An interesting weekend! Elizabeth's mum was here and we were due to dogsit for a friend -so I spent Saturday at the friend's house trying to get the new book finished. Quite honestly I'm fed up with writing and glad the finishing post is in sight!

It's getting to the tough bit where I've nearly finished the writing but then it's all got to be pieced together like a giant jigsaw puzzle and it's no fun!

But I hope it'll be done by the end of the week. Pleeaasseee.... And don't expect another book from me for a very very long time!

Sunday night we had dinner at the brilliant Wolseley Restaurant next to The Ritz in London - such a great place to eat, reasonable prices and just perfect food.

Then onto one of my sister's theatres, The Lyric in Shaftesbury Avenue to see comedienne Susie Essman from the US comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm.

She was brilliant. Foul mouthed but hilarious on all aspects of sex and relationships. Despite the fact written all over the publicity hoardings that the show was for adults only - one couple managed to bring along a 13 and 16-year-old who were sitting in the front row. Quite rightly she had a go at the parents and declared the show would go on as normal.

She asked a few people what they did for a living.. and we had "accountant, estate agent, and tax inspector" all of whom were booed. "When you were young and growing up did you say to your mummy.. I really want to be a tax inspector..." she asked. "No," said the tax inspector. "I kind of drifted into it."

She asked the accountant: "Well that's an exciting job. Do you get excited sometimes when you leave a column over for the next day?"

I can't really repeat any of her jokes here as this is a family website, however I would say the 16 year old in the audience certainly got some interesting sex education... I expect I'll have to do some sex education with my toddler Christopher in a few years. "Now, son I need to talk to you about the birds and the bees..."

I can imagine him sighing and saying: "Dad I already know all about sex - I looked it up on the internet..."

So Boris Johnstone is standing to be Mayor of London. This can only be good news - the bloke has a great sense of humour and is pretty sharp underneath the "bufoon" image. Whether he will beat Ken Livingstone is another matter.

But let's hope we can kick Livingstone out - he's done nothing but damage London and the worst thing was giving his assistant £700,000 or whatever for doing next to nothing.

No sunshine at all for two weeks say the forecasters today - it that why it's beaming down with lovely sunshine right now then? Oh well if there is no summer at least I've got a week in Portugal booked for the beginning of September...

My bet on Brian to win Big Brother is looking better and better! He's suddenly become the hot favourite. The question is who will fill the minor places?

John writes: As a regular reader of your Nakedtrader share trading website. Just thought you and your son Christopher might be amused by this live earth photo of HSBC's underground South Yorkshire National Data Centre at Tankersley in South Yorkshire.

The secure ring fenced hardened completed in 1981 is mostly hidden underground with just the surface entrances showing. The numerous ventilation funnels surrounding HSBC's underground bunker have led the locals to nickname it Teletubbyland. Heres the live earth link:

>

Thanks John, can see what you mean - except for all the cars parked there!

Frank writes: I placed 2 small bets at Kempton evening meeting & won a fiver, so I was interested to see how you got on. Looking at your outlays/returns, your maths appear to be flawed !!

There were 7 races so your outlay was £20 x 2 x 7 = £280 Your returns were £320 x 2 = £640. You therefore won £360 not £480 if my understanding of your bets is correct. If so, I trust that your portfolio valuations aren't out by 33% also.

Hi Frank! You are absolutely right! I forgot there were seven races! I now face a dilemma - I gave the Mrs 20% of the winnings I thought I'd made. Should I ask her for a refund?

A bit of a holiday feel about the markets which are very quiet today and this is probably the start of 6 weeks of quiet holiday activity. (He wrote the day before the market meltdown of Tuesday 17th July which became known as 17/7, or terrible Tuesday)

However one share has caught my eye and that's Intertek (ITRK) - I bought 400 at 1036.8p this morning. Target 1150 stop 975. I got a bit lucky - I had that price held on a 15 second countdown as it shot up 8p! Mind you it then came back a bit! The company is a provider of quality and safety services to global industries.

Some investors don't like shares that have already gone up a lot but it's not something that stops me from buying in. It has a lovely looking long-term uptrend which shows little sign of a abating and good volume too.

Elsewhere quite quiet today but given the portfolio shot up an awful lot last week I'm happy with that. I was shocked to see one of my shorts, Provident open up more than 200 points higher and thought I'd done 2 grand until I realised it was a share consolidation and demerger.

I'm sure a lot of people were caught out like me. I think my spreadfirm will have to readjust the starting price for the short though it's not been done yet.

Not really much to talk about today. Int Ferro moves nicely again though and very happy with this one indeed! Others that rose strongly last week like Dragon and Oilexco and Wellstream are all consolidating at higher levels when you might expect a bit of a fall on profit taking.

Nice when a plan comes off and my short-term trade in Xchanging has arrived close to my target price well ahead of my four week timetable! It looks pretty strong so I have held off taking profits in case it can bust through the 300p which could then open up 320.

Recent buys Northern Investors and RCM Tech are pausing for thought but I'm still happy with both of them as medium term investments.