bdon

Home "ownership" is, I would argue, now fundamentally programmed into the UK/USA mindset (and soon to be Asia). Attempts to model it in traditional ways just won't work. Logically we know that paying £x for an apartment (as I am considering) is ludicrous - but I will do it nevertheless as it is a place to live that require no future income stream in X years. We have three primary classes in the UK: the Gentry (land owners for at least 7 generations), the Poor (social housing, social pay), and the Middle Class. The noise, as ever, is around the Middle Class as they aspire to the Gentry and hope to avoid the Poor. I do believe the "price" of UK housing will fall, and given that inflation is 12-18mo away, it would appear to be nominal in the 1st instance. After that though, looking at the bald numbers will help little if, as I suspect, the cost of a pint of milk (for example) will be approaching £2 by 2011. B

sorry

DR BUBB - pay your hosting bills! ffs. the last thing I want to see on this forum is a russian twat pop up. you have precisely three days to fix this

Merryn in this weekend's FT was promoting gold... I have a very decent chunk in a gold etf so watching it slide back down to 8xx doesn't help but then again summer time is not really a trading time - it all come at the end of the calender year and financial year - Fall/Autumn should see some more moves

It sounds ultra-trite but art is not an investment in monetary terms, when it becomes that it becomes like BTL or buying corn ETFs. Art is all about passion - do you love it? do you understand it? do you resonate? look at the painting and look at the sculpture. drink the wine. eat the food. these "commodities" are human volatile passionate fashionable sure, if you'd "bought a Banksy" (with all the associated fuck-shite inherent in that) then you'd be rich. I have one on my wall. A stencil over graffito that is peeling. Captured in a particular way. Dr B, ur a decent dude but there ain't no charts for art.

TBH I reckon it's just summer dolrums, not expecting much movement until early autumn. Traders in london and NY are enjoying this unseasonable heat - they go out for drinks at lunchtime and leave early. The "credit crunch" has been avoided (cough!) so they're not playing. Reckon gold will bobble around the 850-900 all summer and not really see any movement until the US elections, change in UK government, BRIC/AME event (whatever it might be). for us goldies it's going to be long and hot until september - still, at least we get to enjoy the weather.

Dr Bubb, can we just split off the two sites (cross linking obviously) but brand and identity is terribly important and green investors (eco + new) will have a different perspective from global investors I know you are passionate about both but they are different. delegate! B (not me, don't like hard work)

it would work better if there was only one planet (less alien, more like earth) also maybe reduce the color palette - I know this seems odd. but I have seen very effective comms that use a palette of two colors (+ one alternate) and black & white. shaping up tho! less like the current "The Good Life" logo

the difficulty is in combining two very distinct brands and word-sets within one generally I'm a fan of simple, eg (v.v.v. rough) attached