A co-conspirator draws Guido’s attention to Swindon Wide’s reporting of the upcoming ‘Swindon Festival of Literature’.  Undoubtedly one of the cultural highlights of the year.  Cherie will really have to prostitute herself somewhat to push her book, she got a reported £1 million advance and it has sold a mere 33,000 copies.

Guido knows Cherie has a reputation for money grubbing, but even so, the headline is a little unfair…

In the right hand column of this blog below the book ads there is a spot updated in realtime showing Guido’s portfolio position. For the readers who are interested (there are a few) this is the portfolio report for the second half of this year (first half here).

The huge pink drop on the chart is when Guido decided that the U.S. stock-market was getting carried away to the upside and shorted U.S. Dow futures.  He was at the time sat in a deckchair in France drinking rosé in the August sun.  When over the next few days the trade started to go wrong, and the Dow pushed well past 9000, Guido drank more rosé and doubled up his short.  Who said rosé was cheap?

By the time Guido sobered up and exited the trade it had wiped out all the profits from the first half of the year (and some) putting the portfolio in the red.  So Guido stuck to jobbing the gilt market from the short side and dodging the QE bidding, then figured out that it was possible to join the QE bidding.  Next trade mess-up was trying in November, despite being a huge gold bull, shorting a technically over-bought gold market.  Except it wasn’t really over-bought fundamentally as India’s central bank had bought 200 tonnes.  Net-net the year’s trading of gold didn’t really make any money as a result.  Made small profits jobbing oil and getting long the euro.  The portfolio was mostly flat with no positions or risk during the year (68 trades were made all year, mostly held for less than a week).  Guido was too busy doing other things and has removed the trading software from his Blackberry to prevent himself from trading financial markets under the influence.  Nevertheless the portfolio is up 40.82% on the year versus a stock-market up about 23%.

The portfolio’s high leverage and sharp moves in Net Asset Value* are due to having a target of making a 100% annualised return.  Guido was 78% up at one point in early November before giving back profits.  Next year Guido can see no reason to hold gilts, if the markets sense a close election it will spook the gilt market and there is going to be a continuing flood of supply no matter what.  The exit from QE will probably be horrendous.

• Sh*t Politician of the Year
• Sh*t Journalist of the Year
• Sh*t Blogger of the Year
• Hoon Prix d’ Sh*t of the Year

Chinese culture venerates the wisdom of the aged, that must be why they made John Prescott a Professor of Climate Change at a Xiamen University.  It surely can’t be for his grasp of thermo-dynamics or theoretical climatology.  All the honours and flattery have secured his services as a Sino-apologist, a role in which he follows in the footsteps of Ted Heath, who combined his latter years of sulking with making excuses for the Chinese, greatly enriching himself in the process.

Guido has no idea what the terms of his honourary position are, so far he has only declared copious hospitality from the Chinese regime.  This has seemingly secured his trademark one-sided campaigning belligerence on their behalf in return.  You would have thought China’s blocking of a deal in Copenhagen would have soured Professor Prezza the climate change campaigner’s relationship with the Chinese.  Not a bit, he even wrote a letter to the Guardian loyally pointing out that the Copenhagen Conference failing  was all America’s fault, despite NGOs and EU negotiators squarely blaming China.  Guido will bet that a letter to the Guardian has never before been reported favourably in the Chinese People’s Daily…

This morning a British citizen was executed by the Chinese.  David Miliband had led an international campaign to get the sentence commuted, even Gordon Brown pleaded for clemency.  So did John Prescott use his campaigning skills and contacts at the highest level of the Chinese regime to intervene? 

No, not a tweet was heard from him…

UPDATE : Prezza managed to mess up a Chinese wedding. Have a laugh watching the wedding video here.  At least he didn’t grope a bridesmaid…

For Christmas as well as socks and slippers, Guido got a power drill.  Middle-aged fatherdom is like that.

The kids on the other hand got a Wii game which is great fun with a large-picture projector, though Mrs Fawkes tends to get a bit over-excited with the boxing game.   

Kicking the parliamentary troughers re-starts soon enough, back to Peppa Pig…

For those of you who don’t get the Guidogram every week, here Guy News gives you the top ten video moments of our year.

As is traditional at this time of year they are of course repeats…

Guido is with his in-laws and the laptop is out-of-action ever since Microsoft insisted on an urgent security update to Windows XP.

Which is probably for the best, though there will be occasional updates, Guido suggests your best bet is to get stuck into the sherry.

Miscellaneous snippets:

Am enjoying Prescott spinning over Copenhagen, Gordon and Miliband claiming that it is a successful “first step” when they previously claimed it was a “last chance to save the planet”. It was all going so well until Gordon said he would go…

Think that Sion Simon has some serious explaining to do about lack of receipts for rent supposedly paid to his sister.

Looking forward to the pictures of pole dancers due outside Harriet Harman’s house tomorrow complaining about changes in licensing laws that will take the shirts off their backs. Will also hit girl guides and boy scouts village hall dances.

Am told this week’s Private Eye (yes, it is still going) has a section on ‘Jonah Brown’, which is odd because Hislop insists, contrary to evidence, they don’t take material unattributed from blogs. Nor do they appear to have paid for the last load of cut ‘n pasting for which Adam Macqueen promised to send a cheque.

A very silly attitude. Private Eye could end up being made available for free on the web whether Hislop likes it or not…

UPDATE : Adam Macqueen points out that Guido was actually paid. Had no idea, but will take him at his word.  A book-keeper will be shot.

This image of Guido Claus and his Christmas angels – Nadine and Yvette – is taken from the  Guy News Christmas Special going out shortly. Guy News is now easily the most popular political channel on YouTube, with more viewers week after week than the official WebCameron, LabourVision or Downing Street channels.  The Guidogram goes out free to thousands of subscribers every week…

Time and time again during PMQs Brown claims that the Tories would choke off a recovery by cutting government spending.  This he uses to justify the fiscal nihilism that has seen the PSBR hit a record high of £20.3 billion last month.  Suicidal unfunded spending.

The Tories don’t make the case for cuts very well, they don’t feel comfortable doing so and thus they shy away from nailing one of Brown’s big lies – that taxing and spending is the only way to get out of recession.  This chart from Bloomberg shows that the UK economy has previously “enjoyed growth during fiscal squeezes in the early 1980s and mid-1990s, calling into question Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s assertion that cutting the deficit too soon would wreck the recovery.”*

Ben Broadbent, an economist at Goldman Sachs says “… periods of fiscal tightening in the past 30 years — the early 1980s and the mid-1990s — saw quite strong economic growth.” Britain’s budget deficit will peak next year at 13.2%, the worst in the G20 according to the IMF. Yet Alistair Darling says a quicker reduction in the deficit risks “putting the recovery at risk.” History shows that both Margaret Thatcher and John Major cut spending and boosted economic growth…

*From an article by Reed Landberg and Andrew Atkinson (not online).