July 2026 Update

Monthly Thoughts

This month it really struck me what a tragic waste of potential is happening in Ukraine & Russia. In case you haven’t looked at a map recently, Russia is absolutely vast, 70 times bigger than the UK, containing huge amounts of natural resources, minerals, metals, land, forests, water, basically everything anyone could ever need. Now imagine living in a reality field so distorted, that ruling over all of this, you still feel the need to kill millions of people and disrupt the lives of millions more (including your own), making them poorer, less happy and far less likely to view you in a positive light in pursuit of the fantasy of reconstructing the empire of a bygone age? Additionally, imagine how long these negative effects will last into the future. The UK thought Brexit was bad! Anyway, enough of things I can’t control.

The BBC and it’s license fee. I remember telling anyone that would listen to me about 10 years ago that the BBC was in big fat trouble. I couldn’t see a world where anyone wants to pay a license fee in the future. I have worked with quite a few students & graduates and sometimes amuse myself by mentioning ‘well known’ BBC radio DJs and watching their blank faces. They have literally never listened to BBC radio and watch very little television. They spend any watching/listening time online, listening to and watching whichever minor niche they happen to be interested in. This is the future and the BBC is not prepared. However, it seems that the BBC have just realised this and are now trying their best to persuade government that they should somehow force companies like Google (YouTube) to show more of their content. They are obviously oblivious to the ‘Not Interested’ and ‘Don’t recommend channel’ features that are one click away on YouTube. Clutching at straws. This is going to be a slow painful death.

EV Update

Talking of organisations in trouble, the German car manufacturers are slowly heading in the right direction: https://www.carscoops.com/2026/08/bmw-i3-munich-production/

Mooosic

I spent my yooof on the smoky, sticky carpeted dance floors of the West Country getting lost in the newly discovered world of house music. This interest has continued and I always love hearing new music mixed by a good DJ. I discovered Elif around the time of the pandemic and have listened to her since then, but her latest sets are really very good, especially this 3 hour beast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaHlBuCgCI0

House of the Month

As always I love a good weekend Rightmove browse. News from the UK is that ’nothing is selling, I’d give it some time’ (quote from an estate agent). A random browse of properties shows 10% reductions are easily found. If you’re in a good position, now seems like a good time.

This bungalow stood out to me. It needs minor updates in places, but it has two garages and a car port, mature gardens surrounded by trees and is at the end of a cul-de-sac. Near the bike trails of the New Forest and the sandy beaches of Bournemouth & Poole, it’s a great location.

Net Worth Comments

Spangly new charts this month (thanks to AI). These took a while to get working but pre-AI I’d have stood zero chance of achieving this.
New funds currently still being deployed to gold and bonds (short duration). Overall net worth staying pretty static this month despite new funds, but as normal I think of this as storing of potential energy, just waiting to do it’s thing when markets decide the time is right.