Stuff That Interests Me

I’m delaying the follow up to last week’s piece on sleep for another week because I am still experimenting ;). In the meantime, I hope today’s little story will put a smile on your face.And a reminder there are just a handful of tickets left for my “lecture with funny bits” at the Museum of Comedy on October 10th - October 9th was cancelled - sorry. This is a super interesting show, even though I say so myself. If you are free, I really recommend it.In 1914, a young German named Heinz Kurschildgen started his first job as an apprentice in a dye factory in his hometown of Hilden. He became fascinated by the chemicals he was working with, and built a small laboratory at home to conduct experiments.Before long, he thought he had found a way to make gold, and even persuaded several investors to give him money. However, it soon became clear that he couldn’t make gold and found himself prosecuted for fraud. The courts let him off on the grounds that mentally he was not all there, but only on condition that he solic

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comThere are just a handful of tickets left for my “lecture with funny bits” at the Museum of Comedy on October 10th - October 9th got cancelled - events beyond our control, sorry. This is a super interesting show, even though I say so myself. If you are free, I really recommend it.Some charts have been doing the rounds this week, and I wanted to take a look at them today, as a couple of you have been asking about them.The first is this one, which shows that, relative to stocks, commodities are as cheap as they have ever been.I have little doubt that there will be another bull market in commodities, that it will come when people are least expecting it, and that, when it does come, it will blow everyone’s minds, just as previous commodity supercycles have done.But here’s the thing: we have got better at producing commodities. Modern farming methods mean we can produce more grains and softs at cheaper prices than ever before. Yes,

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comInnocent sleep … sore labor’s bath,Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,Chief nourisher in life’s feast.William ShakespeareSleep is so important to your well-being. Your mind works better when you sleep well. Your moods improve. Your outlook improves. Your physical condition improves. Your health improves. Life is better when you sleep well.We spend—get this—a full third of our lives asleep. Yet how much do we treasure sleep? How much do we guard our sleep time? How much effort do we put toward improving our sleep?Like so many things in this modern, fiat world of declining standards, the value of sleep has been overlooked.Science may only just be starting to acknowledge the benefits of good sleep, but it’s something we’ve intuitively known since forever. From time immemorial, art and literature have been filled with references to the value of a good night’s sleep. The Ancient Greeks, Hippocrates among them, knew i

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comDon’t forget Shaping The Earth, “my lecture with funny bits” in London this October 9th and 10th at the Museum of Comedy. Please come if you fancy a bit of “learning and laughter”.Three subjects I want to briefly look at today, starting with everyone’s favourite non-government money.There were rich promises of huge gains in bitcoin with the launch of the bitcoin ETFs and the halving cycle. Neither has quite materialised.Bitcoin is “only” up by 30% this year, though to read some of the commentary, you’d think this is another Bitcoin winter.The problem is that most of those gains came in February. For the other eight months of 2024, we’ve been generally stagnant. In fact, since March, we’ve been making a series of lower lows and lower highs and are clearly in a downtrend—hence the despondency.However, despondency is often the ally of the contrarian investor, and with that in mind, I want to share a table with you (borrowed from

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comWhen I was 19, I started getting these weird heat rashes. Every day, whenever I got hot, these debilitating, paralysing heat rashes would envelop me. Burning, bumpy, red weals suddenly covered my body. So itchy—you wanted to scratch everywhere, though scratching brought no relief. Once the rash started, there was nothing I could do. I just had to wait for it to pass, which would take about half an hour.I didn’t even have to get so hot that I broke sweat for the rash to come on. Just walking briskly would do it, getting flustered, wearing a layer too many, even having a shower.And it came every day, usually mid-morning.I thought it might be stress that was causing it, but it was the other way around: these rashes were causing the stress.I found a way of coping with it: do intense exercise every morning and actually induce the rash. Then it seemed to burn itself out for the rest of the day.But the next morning, it would be back

