Look at Glaxo

There are two ways of looking at GSK (Glaxo Smith Kline) shares. If you are a glass-half-empty type you lament that the price has been going sideways between £12 and £16 for the last ten years. On the other hand …

You might be pleased that the shares are up 15% in the last three years and yield the sunny side of 5%. I’m fortunate to hold both GSK and Astra Zeneca (that yields 3.7%) and to be able to reinvest the dividends. I was pretty fed up with Astra Zeneca when the Board spurned a £55 bid in 2014 but finally the price has gone through £55.

There are two ways of looking at GSK. One is from the elevated section of the M4 as you speed in/out of London. Here is another.

I read somewhere, so it must be true, that inside there are only management and patent lawyers – not a flapping white coat to be seen.

Yesterday I walked from Richmond to Boston Manor. It’s only five miles but there are plenty of things to see and lots of variety. Usually I am on the towpath on the south bank looking across at Syon House and Old Isleworth. Yesterday I started off along the north bank, stopping for a pint at the London Apprentice, an inn dating back to the Tudors. It gets its name from a tradition that City apprentices and their senior craftsmen rowed here to celebrate being awarded their indentures (sound like false teeth) entitling them to full journeymen’s wages. Were I ever to become a City apprentice I would  observe this lapsed tradition, engaging specialist aqua-Uber service Thames Rib Charter.

There is an interesting juxtaposition – this Gothic house and the 14th century tower of All Saints’ church. The tower is all that remains of the old church after it was destroyed by fire in May 1943.

You may suppose it was a German bomb, but no; two local boys burnt the church down. Then it is only a step away to Syon House and the Grand Union canal. It’s a walk I will repeat when I’m not feeling too energetic.