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Did you hear the one about the millionaire Communist?

Dominic Thomas
Post written: Oct 2026  •  Updated: Oct 2026
3 min read

Did you hear the one about the millionaire Communist?

One of the Documentary films showing at this years London Film Festival was “All About The Money”. A title that was likely to grab the attention of a financial planner who loves film.

The documentary by Irish filmmaker, Sinead O’Shea follows James “Fergie” Cox-Chambers Jr. (1985), for a couple of years. The interest being that despite being a multi millionaire, and still an heir to a share of $38 billion via the Cox family fortune, he has chosen to distance himself from his family and purports to be a communist.

He established a “communist” community, in Alford, a town in Massachusetts, not that far from New York. He has bought houses and land for people to live in and farm, without any financial strings attached and with regular monthly financial support from him for them to all live for free. However it seems that despite the reading groups, nobody has grasped that Fergie controls all the assets and means of production, whilst they have their labour, it’s not put deployed in any evident way.

One of the many things the current US administration has revealed is that a lot of Americans don’t understand what communism is, (or socialism or a mixed economy). Fergie and his Alford community are no different.

What becomes clear is that the community is in fact very small, the members are all rather vulnerable and broken people, who understandably take up the opportunity to live rent free. None of them are particularly committed to communism, they aren’t menacing or violent, but are overwhelmed by Fergie’s constant ranting about the capitalist system and authority.

The understandable feelings about imbalance of power, imperialist attitudes of the US Government give rise to feelings of revolution. The evident atrocities in Gaza galvanised the group into a protest against Israeli arms, surveillance and security technology manufacturers Elbit Systems, listed both on the Nasdaq and Israeli market and worth about $33bn with vast orders in waiting.

It’s alleged that Fergie established Palestinian Action group in the US. The protest, which appears largely to have been vandalism with paint, took place on 12 October 2023.

It may not have escaped your notice that I am not a fan of the genocide, I’m not a supporter of war or violence and authoritarianism. I support the right to peaceful protest and dissent. We desperately need peace. The protest and vandalism by PA USA feel more like despair and horror about murder. It’s a far cry from actual violence and intimidation, the sort that Governments inflict on others.

However, like most “radical groups” this tiny group, feel more like something from the 1970s BBC show “Citizen Smith” (remember Wolfy?) but with the leader having much more cash but nobody possessing the mathematical ability to understand quite how much, let alone a thought out plan.

What becomes increasingly evident is that Fergie is extremely damaged, whatever trauma he has suffered has had a lasting impact. What is fact or fiction isn’t clear, but if it’s true that at 11 he was sent to a brutal psychiatric hospital, there are grounds for understanding him, sadly he hasn’t done any of the therapeutic work that is needed. He spills out, seeking attention and validation… much like several world leaders, politicians and tech billionaires.

Fergie is fairly quick to extol his virtues of financial support. However the community is tiny – 4 houses and a barn, no more than a dozen people. It looks and feels a lot like manipulation or he himself is unable to grasp the maths and value of what is at his disposal.

Cox Enterprises (a business group that owns multiple businesses) is a private company and now worth around $38bn. As such, a valuation isn’t that easy to establish fully. In any event, there will be family Trusts involved, so precisely who is worth what is somewhat irrelevant. It’s estimated that “Fergie” has around $250m at his disposal. You know that investments fluctuate in value, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable to draw a modest income (4%) of at least $10m a year or to put that in terms that media loves, about $27,000 a day, yet he talks often in terms of hundreds of dollars, which is invariably equivalent to the few minutes he spends making coffee.

However he does highlight the problem of numbers at scale. A handout of only $1,000 isn’t likely to make that much difference to anyone, giving it to 10,000 people would amount to $10m. There are around 350m people in the US. Helping 10,000 is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction… the system isn’t sustainable.