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comBefore we get started, I have put together some videos of recent pieces, as I slowly expand the video content on here. I don’t currently email these out in order to save your inboxes (but please let me know if this is something you would like me to do). What do you think of these vids? Would you like more of them? Let me know. We have house prices, scams and immigration - everyone’s favourite subjects.Don’t forget Shaping the Earth. Tickets are selling fast. October 9th and 10th at the Museum of Comedy. But today, it’s seed oils. Dreaded seed oils. They are to food what fiat is to money.Robert F. Kennedy has been grabbing headlines this week, not just for his alliance with Donald Trump, but for his criticisms of the American food industry, which he holds responsible for the epidemic of obesity and poor health.I can’t believe what he has to say is even considered controversial, when it’s so obvious it’s true. Yet Time, The Gu

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comA cock-up at HQ some of you didn’t see Sunday’s piece about a scam in the gold bullion markets. Here it is ICYMI: Also in video format if you prefer.Now we look at what must be the most important price in the world: that is the price of the global reserve currency, the US dollar.Does it go up or down from here?There is probably no more important question in global finance to know the answer to.If the dollar is falling, it usually signals boom times for assets: equities and commodities especially. The US prints and spends, and then exports the inflation. Money gets loose and the party rocks.But when the dollar is strong, everyone gets the jitters.Today the US dollar is seriously oversold.Conversely, the inverse trade—gold—is at all-time highs. US equity markets are flirting with all-time highs, while the euro and the yen, even the pound, have been soaring.What’s more: the US General Election is coming. On which note, how about

You can also watch this article in video format here:There are some unscrupulous bullion dealers out there who are taking advantage of rookie buyers who don’t entirely know what they are doing when buying gold.I am not going to name names. But don’t fall the scamIf a dealer tries to flog you graded coins, in almost all cases they are trying to rip you off. Don’t pay a premium for graded coins.You are not buying gold to try and be clever and hope that your coin gets some kind of rarity value. In most cases, that will not happen. There are clever people who know this market better than you already playing this game. Don’t get involved. Your priority is to get as much gold for your money as possible. You are buying gold to preserve purchasing power, not to lose it. If a dealer tells you that some recent sovereign, for example, is extremely rare, that it was one of the last coins minted under Queen Elizabeth or some such, and that it has been graded and has a special certificate and blah blah, and it therefore ca

If you would rather watch this piece go here:IMPORTANT: somebody has been impersonating me on Substack, on Instagram and on YouTube. Please don’t engage. Report and block. And please DON’T send any money.Thanks to all who came to see Shaping The Earth up in Edinburgh. The show got incredible feedback. I am doing it in London October 9th and 10th at the Museum of Comedy. Please come if you fancy a bit of “learning and laughter”. House prices have to come down some time. But when exactly? That’s what we all want to know. So here’s your answer.The declines start in the US and Canada in 2025, followed by the UK, Europe and Australia in 2026.That’s what the 18-year property cycle says, at least.Today we explore that cycle and what it says about house prices.18 Years of Boom and BustEconomist Fred Harrison, who first covered the theory in his 1983 book, The Power in the Land, is very much the Godfather of the idea that real estate follows a predictable pattern over an 18-year period. I first stumbled across Harriso

(And, no, I’m not standing on a stool!)After the unexpected popularity of my post about weight loss (still can’t believe it had 11 million views), I am trying something a little bit different this Sunday morning with this short video about dead hangs, while doing a dead hang. I am planning to cover alternative health a bit more frequently on here in the Sunday morning thought pieces. (NB If you want to try dead hangs, but aren’t yet ready to hang fully, try resistance bands or standing on a step and still putting as much weight as possible through your shoulders).Enjoy!In case you missed them, last Sunday’s post on immigration was extremely popularAnd we also had an update this week on the Dolce Far Niente portfolioTRANSCRIPT:Hey Siri. Timer in 2 minutes.Today, I’m going to talk to you about dead hangs. I’m going to try and do a 2-minute dead hang while recording this video. Not sure if I can last two minutes while talking.I had a motorcycle crash when I was 27, and I've had problems with my neck ever since.T

