The elephants in the Green Park have company. I saw Luna this week.
Luna is a bronze curlew, three metres high by Dorset sculptor, Simon Gudgeon. It is one of a limited edition of nine for sale at £95,000 excluding the plinth.
It seemed familiar and his Serenity in Hyde Park beside the Serpentine is similar, although it is supposed to be a pelican.
A friend who dislikes reading about my occasional financial successes will be pleased to hear that yesterday I sold all my shares in Marks and Spencer, losing 27% over a period when I could have made gains in almost anything else. I have bought Babcock International with the proceeds. I am no stranger to their share register. I first bought in 1972 when the company was called Babcock & Wilcox. I doubled up in 1975 and sold out in 1980 making about 62%. I bought again in late 1982 and sold after nine months, making 22%. Babcock, if you don’t know the company, is no upstart; founded in 1891 it is now an aerospace, defence and nuclear engineering services company capitalised at £1.49 billion and part of the FTSE 250. The share price is down 68.5 % over the last five years. Definitely in the doldrums with a P/E of only 4.3, it hasn’t paid a dividend since January last year and the share price is roughly where it was twenty years ago. Things can only get better I hope.
Went to Sculpture by the Lakes,recently.There was a Plant Fair as well.Curious place with many sculptures.All pretty expensive.Most interesting bit ,to my mind,was someone having made a small ,very productive vegetable garden