The documentary follows him to Tunisia where he has fled from the US “justice” system leaving his flock to face the music (prison). Whilst there, he does that incredibly communist act of buying a football club… the scale of his delusion is lost on him and his wife, though like numerous other very rich men, the number of wives and children he has is almost as hard to count as his vast fortune but reliably self serving.

As one might expect, the purchase of a football team like Club Africain wasn’t without some expectations, neither his rapid conversion. These soon fall apart and he flees to Dublin, from where he intends to start another community.

The filmmaker throughout has included shots of “radical” books and nothing looks more unlikely to be read than the new copy of Ulysses that is perched for view in his luxury suite.

Sadly this was not the documentary I hoped for – there was no insight into quite how the billionaire class remain so comfortable with gross wealth inequality. Fergie isn’t representative of the group with his choices, but perhaps he is of their collective delusion.

At the time of writing, Fergie is under arrest in Spain, fighting against his extradition to the US.

References:

IMBD information & Trailer

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/22/europe/fergie-chambers-spain-us-extradition-case-intl

https://www.coxenterprises.com/

https://www.elbitsystems.com/

https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/palestine-action-us-campaign-launches-to-stop-israeli-genocide-of-palestine-and-shut-elbit-down/

BBC Citizen Smith:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075492/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

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Did you hear the one about the millionaire Communist?2026-10-25T11:41:55+00:00

Performing under pressure?

Dominic Thomas 
Post written: Sept 2026  •  Published: Sept 2026
4 min read

Performing under pressure?

The world can often feel like a pressure cooker.  Politics has divided the world, social media has amplified division and impartial investigative journalism is both in short supply, overwhelmed and silenced. A timely reminder of the significance of choices and their consequences has arrived at cinemas. Pressure is the “untold story” of some of the events leading to the D-Day landings, an event, which we all know, marked the turning point in the war against Nazi Germany.

I’m going to draw some thoughts about the film and here is where any sensible person would heed a “spoiler warning” but one of the major achievements of the film is that it is surprisingly gripping when you consider that we all know the outcome and result before the opening titles have begun.

The film is familiar ground and we are re-introduced to a different type of D-Day hero – James Stagg CB, OBE, FRSE who is called upon to act as chief meteorologist for Eisenhower in his preparation for D-Day. At its core there is a battle between what we want to believe and what we need to know. A conflict, but one where competing arguments have potentially vastly different consequences. Stagg and his “opponent” the American, Irving Krick contested the forecast, with Eisenhower finally being persuaded by Stagg that a delay to the invasion would be wise.

Unfortunately we do need to remember that film is a genre and often shorthand, this is not a documentary. Whilst Stagg was head of the team, it was actually the Norwegian, Sverre Petterssen who noted the inbound storms that contradicted Krick’s forecast.

The main contention was that the Americans, who prior to the war, had been unusually successful in weather forecasts and had monetised this successfully, and… well money talks. Their methods were primarily using data to search for patterns and how they appear to repeat. Stagg and Petterssen were unimpressed by their pseudo-scientific approach. They used data, historic and current and sought nuance in context acknowledging that any forecast is not certain. The main point here is that Eisenhower had to take a leap of faith in a forecast that was not certain and contradictory to what he wanted to hear.

This is where the financial planning bit begins – humans like patterns. We look for reassurance in them. We often use terms like “history repeats itself”. We get comfort from notions like “success breeds success” and we certainly appear to believe that those who have amassed vast fortunes must have some special talent that the rest of us lack.

Your financial plan is a “best guess”; it is not a certainty. We do not know the future. Many years ago I bought a crystal ball as a prop to joke that it doesn’t work, designed to bring some levity to the task of forecasting, but I’ve never actually got it off the shelf for a meeting. Instead, at times I have used data, graphics and charts. You may have seen them (hopefully) and note that often it depends on the time we have together and the content and direction of our discussion. I will regularly show a chart of the world stock market with a lot of noted disastrous events over the last 100 years, yet the long-term trend of markets is relentlessly upwards.