1. There are more people in the world than ever - and we all want better livesThere are some 8.2 billion people in the world - more than ever - and, whether it’s people displaced by war, famine, or lack of water, or (the big one) people seeking a better life with more opportunity, more us are on the move than ever.Some stats:4.6 billion live on less than $10/day.7 billion live on less than $40/day. 7 billion!While the number of people in extreme poverty (below $2.15/day) has capitulated in South Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific, it is rising in sub-Saharan Africa.I was interested to know what the global population by ethnicity is (search engines do not make that easy to find out), but, broadly speaking, it looks something like this (obviously there are lots of mixed race people):* Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.): ~3.2 billion / 43%* Indian (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka): ~1.5 billion / 20%* Black African: ~1.4 billion / 19%* White European: ~750 million / 10%* Middle Eastern (Arab, Pe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comIMPORTANT: somebody has been impersonating me on here and asking readers to message them on WhatsApp. Obviously it is not me. Don’t engage. Stop engaging and block, if you have started. And DON’T send any money.I am now at the Edinburgh Fringe with Shaping the Earth, a “lecture with funny bits” about the history of mining. The show is going great guns. I’m then taking it to London on October 9th and 10th to the Museum of Comedy. Please come if you fancy a bit of “learning and laughter”. The Edinburgh link is here. And the London link is here.But today, just as the title suggests, I am going to explain the extraordinary volatility we have seen in markets all over the world this week. I’ll then look at what we should be doing next. What should we do with our gold/bitcoin/oil and gas/equities and all the rest of our holdings?The trigger for all of this lies in the Land of the Rising Sun.The Japanese yen has been undervalued for

I am now at the Edinburgh Fringe with Shaping the Earth, a “lecture with funny bits” about the history of mining. I’m then taking the show to London on October 9th and 10th to the Museum of Comedy. Please come if you fancy a bit of “learning and laughter”. The Edinburgh link is here. And the London link is here.ALSOIMPORTANT: somebody has been impersonating me on here and asking readers to message them on WhatsApp. Obviously it is not me. Don’t engage. Stop engaging and block, if you have started. And DON’T send any money.“They don't give you gold medals for beating somebody. They give you gold medals for beating everybody.” Michael Johnson, sprinterWhy do Olympic winners bite their gold medals? The short answer is: for no other reason than a photographer just told them to. But the tradition of biting gold goes back a long way.You might have seen pirates in movies biting their coins too. While such hard-toothed individuals might inspire excitement in modern audiences, ordinary merchants and traders, indeed a

Good Sunday afternoon to you,I was blown away by the response to Wednesday’s article about weight loss. The Twitter/X summary got more than 10 million views. Here it is, in case you missed it. Going forward, I am thinking of writing more alternative health stuff, as there seems to be a huge appetite for it. But today it’s business as usual: gold. And I have a question for you …The Great Steppe stretches approximately 5,000 miles from the Pacific coast of China through Mongolia, Siberia, Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, and Romania, reaching the Danube Delta and Hungary.Vast stretches of grassland, savanna, and shrubland—harsh and dry, devoid of trees and large vegetation—are sandwiched between forests to the north and mountains and deserts to the south. This region has connected Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, and South Asia since the Paleolithic Age, serving as a predecessor to the Silk Road and the Eurasian land bridge.This ocean of grass is one of the world’s la

A quick reminder that I will be at the Edinburgh Fringe from next week, performing Shaping the Earth, a “lecture with funny bits” about the history of mining. I’m then taking the show to London on October 9th and 10th to the Museum of Comedy. Please come if you fancy a bit of “learning and laughter”. The Edinburgh link is here. And the London link is here.In the last few years, I have gone from this to this. I’ve written about my weight loss before, but, just in the last two or three months, something has really accelerated, and I’m not quite sure what.I’m now 54. I’ve suddenly got a six-pack. Well, sort of. A four-pack. I’ve lost 48 pounds (22 kg). My metabolic age has come down from 57 (when I was 51) to 49. I am super fit and bursting with energy.Even at the age of 22, when I had just left drama school and won a British Open Martial Arts Tournament (BOMAT 1991 - I’ve got the trophy somewhere if you don’t believe me), I don’t think I was nearly as defined. I’m the same welter weight as I was then too.What’s

