I'm doing a bit less hobbling now thanks for asking. Body is gradually repairing itself from falling over when running. Still cringing a bit from all the people that saw my spectacular downfall!

Toddler Christopher had a great day yesterday - he went to the Science Museum with Mrs NT and his grandmother to see.... Bob The Builder.. live! Apparently Bob did a lot of fixing and the lad can now sing the whole of the theme tune.

He also went to Harrods for the giant Thomas Tank Engine. You don't think there is any possibility he is spoiled? Oh well he is off to his posh nursery tomorrow (£900 a month for 3 days pw).

So tonight I'm off to Kempton Park races for a night of drinking and gambling. Well, that's two vices taken care of in one evening. Could be worse at least I don't smoke. A marching band and fireworks are promised as it's "British night".

I'm taking a bunch of cash with me and will try and turn it into more. I'll let you know whether I was a super profit maker or a super prat on Friday. Looks quite difficult tonight with quite open racing - still you just never know!

The last horse I part owned was called Baby Spice. The poor horse was pretty useless - she always lead but never seemed to manage to lead at the winning line. Except her last run before we sold. She coasted home at 33-1 and I only had a tenner on! Well at least I had it on with the tote which paid 47-1!

I owned a number of horses in the 90s and one in particular was really good - called Neither Nor - which won a very good race. Bought for £5,000 she was sold to the USA for £40,000! So sometimes it pays off.

I ended up having £2,000 on her in cash at 8-1. It's hard to get a lot on a horse without affecting the price so I cycled round dozens of bookies sticking on £50s. For about a year after the win if I was short of cash, I just grabbed one of the dozens of winning betting slips and cashed in!

Tycoon hasn't improved given its new half an hour slot. Instead of saying "You're fired" Richard Jones goes " I am closing down your business." Do we care? No! Are we bovvered? No. Best thing they can do is put the show out of its misery fast which I'm sure they will do.

The final frame of the show kinda said it all "Made by Peter Jones Television". Let's hope that's the first and last show he makes. And to think they ditched Richard Farleigh from Dragons Den - he would have been a way better host.

Big Brother continues to be pretty mediocre - but Brian is beginning to seem like a likely winner. So I've had a wee bet on him - it's been very hard to pick a winner this year but Brian should get in the top 3.

Dave writes: Just finished your book for the umpteenth time...always a great read... looking forward to you next book!
I had a look at the Marketmaker Activitities on ADVFN Toplists this afternoon and noticed MM buying in ACHL.L (Asian Citrus Holdings) I then went to check the fundamentals in an attempt to value the company.

I found the market cap to be £190m. I then went to check the profits expecting between £10m and £19m for a good value company... but found them to have a latest pretax profit of £314m!! Now I'm completely stumped... can you help explain this to me?

Yes - the profit for the company is quoted in the Chinese currency and not the Pound! You have to be careful with this on advfn and always check the company's FY profits statement in case it is a different currency - quite a few companies report in dollars for example!

Surendra writes: I've been following your website updates and have noticed that you don't have stop placed on your FTSE 100 spread bet position? Please can you explain why?

Yes, I hope so. The short is placed on the basis I feel the FTSE at some point this year will end up below 6600. It's a kind of insurance policy for me so happy to give it plenty of slack if need be. So there is no stop, it's a play it by ear trade.

Mike writes: I am in absolute awe of your share record at the moment. What especially amazes me is your ability to pick a share immediately before it undergoes a significant rise.

You seem to have been especially good at this recently "" examples being MSI, Volex, Wellstream, Velosi, RM, Alterian, Mcbride (and you got out of this before a significant reversal which is even more impressive).

You seem to look for volume before you buy, although when you have commented on volume I have occasionally looked retrospectively and could not see anything really obvious.

Hi Mike. I have been trading some shares for so many years that my radar tends to spot anything unusual in volume as it happens. I have no idea how I developed the radar nor can I really explain it. I do use level 2 however in conjunction with my internal radar as final confirmation!

A tricky couple of days though bizarrely the portfolio has actually risen even though the main market has tanked! This is due to some nice rises on a couple of my positions and the shorts I have open.

Caution must be the watchword for buys for the moment, but one that's been rising well in a falling market is Northern Investors Company (NRI) and that's one of the reasons I bought this morning. I bought 2,500 shares at 230p. Target 275 stop 195. It looks an interesting one and it invests quite a lot in unquoted companies.

It has long periods where it does nothing and will suddenly move higher. I noticed it happens to be moving higher in a down market and that tempts me in. Bought a few for my sister's ISA as well as it looks quite defensive.

I've shorted Marks and Spencers (MKS) yesterday - £20 a point at 646 (September contract). I think it may struggle from here for a bit and I noticed Mrs NT who used to go a while back has stopped going there. Must be a bad sign! Target 605 stop 670

And I've added some shorts in Easyjet (EZJ) over the last couple of days which add up to £20 short at an average 510p. Target 440 stop 535. It's had a very good run but I think it's flying too high (gettit) and could come off a bit if the market goes down some more.

I took profits in PV Crystallox selling at 154.2 yesterday - that's a profit of £660 on the 137 buy and £521 on the 136 position making a total profit of £1,181. Just decided this was a good time to take the profits for now in a weakish market. Having said that it's doing well today so I may be completely wrong!

Also begging for profits to be taken was Corin which hit a ceiling at 580. So I sold yesterday at 569.55p for a profit of £1,321 on the 503 position and £636 on the other. Total profit of £1,957. I'll probably be back but it's been a nice trade.

Also took profits in Hunting selling at 772 for a profit of £140 on the 758 spread. Just wary shares that have gone up a lot like Hunting could also come down a lot in a dud market. And I sold a small amount of my Harvey Nash holding at 85.05p yesterday for profits of £315 (for site purposes the 79p position) while keeping the main position going.

That's total profits banked for the site of £3,593. Which brings banked profits for the site to over £350,000 for the first time.

Elsewhere the portfolio is doing really well which is a big surprise after two days of tanking FTSE. Star performer is Volex which saw a huge surge of buying recently - after some good rises I'm hoping it will sit where it is for a while nice and quietly and then head higher again.

Another star performer has been MS International which has also raced higher for me after those substantial director buys. While obviously tempting to take profits on these good performers the fact they hold well in a down market despite big rises makes me happy to hold on for more.

Two other excellent performers: Dragon and Int Ferro. Dragon Oil has scooted higher since I bought last week - it seems to be consoliding right now at higher levels which is a good sign as one would have expected a bit of a pullback here. And Int Ferro has continued to move higher and seems strong in the weak market. Wellstream too holds up well.

My shorts are going extremely well - collectively I am well over 150 points up on Provident Financial, Paragon, Renishaw and Alba - so all these have gone down nicely for me and if the market stays weak there may be more falls on the way.

Shortish-term trade Xchanging is looking good, but I still would like another 20 points please! So all in all the portfolio continues to please with plenty of profits and only one or two anywhere near stop losses.