Sometimes I use the “best performing markets” which often looks like a patchwork quilt – the pattern is that there is no pattern. Anyone who attempts to predict which assets, markets or sectors will be “top performers” next year is confronted by the data that tells us that this is extremely difficult to get right once, let alone repeat and those who do will not find comfort in the data from Standard and Poors which shows that the longer term success of investors outperforming the market is little more than luck – mathematically.

Enormous financial services companies, the Investment Banks with billions under management, give the impression that they have some special insight into the future. They employ very clever people with excellent credentials. They may have a reasonable amount of success and are well remunerated for it, but in the end, it’s mathematically inevitable that their outperformance reverts to mean (average) due to their weighted “bets” on sectors, companies etc. Big banks can charge big fees for their apparent success and it’s worth noting that our meteorologist Krick was an accomplished salesman for his services in California prior to the war.

We want to believe that some people have special insight. In reality, certainly in the business world and financial one in particular, that insight is often gained through questionable means. Information is deemed an advantage, and it can be, particularly if you pay $100,000 a month for a pre-leased feed of tweets before they are “officially” released by the most corrupt US administration to exist. A small advantage can be used to advantage, particularly in a rigged system.

Investors look for patterns in markets and stock prices, we often refer to events that help justify our beliefs (typically great crashes). Your financial plan is designed for your lifetime – hopefully decades, so the short-term challenges are really a blip on the charts. However, that truth doesn’t really comfort the reality of living through storms and attempts to predict, prepare and plan for them. As investors, we cannot control the metaphorical weather, we can merely control our responses.

So advisers and investors differ in their beliefs and it’s important to acknowledge this. Some will be convincing that short term advantages can be captured, that they have a system and process to do so and that it is reliable and repeatable. A lot (and I do mean a lot) of money is at stake and spent trying to persuade you that they do know best; that their crystal ball really does work. The long-term evidence does not support this view. What it does evidence is that a lot of people want to believe comforting stories that make the storyteller much richer, bigger, more successful, which in itself is evidence of their “wisdom”. To quote the James Stagg of the film “we must face the facts, however frightening they may be”.

The fact that your plan is a very good educated guess, does not mean it’s worthless, quite the opposite, but I hope that you will appreciate that we aren’t merely providing a forecast and leaving you to negotiate the stomach churning crossing to France, the Nazi machine guns and mines on the beaches and the assault on Hitler’s forces. We plan enormous importance of reviewing progress and keeping updated on the unfolding action (your circumstances and the real challenges).

Forecasting is incredibly difficult and even the appearance of success may have more to do with luck, which is why evidence is so important as well as proper regular reviews. We all want to live in a world of good news, but the truth is that the news we don’t want to hear is invariably the information we really need. Yes it does come with pressure.

I thoroughly enjoyed the film, Andrew Scott is typically great as is Brendan Fraser and watch out for Kerry Condon. Here is the official trailer.

Pressure (2026) , Directed by Anthony Maras, Starring Andrew Scott and Brendan Fraser. Produced by Working Title Films

References:

Pressure (2026): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32547691/

Sverre Petterssen forecast: https://journal.meteohistory.org/index.php/hom/article/view/15

Contentious history of D-Day forecasting: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160932704000511

National Archives: Operation Overlord: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/explore-by-time-period/second-world-war/operation-overlord-and-d-day/

Irving Krick: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/78/2/1520-0477-78_2_278.pdf

BBC interview (1964) with James Stagg: https://www.bbc.co.uk/videos/cp30qwdpe04o

S&P underperformance metrics: https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/research-insights/spiva/

The patchwork quilt of market returns: https://novelinvestor.com/asset-class-sector-and-global-market-quilts-updated-for-2025/

Trump $100,000 advanced feed: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/trump-media-pitched-100000-monthly-fee-fast-feed-us-presidents-posts-ft-reports-2026-07-17/

What we do: https://www.solomonsifa.co.uk/what-we-do/

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Performing under pressure?2026-09-25T17:08:34+01:00

Are Rising Temperatures Raising Prices?

