December 2019 - The Urban Crows Blog

It’s All Gravy

A couple of years back, I was walking with a friend through the Christmas market on the southern end of Hungerford Bridge in London. It’s an interesting, brutalist spot for a market, trapped between the muddy river, a massive bridge and the imposing late 1960s concrete arts bunker known as the Southbank Centre.

*The Southbank centre.* *A kinder, artsier sort of brutal.*

(I only found out recently that the Southbank centre was actually the vanguard of what was supposed to be a ground-breaking architectural redesign of London in the 1950s and 60s. The plan called for large parts of central London to be razed, including Soho and Whitehall, to be redeveloped with huge concrete office and residential blocks. Covent Garden was also slated to be flattened but the local residents organised and defeated the plan. Thank fuck it never happened.)

I’m Sure About Sor

For Sure.

I’ve made no secret here at urbancrows about my love of classical music, particularly the canon of music that’s been composed for the guitar. In a previous piece I salivated about the glorious Turkish flavours baked into “Koyunbaba”, a suite in 3 movements written by Carlo Domeniconi, an Italian composer who lived in Istanbul for years. I’ve also blathered about Bach’s incredible violin piece, the Chaconne, and droned on ad nauseam about Tallis‘s contribution to the development of English votive music.

Well, today it’s the turn of the brilliant guitarist Fernando Sor, a Spanish composer and string-plucker who was born in Barcelona on Valentines Day, 1778. He lived to the not-really-so-ripe age of 61, and died a nasty, slow, painful death from tongue and throat cancer. I can only imagine what that was like in 1839.

Underground Drilling

Things Geologists Do. Part Something.

Mine geologists –whatever their species, open pit or underground- will eventually end up supervising drill machines.

Open pit mine geologists rely heavily on sampling the cuttings produced by production blast hole rigs. The assay results help to map the average grade of the ore before it’s mined and sent to the metallurgical plant. They may also have core drills working in and around the pit testing for deeper, unexplored parts of the ore body.

*An underground core drill. Definitely not ca. 1986*.

I Hate Christmas Markets

With Christmas just around the corner, towns and cities around the UK -and Canada too for that matter- begin to sprout outdoor Christmas markets like mushrooms on a cowpat. They pop up anywhere there’s space; row upon row of bland little wooden huts looking like the bastard offspring of a beach hut that’s had a one-night stand with a camp site toilet. I saw at least 6 different-but-exactly-the-same markets in the UK last week, scattered morosely around London, York and Harrogate. My wife and I are divided on the attractions of the seasonal markets. She loves them; me, less so..

November Stock Picking Update

Warning. This blog post/rant contains black humour about various things including my dad who’s not very well. If that’s not your thing, look away now.

The Rules

It’s time for another look at how Hys and Lows, the world’s greatest mining stock picking club, is doing now that winter’s arrived. The following is an edited version of my monthly note to the club members, individual’s names redacted.

Regular readers of my blog (why, oh why?) know how our uber-elite mining equity club works. We meet in late January to drink wine, pretend we understand the industry, and when we’re good and drunk we each pick a mining stock.

So, how you doing in the stock picking?

Month: December 2019

It’s All Gravy

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