The Zulu Principle

I sent off for Jim Slater's The Zulu Principle to try to understand how investment in the Stock Exchange works. The first disappointment was his throwaway advice to spend three hours a week studying the shares in the niche chosen before selecting the one that is underperforming. What he hasn't explained yet is when to sell. Anyway, I have signed up for the Halifax online share dealing service so will be tiptoeing into the swamp before the summer is out. Talking of swamps, I am warming to V.S.Naipaul's The Enigma of Arrival which describes his acculturation to life in a Wiltshire village in exquisite and oddly hypnotic - because repetitive - detail, like listening to Bach. It rained heavily last night and at midnight I put my face close to an open window and could smell the wonderful scent of plants exhaling their perfume after many days of drought. There is a family living in a ground floor flat just below the second floor flat where I stay when I am in London with a Mediterranean unconcern for raised voices, including a crying baby and noisy toddler, breaking the respectful silence of this former police barracks. Luckily this family like me are only occasional visitors, and in any case their unconcerned conversation is normal by any standards other than the sepulchral hush of English convention.