Dominic Thomas 
Post written: Sept 2026  •  Published: Sept 2026
2 min read

Are Rising Temperatures Raising Prices?

We have had the warmest recorded temperatures in Europe and the UK this summer. Your garden, like mine will tell its own story and we are all aware of hosepipe bans in certain parts of the country, from our terribly run water infrastructure. You are probably aware of the increasing use of energy and water by data centres to power and cool computers for which the demand due to AI is almost exponential.

AI advocates promise that the technology will enable us to solve the energy crisis, but the climate and planet is paying the price. In Europe the subsequent drought has resulted in existing energy supplies being reduced, some countries even turning off nuclear power plants due to an inability to cool the system. Cooling (water) is also used in gas and even hydro dams have been impacted by reduced capacity. Even the wind turbines have had reduced output due to unusually low levels of wind. The only winner in 2026 has been solar, but with the caveat that there simply isn’t enough battery storage for excess energy.

It will likely take many weeks for rainfall to replenish water supplies and rivers, the predicted more extreme weather may well mean it all arrives at once, or not at all. Peter Magyar the Hungarian PM has been urging his country to conserve energy use, the problem is that the hot weather has resulted in increased use of air conditioning units. It’s a vicious circle.

Increasing costs of energy are quickly seen by each of us, but there are obvious subsequent effects on the price of production of almost everything. This is likely to result in sustained inflation levels and I suspect relatively high valuations of companies in the energy and utility sectors. I think it reasonable to assume we will be seeing increased prices in most of the things we all buy regularly, food being the most obvious. Where possible buy locally from a farmer near you. Whilst the more lunatic members of our political establishment may be in denial about climate change and think it’s just a hot summer with better English wine; the truth is rather different.

Sustainable energy is vital for our survival and I don’t know if we are actually past the tipping point as some people fear. We can all take some action, which might include using a portfolio that attempts to remove polluters and fossil fuel companies or at least dramatically reduce any allocation to them. So get in touch if you would like us to make this adjustment to your investments.

Here is video of Julia Dreblow, (who I have known since the early 1990s!)  who now runs research for advisers into this area. This is an old video (2022) of a talk on the basics of sustainable investing, which you may find of interest. She now runs her own annual conference that I try to get along to each year. As Julia says, there are lots of debates, grey areas and differing opinions, however, the problem is here and now undeniable.

Your portfolio can have a sustainability element to it. Whilst we would still largely be “buying the haystack” (rather than searching for the illusive needle) we can trim out some of the nastier stuff. As ever, the world and our knowledge of it is evolving and we have to adapt to new world reality.

References: 

Jellyfish and drought in France: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/08/12/heatwave-and-jellyfish-a-fifth-of-french-nuclear-capacity-offline

European Power Plants reducing output: https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/droughts-causing-nuclear-power-plants-in-europe-to-reduce-output-05-08-2026/

Hungarian PM concerns about power supplies at Paks: https://youtu.be/vpVsRTGmtd4?si=n-OAmFOPkXvKqBU9

International Energy Agency: https://www.iea.org/countries/united-kingdom

Energy mix – EU Eurostat: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/interactive-publications/energy-2026

Julia Dreblow’s Fund Ecomarket: https://www.fundecomarket.co.uk/

Julia Dreblow: https://www.fundecomarket.co.uk/about-us/

What we do: https://www.solomonsifa.co.uk/what-we-do/

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Are Rising Temperatures Raising Prices?2026-09-10T16:18:57+01:00

Can You Delay Dementia?

Dominic Thomas
Post written: Aug 2026  •  Published: Sept 2026
2 min read

Can You Delay Dementia?

Research from studies in the US suggest that people in their 50s making changes to their lifestyle, may increase their chances of being dementia free by 13 years. Is it that simple?

