Slim

Careful, your prejudice is showing. Where do things like arrogance and smugness come into it? They're just doing what they enjoy, it's you that's projecting smugness onto them. Feeling a little insecure are we? There's zero logic in your stance. Motorcyclists are dying, and you're complaining about how unsafe cyclists are? How many cycling fatalities have there been?

Pretty good read about why bitcoin's fucked: https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7#.ysxzusbaw One interesting thing lifted from this; as something get's larger, it's harder for it to be truly distributed because the number of institutions that have the capacity to host reduces. It's almost self defeating.

I was there. It was great evening, lots of fun.

I understand Boardman's record was open roads, but with a lead and trailing car. Pete did it this weekend without.

Talking of the mountain course, Peter Kennaugh beat the long standing record for getting round it on a push bike as set by Chris Boardman. Pete managed it today in 1hr 23.

"The ship is now travelling to Belfast as scheduled."

From the media development? Profits from films, exposure for the TT from Closer to the Edge and indirect income from film production on the island and most crucially a large benefit to GNP.

17 in favour, only 9 in the council of ministers which if I remember correctly included Peter Karren at the time who voted in favour in comin then didn't support in Tynwald. Only 1 against in Legco too.

There was a debate and vote for the pinewood investment which had a majority in favour.

We didn't sell half the shares. The other millions spent were not on pinewood shares, this is a separate deal.

We know the answer to this, it's the same reason we can't do it any more

This is the sale of a portion of the shareholding in pinewood, nothing to do with the development fund.

I couldn't possibly know, but presumably because they considered it a good investment? The shares were released at a 12% discount so that could be quite attractive.

Well like many things government supports. What's the economic return of agriculture grants, of reduced vat on building and development, of fix asset grants to business, of increasing the budget for primary school teacher training, of building a new road to the airport... Government tries to support without there being a quantifiable return. In this case, it's all a bit muddied by the history. The fund started as a way to either fiddle vat or encourage a film industry here, or a bit of both. It's been moving towards being more of a managed investment so it's all a bit messy and confusing. Still, I'd have thought for those who think it's a waste of time, that reducing our exposure and taking a profit is a good thing.

You never will. The profit from the share purchase will be evident, but the return from film investment's always going to be hard to ascertain exactly as it's a development fund not an investment fund. Long tails, promotion of local business relating to films, boat/hotel bookings etc.