Opening envelopes

I have a fairly relaxed attitude to bills and official looking letters at the best of times. When the stars are favourably aligned, and I am bored, I will have a look at them. As I pay most things through standing order this is rarely alarming. However imagine my surprise when I opened a letter informing me that I had over £1000 in Standard Life shares, and have had for some time. Something which was news to me.

Obviously in the two or three weeks the letter had attracted dust and an incisor mark in the corner from Calliope, these shares must have plummeted. But still, a nice surprise. Trying to work out if it's best to keep hold of them till the markets rally or whether to offload them. I know nothing about shares. So any advice is welcome.

Otherwise a quiet day. Went to the gym early in the morning. I'm finding the weights fun and fairly easy. I must step up the cardio work, which is where the real health benefits are to be had, and I find more challenging. Had a brief discussion with Mase about weightlifting, and he passed on some tips given him by Arnold Schwarzenegger who he knew quite well at one point. It's all about the reps apparently.

Back to work, and into copy rage. It is the route to madness to be riled by copy comments, and all copywriters have to learn how to deal with it. But my copy goat was ambushed today by someone overwriting my copy with ungrammatical sentences, containing content which is not only medically wrong, but also illegal. Grrr. Fortunately this is not my client, just someone invited to comment. I have invited them to give me comments to discuss, not to rewrite the thing. I suppose it is nice that I have reached November before a bout of copy rage.

Spent the evening virtuously tidying my study which has become like a bomb site, not helped by the fact the cat continuously knocks over my bin so she can shred the paper inside or drag balled up bits around the house. But this led to a windfall. So virtue does pay.

Comments

Kate said…
Was also hit by a bout of copy rage yesterday. Maybe there's something in the air.
Anonymous said…
Hi Pete,

My advice would be to hold the shares unless you need the cash.

The current price is about 30% lower than the 12 month high which is actually not that bad compared to other financial stock. Standard Life is tracking the S&P 500 (diversified index) pretty closely and seems to be a bellwhether stock. If you have confidence in capitalism, hold. If not, sell. (I'm not a big advocate but the alternatives are not great).

Romy
Peter Kenny said…
Thanks Romy ;-) I was going to email you about this. In my ignorance it seemed to be the right thing to do. So I'll take your advice and hold onto the shares like a bloated plutocrat.

P x
Amanda said…
Hi Peter
I'm not an expert but this financial advice may be of help :-)
http://growabrain.typepad.com/growabrain/2008/11/granny-gets-fin.html
Peter Kenny said…
Splendid.