A report in New Scientist (15 August 2026) cites a study in the US by Josef Coresh at New York University. In essence, the study of about 12,000 Americans typically over a 26 year period concluded that chances of getting dementia are much lower for those people who had low blood pressure, do not smoke and do not have diabetes or to put it another way, concluded that people that smoke, have diabetes and high blood pressure are 2.7 times more likely to suffer from dementia.

One of the problems that we all tend to have when it comes to your financial planning is a general inability to grasp the potential health changes we may experience as we age. I may draw up your plan until you are 100, but it is likely that for most of us there will be a serious decline in health at some point. Typically this affects mobility and mental capacity, which impacts a loss of independence and is another good reason for everyone to sort out their own Power of Attorney.

Coresh set up and runs The Optimal Aging Institute, established in 2023, which is designed to connect research from around the world in this field. There are key factors that changes in lifestyle can help improve on the “normal” (typical) experience of decline in older adults. The sooner this is started the better, but actually it seems that fairly dramatic differences can be achieved whenever you begin to live more healthily.

There are some detractors to the research, its US focus (where food is heavily processed with lots of added “sugar”) and a lack of connection with hearing loss and isolation, as pointed out by Richard Siow at Kings College London, who is Director of ARK – Ageing Research at Kings.

Many of you are medics and I am significantly “outside of my lane” but I believe it accurate to say that high blood pressure, smoking and diabetes all damage blood vessels, which when inflamed damage neurons which normally help the brain to function well, particularly for memory and learning.

Whatever the research suggests, this is one area where some changes in our lifestyle, something that is within our control, but not without significant effort (and battle) may provide a considerable advantage in later life. I’m really glad that organisations like Kings and NYU exist to fund research into this. We have an ageing population (globally, not simply here) and need all the assistance we can get to avoid a massive pressure on care in later life (and therefore increased cost) which as many of you will know can be extremely expensive and a topic that recent Governments have continued to ignore.

Whilst many of you will have had experience of dementia with family members, there is a rather good film starring Anthony Hopkins (still working at 8X) called The Father. Here is the trailer.

The Father (2021), Directed by Florian Zeller, Starring Anthony Hopkins, Olivia Colman, Olivia Williams, Mark Gattis and Rufus Sewell. Produced by Film4

References:

Josef Coresh PHD: https://med.nyu.edu/faculty/josef-coresh

The Optimal Aging Institute: https://med.nyu.edu/departments-institutes/optimal-aging/   

Richard Siow at Kings: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/richard-siow

ARK: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/ageing-research-at-kings-ark

What we do: https://www.solomonsifa.co.uk/what-we-do/

The Father (2021). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10272386/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_accord_2_cdt_t_14

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Can You Delay Dementia?2026-09-10T13:43:35+01:00

Will they ever let me go?

Dominic Thomas
Post written: Aug 2026  •  Published: Aug 2026
3 min read

Will they ever let me go?

Today I had the great misfortune to have to telephone an old-style Insurance company. As anticipated, I was put through to a robotic assistant, which attempted to funnel me down its built-in filter. Despite numerous attempts at reading out the client policy number, it continued to loop back on itself; requesting I repeat the policy number, each time citing the same information, until eventually it gave up and put me through to Fiona, a human – phew! Who was able to quickly help.

I’m familiar with this company and know that their staff are actually rather good, but their telecoms are a challenge. It reminded me that one of the many reasons we move clients over to a modern high-tech platform is due to the burden of tedious administration and companies forgetting (or at least do their best to appear to) whose money it is… yours. Getting your money back, or a regular income in a timely, efficient manner is often overlooked by advisers, something that I believe to be a serious error of judgement.

This in mind, I was curious to spot an article about Virgin Media, who were recently found guilty of deliberately irritating their customers with ‘telephone tag’ as they tried to cancel their contracts. The constant pushing the call to someone else or being put on hold or simply cut off finally caught up with their commission-driven sales and servicing teams to the tune of a fine of £28m, which was discounted by 30% for admission of fault.

