A busy day today after a poor night with Debbie and her friends marauding about The Hayling View which is now ideal for Hide and Seek! The Westland affair comes to a head, Thatcher is preoccupied with security and the policeman who shot infant John Shorthouse is eventually charged with manslaughter today. UK gilts take a pasting and Wall Street sustains record one day losses as the UK clearing banks cut their base rate by 1%
A poor night for both me and Diana. The central heating pumps were whining away and we couldn’t get comfortable until the early hours. A late start this morning and 7.45am before I got my morning tea and paper. Still, stayed in bed for 10 mins to read it. The main financial news yesterday was the declining pound and increase in inter-bank interest rates – gilts took a pasting. Quickly washed and dressed, breakfast, and then to clear up a little from yesterday and make a start to my work. I finished off the internal upstairs zone, renamed it as zone 4, and then it was time for lunch. I had taken Diana and the girls to St Neots as well this morning, got some money from the Abbey National and some groceries for Diana. The weather is still snowy, but definitely getting milder.
Held up a bit this afternoon by marauding kids. Debbie had Emma and Amie round, Daniel had Gary and they all ran around playing hide and seek. Funny to see how much they all enjoyed playing together. Diana out again with Debbie this afternoon at her swimming lessons, which have restarted today. Debbie tells me that she is no longer in the top group, which is hardly surprising after the recent display. Di left sandwiches for Daniel and I for tea, but poor Daniel found today’s exertions and a series of late nights too much and had to lie down with a headache. This evening I worked on the upstairs outer door zone #6 and managed to wire up our master bedroom door via a wire in the loft and a lot of crawling about, which pleased me. Ended at 10.00pm for my bedtime Bournvita and settled down to my journal and the TV news. News today of Reagan’s US economic sanctions against Libya, but also of the failure of any EEC nation to follow suit. At Westland, support comes in from the French, German and Italian industries in favour of the European bid and the Consortium’s advisors think they have at least 10% of the shareholder’s votes to effect an adjournment of the EGM and are nearing 25% to prevent the Sikorsky bid being accepted. The 1500 men at Westland, however, voted almost unanimously to back the American takeover. The police constable, who shot 5 year old John Shorthouse during an armed raid on his father’s home, was finally charged with manslaughter today for failing to follow firearm procedures. Also the Home Secretary had backed a decision to arm Heathrow security police with SAS-style machine guns in view of the recent airport attacks. Thatcher had another of her Downing Street soirees tonight, with security advisors, insurance companies, police etc. being treated to the presentation and lecture routine. She called later for better insurance treatment for people who protect their homes, cars etc. against burglary. She wants urgent studies into violence against public transport personnel, but would learn more, in my view, if she listened to the argument that the divisiveness of her government’s policies and depression could only alleviate the enforced idle who envy the privileged rich. A record one-day fall in the Dow Jones index today, as Wall Street was upset by the lessening chances of an interest rate cut. In the UK, all four clearing banks raised their bank base rates by 1% and many of the combined fears of oil price falls and debtor countries defaulting are beginning to haunt the preciously confident bulls.