The litle Deal clincher
Navigating the Challenges of 21st Century Life: A Private Investor’s Perspective
"Cropped ‘fields have yielded a third less wheat and nearly two-fifths less barley than normal’ with the crop ‘just shrivelled...’"
A North/South and Left/Right Divide
Harvest 2026 to Those with Rain and Those Without.
In conversation over the weekend of 8/9th August Little Deal Clincher learned from farming friends that due to southern Scotland having more rainfall over the growing period for this season’s cereals yields were within normal expectations and the quality reasonable.
Those with livestock- cattle, sheep, and poultry- also mentioned prices were steady, not as good as 2025, but altogether not too bad. An optimistic market appraisal indeed from Scotland’s lowland farmers …
Complicity: Accepting It Is Your Fault Forever?
With the renaming and relaunching of the Little Deal Clincher blog to Navigating the Challenges of 21st Century Life: A Private Investor’s Perspective.
I shall continue to comment on investment from the private investor’s perspective and to discuss political and cultural issues. The update makes the website easier to navigate with an archive of topic headings in chronological order.
As part of the relaunch, the August 2023 post in the cultural section features the publication of my complicity dissertation for the MA in Philosophy from the Open University where I graduated in March 2023. Benefitting from a professional edit and chapter photographs hopefully readers find it an interesting read making a pertinent point regarding inherent complicity of political power and responsibility…
How It Started and Why I Do This
Before the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-9 when banks enjoyed rising profits and employees’ their bonuses gained through complex derivatives trading, more relaxed lending practices and expanded balance sheets.
Barclay’s Bank PLC created an advert starring the famous British/Welsh Actor Sir Anthony Hopkins. Sir Antony, or rather his script, encouraged potential customers ‘to be a big deal clincher’ adding disdainfully ‘who wants to be a little deal clincher’ such were the tone of the times, the advert wished striving go-getters to join Barclays and avoid such a pitiful calamity by becoming part of something big and powerful. With the hope that it would provide lucrative banking fees for them. Nevertheless, Barclays still exists today in comparison with many institutions that failed during the crisis...