This was on the back of a £23.8m fine in December 2025 for disconnecting vulnerable telecare customers during the swap from analogue to digital. It’s not quite as substantial as BT’s £42m fine in 2017 for delays in providing ethernet lines. Ofcom hasn’t really issued that many fines, indeed since its inception at the end of 2003 one might consider it a little toothless. It can only fine a company up to 10% of its relevant turnover for ‘critical breaches’. Virgin Media reported 2025 revenue of £10,113.1m (so the latest £23m fine was 0.27% of revenue). Consider this in relation to the FCA (a watchdog with teeth) who levied fines of £124m last year alone, the fines issued by OFCOM are puny and clearly not a deterrent. OFCOM have come under increasing criticism for their lack of action on bias from “news channels”.

It is reported that the matter is now resolved (for calls between January 2022 and September 2024). Ofcom were “outraged” and hence took Virgin Media to task. You can read the statement for yourself. The UK telecom market now (2025 data) generates around £36bn of revenue across fixed, mobile and wholesale services. The average monthly mobile voice and phone spend has fallen from £74.03 in 2007 to £41.70 in 2025. Fixed line voice and data fell from £55.41 to £43.82 during the same period. You may find this helpful in your next negotiation about your own contract with one of the telecom providers. Ofcom also publish some tips to securing a better deal and cutting mobile costs.

References:

Ofcom statement about Virgin Media: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/vulnerable-customers/ofcom-fines-virgin-media-23.8-million-for-putting-vulnerable-customers-at-risk-of-harm

Ofcom – saving money tips: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/saving-money

Virgin Media financials: https://news.virginmediao2.co.uk/2026-financial-results/q1-2026-financial-results/

FCA fines covered in Spotlight: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/0271a02671.html#page/34

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Will they ever let me go?2026-09-10T14:10:50+01:00

Who is on your list?

Dominic Thomas
Post written: Aug 2026  •  Published: Aug 2026
3 min read

Who is on your list?

I recently went to see a new(ish) musical of the Japanese manga story “Death Note” at the Barbican, Directed by Stephen Whitson. It’s an imaginative story and a decent new musical, with a high level of energy and a fairly incredible set and large ensemble cast.

The story was originally written by Tsugumi Obha and drawn for the anime manga series by Takeshi Obata. The premise is perhaps one of the oldest struggles that we mortals wrestle with – is there any justice? Since the dawn of time, life has been “unfair” and “unjust”. Myth, religion and story all tend to wrestle with and explain this very fundamental cry of woe in a world that frequently feels unfair. Even Jesus observes in the sermon on the mount:

“He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45)

I’m not too familiar with Japanese myths or the faiths of Shinto, Buddhism or the general cultural mix, though I do find it intriguing. So quite how old the notion of other worldly gods and demons goes back is somewhat illusive. Obha introduces us to several “death demons” or Shinigami. They carry a book, into which they mercilessly play with humanity, the random writing of a name results in that persons death. Somewhat bored with his existence, one Shinigami called Ryuk, deliberately drops his book before a student with a clear sense of right and wrong called Light, who quickly learns that he can serve justice far faster than his father Soichiro, who is head of Japan’s National Police Agency. His “success” and liberal use leads to inevitable questions about the validity of his own version of “justice”.

It’s an enjoyable musical, with some good songs (music by Frank Wildhorn). I suspect that most of the audience quickly wonder whose name they might write down in the book, to be very candid, my list is very long and easy to produce, an evident flaw in my own character, which is probably the point.

We all want the world to be considerably better and much fairer, each day we are confronted with challenges to our sense of fairness, often in the small details, but invariably in big “news” stories of the day. However much you try, its inescapable, much like death. World culture is full of figures representing death, some are rather more palatable than others. Hades to Azreal. I was quite fond of “Death” in the Sandman, another “graphic novel”. Death was warm, welcoming, caring, compassionate and rather beautiful (played by Kirby Howell-Baptiste in the 2022 television series “The Sandman”).