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comIMPORTANT: somebody has been impersonating me on here and asking readers to message them on WhatsApp. Obviously it is not me. Don’t engage. Stop engaging and block, if you have started. And DON’T send any money.It’s a question that comes up a lot. In fact, a friend was asking me just this week, so let’s try and resolve it here and now, once and for all: gold or silver - which should you buy?Full disclosure: in my own portfolio at one stage I was geared as much as 70% towards silver and 30% towards gold. But in 2011, when silver went to $50, I rolled into gold and never went back. My physical allocation is now probably something like 90% gold and 10% silver.(For clarity’s sake: we are not talking about mining companies - these are a different kettle of fish altogether - just physical metal).Make no mistake: silver has a great deal more potential than gold. There is every possibility that the silver price could triple or quadru

I am bringing my Edinburgh Fringe “lecture with funny bits” about the history of mining to London on October 9th and 10th to the Museum of Comedy. Please come if you fancy a bit of “learning and laughter”. The Edinburgh link is here. And the London link is here.Let’s start with an overview of gold demand as it currently stands.Never mind central banks, investment banks, or private investors—almost 50% of annual gold demand comes from the jewellery industry. It is, by some margin, the single largely buyer of gold. Another 23% is investment demand, and 21%—last year at least—came from central banks. Just 6% of demand is industrial (excluding jewellery, of course).Jewellery, investment, and central bank demand have all been increasing in recent years. However, a change in macroeconomic circumstances could easily mean, for example, that central banks become net sellers. It's not like it hasn't happened before. But, while de-dollarisation remains a growing theme, I do not see that as likely for several years at l

Over the last decade, the Turkish lira has seen declines of more than 95% against the US dollar. It took just ₺1.50 to buy it dollar ten years ago. Now it takes ₺33. The lira has been one of the world’s worst-performing currencies - and in a fiat world, that is saying something - rivalled only by the Venezuelan bolivar and the Argentinian peso.While in Istanbul last week, I spoke to two young professionals, Emre, 25, and İlker, 27, about life under the lira. Both are bright, articulate, and empathetic young men who speak three languages fluently - English, German, and Turkish - as well as competent French.Given that the currency has been so bad, I was expecting to see more widespread use of foreign money, but in fact, lira are changing hands everywhere - you see people all over the place with wads of them. “You have to use lira,” they explained. “It is the national currency.” Even with such dire inflation, there is still trade. The economy still functions, albeit badly. (That said everything in the airports

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comI started out with the intention of writing just one article on this subject, but it has become three. It’s a big subject … (Here is part one and here is part two, if you are not already up to speed)The latest polls show Labour comfortably in excess of 400 seats, maybe even 500.They are going to have such a thumping majority (with less than 50% of the vote - how crap is first past the post), together with a Blob which, broadly speaking, is theologically aligned, that they are going to be able to do pretty much what they like. There is scope for a lot of invasive government. The socialist mindset does not respect private property. It feels entitled to it. So today I wanted to further explore wealth taxes and what Labour might do, should the socialist-leaning instincts in the party come to the fore during those first 100 days and beyond.Wealth taxes are hard to collectLet us start with the golden rule of taxation, something wi

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comNext week, I’m putting out my top ten picks from the Weird S**t Investment Conference, so look out for that, and at the end of today’s piece, there is also a short note on Condor Gold, which will be of interest to some readers.But we have a General Election coming up in the UK, and citizens of this once-great nation want to know how to protect what they have worked for from the incoming Labour Government, which, you can be sure, is going to be sniffing around like a spaniel on luggage in an airport. We now have the Labour Manifesto, so we can start to be a bit more specific than we were in part one of this series.I stress: this is only the manifesto. There is a long history of governments doing things they didn’t mention in their manifestos or failing to honour manifesto commitments. Roosevelt’s confiscation of Americans’ gold is one example that springs to mind, but that might just be because I have just been writing about i