It s just 19 days to Sharestock and I bought the big tent for it yesterday!. It will not just be about shares to short. Peter Hambro will talk about gold and how to play it. Chris Bailey will talk about making money from long only value investing in a bear market and 3 CEOs will face a 15 minute grilling from me, including Optibiotix boss Steve O’Hara and Cathal Friel of Open Orphan. But the short sellers presenting are legends.

I got into a cab at 5 AM at the Welsh Hovel not wearing a mask. At Chester train station nobody batted an eyelid. I changed trains at Crewe and again nobody cared. Most folks on the train to Euston were not wearing face nappies. The Heathrow Express is out of action so I took a cab from Euston to Heathrow and wandered into the building still maskless. But then I went to check in a 20kg bag full of books which I am moving to the Greek Hovel.

If I run a company surely I get to decide where I operate as long as I am operating legally? Surely that is how capitalism works? You do not get the State telling a retailer, hotelier or restaurant chain owner that it must keep a given outlet open even if it is losing money so why the hell is the FCA trying to do just that with banks?

In today’s podcast, I consider my dining experience in Chester last night and then look at Carnival (CCL), Supply@ME Capital (SYME) and its jail bait CEO and the one question its diehard supporters cannot answer. Moving on, I consider Xtract Resources (XTR), Tiger Royalties (TIR) and the loathsome spiv Jon Bellis of Novum who has now pushed me over the edge, I look at Novacyt (NCYT) and TrakM8 (TRAK), once the beau of Britain’s thirstiest share blogger.