend paying
companies listed on AIM ,are quite uncommon these days so why
are Zyzygy's results not considered at all newsworthy for investors?"

The problem that I did not forsee is that in the world of shares,
sometimes what is fashionable and in the public eye seems to
make for a better investment than an almost unknown company
the shares of which languish at the foot of the alphabetical lists.

Still, patience is another investing virtue so maybe in times ahead,
I'll have some 'reaping reward to those who wait' type news to
muse over.

No investment advice intended and anyone interested in shares
investing should always do and rely upon their own research.

More on Caesar's and God's Laws

The following is from an earlier post of mine on the Sharecrazy website:

"My personal concern atm about things legal is as a practising Catholic, the State is interfering more and more in things which are or should be religious.

3 examples from the media this week are:

Employment laws being extended inch by inch towards making Catholic priests employees rather than servants of God.

Catholic schools (partially paid for by the Church in the state sector) being told how to judge whether an applicant is really a Catholic or just pretending to be to gain admission rather than letting the Catholic bishops take meaningful steps to decide.

And Catholic adoption agencies at risk of being told that whatever they and the mothers who have had to leave their babies with them for adoption, may wish, they must accept adults who do not accept Catholic ideology as adoption applicants. In the USA Catholics have closed down their adoption agencies rather than be subjected to this kind of dictat.

Individual priests and bishops have been guilty in the past of grave wrongs (almost as grave as those of some politicians) but the Church is still be better qualified than politicians to decide on matters of faith and morals. Is the government soon to outlaw any religion it does not control or maybe go the whole Chinese hog and nationalise it The thought for New Labour today might aptly be akin to: "Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar's and to God the things which are God's"

Catholic Faith In C21 Secular Britain

Two newspaper articles caught my eye this week. Both signify that the secular
age in which we all live is encroaching on matters of faith and morals. In
previous generations the credibility of religious leaders was such that they
could set or at least greatly influence, moral standards in Society.
Even those who did not adhere to their faith, would be prepared to
follow. Not any more.

Today's Independent on Sunday has on its front page, the following:

"Ruth Kelly is trying to water down new anti-discrimination laws to let Catholic adoption agencies turn away gay couples.
Backed by Tony Blair, the embattled Communities secretary is at the centre of a full-scale cabinet row over the new gay rights laws.
She was forced to postpone a formal letter setting out the exemption late last week because of opposition by her senior colleagues, The Independent on Sunday has learnt.
But Ms Kelly, a devout Catholic and member of the Opus Dei sect, remains determined to include a loophole for her church in the Equality Act 2006 which comes into force this April. A spokeswoman for Ms Kelly, who has overall responsibility for equality, said the minister wanted to "protect the pool of prospective parents" and would be trying to find a "pragmatic way forward" this week.
The Catholic church has threatened to close its seven adoption agencies rather than comply with laws that forbid them to discriminate against gay couples..."

Individuals in a free society surely have the right to their own way of life, sexual orientation, politics and religion
provided that they live in peace with their neighbour. Catholic teachings
about familes, marriage and sex are well known, as is how hard they can be to follow in
practice. Therefore if those who have to give their children for adoption, wish them to be adopted by Catholics who are appearing to try to follow the RC line,
they should have the right to do so.
Likewise those who prefer or must, follow another line should have the right to do so
by referrring to a non-RC adoption agency. There is no reason why a Catholic
adoption agency should be compelled to choose between selecting apparently
practising Catholic families for adopting children, or closure.

This thought police type compulsion approach, seems to me to be reminiscent of
state interference in the old USSR a few years back or in today's China where
the State is trying thankfully not 100% successfully, to nationalise the Catholic Church.

The second article is from the Catholic Herald newspaper this week, a relevant
extract from which reads:

"...most significant disappointment” in the new Government regulations. The regulations, which will apply to admissions in September 2008, also ban schools from interviewing parents in order to determine the strength of the family’s faith.The only criterion that schools are allowed to use in relation to faith is whether the child has been baptised – although oversubscribed schools can also ask for a reference from a priest. Jackie Johnson, head teacher at St Philomena’s Catholic High School for Girls in Sutton, Surrey, said the regulations had also caused “widespread anger” among Catholics outside London.She argued that the Government had “undermined the autonomy of Catholic schools” by imposing a restrictive admissions code.She said: “The Government has said that as a Catholic school all you need to know is if the child has been baptised. “The reaction of head teachers has been: ‘How dare you? You cannot tell us what we can or can’t measure by way of Church affiliation.’ ”..."

