Good morning!

STOP PRESS! ShareSoc has just asked me to mention that IG Design (LON:IGR) are appearing at their Richmond supper event tomorrow. Here's the link to sign up. Very interesting company.


Preamble

After deciding the big "should we or shouldn't we?" issue of Brexit, we now have another big question to ponder - is it time to put the heating on yet? This burning (geddit?!) issue has been made much easier for me this year, as we invested in one of those "Hive" wireless heating controllers. It's absolutely brilliant, and only cost about £275, installed. The payback period should be months, as previously we used to just leave the hot water switched on, 24/7, because nobody had any idea how to programme the little white sliders on the tiny white box, in a dark corner of our utility room.

Our new Hive thermostat/controller box is freestanding, not fixed onto the wall. So I have it on my bedside table, next to the iPad for reading RNSs. If it feels a bit nippy in the morning, I can just press a button to give a 30 minute blast of warmth to take away that morning chill. The other thing is that, in my London home, nobody else can be bothered to learn how to use it. So the heating & hot water are entirely under my control, mwahahaha!

Nobody has complained about cold showers yet, so my initial programming must have been good. It's so much easier programming heating from the Hive app, or from the cloud via my laptop. Vastly superior to those little white boxes with tiny buttons & sliders, which 13 year old me became expert in operating in the 1980s (together with programming video recorders, which again only teenagers could do successfully back then).

So if Hive is anything to go by, then the internet of things is looking an immensely positive development. I can't wait for the day when my fridge will automatically re-order milk, and stock itself up with beers for Friday evening!


Exchange rates

Sterling is under pressure again, so I'm just flagging this up, so readers can consider again the impact on your portfolio companies. At the time of writing, sterling only buys $1.286, and E1.145. So at this rate, my summer holiday in 2017 might have to be a staycation in a static caravan in …

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