Now, if that report is accurate, the government by its proposed Regulation would essentially
become the State dictating to the Church, how to define 'a practising Catholic',
for the purposes of Catholic schools' admissions criteria.

Again this would be the State
interfering in the religious beliefs and practice of the faithful, where the state
has no business to be involved. Of course the State does contribute most
but not all, of the cash required to run Catholic schools but if Catholic
schools like Catholic adoption agencies, are closed down, the state would have
to pay 100% of the costs. Catholic children, familes and parents, will all suffer
and in my view Society itself would be immeasurably the poorer.

The Catholic religious leaders do appear to be waking up to the implications of
these State encroachments upon religious freedoms but I fear that their leadership
powers in practice, have been diluted by past weaknesses. Hopefully
however they will with the backing of the Faitfhful, win through in the end.

Brotherly Love on Channel 4 TV?

TV game shows, reality shows, celebrity shows and the like, I usually avoid like
the plague. However the sillieness of the "Big Brother" show on Channel 4 is even spilling over into the so-called, highbrow newspaper editorial columns. Thus in recent days, reading something about it, has been almost unavoidable.

However that senior Indian and British politicians should spend time on such trivia, when they all have so many real problems to attend to, was surely avoidable as was their wasted opportunity for the improving the lot of the underprivileged in both countries?

The Indian Tourist office is now taking out full page ads, extolling the delights of that lovely country, with reference to named participants in a TV show; which illustrates how good at capitalism the Indian Tourist Office is and how superficial these TV things are.

Sacred Heart Parish Capital Appeal

Having listened to an impassioned plea from Father Gerry at Mass
this morning for funding for the Parish Capital fund,
I have decided totry to use my Wimbledon 10K run to raise sponsorship
funds for his appeal.

It is easy to criticise the Church authorities these days and point to the
diminishing number of people in the pews as illustrating the hierarchy's failings
in that regard but such criticisms mean little if the detractors themselves
fail to give their support.

Any who agree and even those who do not,
are welcome to sponsor me in the Wimbledon
10K race, for the Sacred Heart Church Wimbledon
Parish Capital fund at: http://www.justgiving.com/sacredheartcapitalappeal

Wimbledon 10K 2007

Have decided to give the Wimbledon 10k a go on 11th March.
For anyone who is interested entries on line are possible at:
http://www.wimbledon10k.com/

Half the entry fee goes to NSPCC.

The start is at Wimbledon Rugby Club's ground at Barham Road SW20
and the course incudes the dreaded Copse Hill but is otherwise quite ok
though hardly traffic free.

The second half run along Worple Road will be a good home strait.

Jogging over Wimbledon Common today was again good though very blustery.

Hotel Heaven and Hell Competition

The Indy this morning has a fun competition for readers; to email the editor
with their best or worst hotel experiences in no more than 100 words.
The winners appropriately enough receive
a free week-end at one of the 50 (supposedly) best hotels in Britain.

I am in an HCPT mood at present as we have a full day of preparation
tomorrow - the Epiphany - for the 2007 pilgrimage so my entry reads:

"We arrrived at the Hotel Ste Suzanne in Lourdes one March in the 1980s, with an HCPT family group of disabled children and helpers, following an exhausting overnight (couchette) train journey down from Calais. The hotel had just opened for the new pilgrimage season. We were all dying for steaming hot breakfast coffees/chocolat chauds and croissants. Upon opening the hotel doors we were greeted by madame holding a huge umbrella and saying sadly; "Je suis desolee". Water was cascading down everywhere, bar foyer and dining rooms were flooded and the French plumbers had yet to come. Yet the welcome and the breakfast under brollies, were magnificent. That year's pilgimage was a vintage one for HCPT Group 35 during our stay at the Ste Suzanne."

I will post any news on the entry next month if it is a winner.

Fast Cars - Third World

Walking back from work to Vauxhall SWTrain station yesterday
in the gloom of a London January evening,
I passed by a car pile up on Vauxhall Bridge. Some six cars had
shunted into each other and were all crumpled. Their passengers
and drivers looked shaken but no one was badly injured.

The drama was really increased by the presence of so many red fire engines
with their blue lights ablaze and sirens wailing, several fast police cars
of various shades of blue and green also with lights flashing and
sirens at full blast. Red LT, or are they now TfL, buses were stranded whale-like in
the Vauxhall bus lane and people milling around like ants.

All very efficiently dealt with but some £200,000+ worth of cars
crumpled in an instant, provoked me to compare the lot of many
in the third world for whom such sums of money are probably
incomprehensible.

Difficult to comprehend how much we in the West spend
on cars when so many have so little to spend on the bare necessities of life.