Anyway, justice, as we know is often in short supply, illusive. As consumers we have the opportunity to exercise a moderate amount of consumer power against companies whose actions and behaviours we oppose. At a political level, we get to vote, as consumers we get to spend (or withhold spending) and perhaps vote at AGMs as many protestors attempt to do. Often the challenge feels enormous, perhaps overwhelming, but we are reminded from history that even small acts of resistance can bring about significant change.

Sadly I do not possess the ability to grant extended life and cure life threatening or life taking conditions. None of us escape death, as ever we are reminded and called to live well, on our own terms and to live justly, fairly – whatever that may mean for you. Your financial plan is best when designed around your values, so be aware that we expect this to be an ongoing discussion between us, without judgement about your views on life and death and the meaning ascribed to them. We can also discuss how your views on social issues like climate, sustainability, governance etc can be applied to your investments. Nothing will be “perfect” because you and I are not, neither is the world.

Here is the trailer for Death Note the Musical showing at The Barbican until 12 September 2026. I think it fair to say, audiences would typically be younger than “normal” which is a good thing to encourage people into theatres.

I’m sorry, but I simply cannot resist sharing this rather beautiful clip from the Netflix series “The Sandman”. Here are Kirby Howell-Baptiste (Death) and Tom Sturridge (Dream).

The Sandman (2022-2025), Created by David Goyer, Neil Gaiman and Allan Heinberg. Starring Tom Sturrige. Produced by Netflix

Your values for your financial plan. It’s your life.

References:

Death Note The Musical: https://deathnotethemusical.com/

Tickets at the Barbican: https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2026/event/death-note-the-musical

The Sandman: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1751634/

What we do: https://www.solomonsifa.co.uk/what-we-do/

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Who is on your list?2026-08-21T15:16:34+01:00

Why don’t I watch the football?

Dominic Thomas
Post written: July 2026  •  Published: Aug 2026
3 min read

Why don’t I watch the football?

Several years ago, a few more than I can recall, I took the decision not to watch the England men’s football team play. I enjoy football, though don’t really understand the obsessional nature of it. I certainly appreciate the skill, tactics, psychology and drama of a regular football season, but this changes for me at a national level.

Football to me is a team sport, playing together to score more goals than your opponent, playing by the rules and doing so fairly, where hopefully the better team on the day, wins. Yes, you are right, that is very naïve. There is something about “the beautiful game” that is nostalgic, taking many of us back to childhood and the misguided belief that perhaps we could be as good as our heroes (in my case Dalglish, Souness, Kennedy, Coppell (yes a Manchester United player), Keegan, Hughes and so on). There was a sense that being the best or winning the World Cup was not simply possible, but probable.

As an adult, I often watched England matches in despair, the collection of normally very good players rarely seemed to perform at the level of expectation.  They seemed laboured, dull, lacking creativity and attack; it seemed that it was more important not to lose than it was to win, resulting in many drawn matches, decided by a penalty shoot out. After various disappointing tournaments, I decided to stop the self-inflicted misery.

As every tournament comes around our media has very slowly learned to be a little less unrealistic about “football coming home”, until England progress to the next round and then suddenly hope and expectation surface in a weird xenophobic-tainted jingoism that feels rather contrived.

To me, the experience became joyless, stressful and disappointing. The inane commentary, constant discussion and assumption that this is all very patriotic and ‘normal’. The wasted time and money all in the hope that “this time it will be different”.

I observed the obvious. A football competition has only one winner, everyone bar the final winning team is ultimately left disappointed. The chance of winning is not purely mathematical, the competition is designed to attempt to eventually pit the better teams against one another, it has deliberately inbuilt bias. The typical experience has the resonance of a gambler who continues to return in the hope of the big win, despite the system being designed for loss.

You might say that it’s good to be optimistic and that we should all be patriotic; wishing our team success and supporting them. Well I do… and don’t. However noble the players are, I don’t know them (I have a media impression) and they do not really represent me at all, they represent a nation I was born in, live in, work in and pay tax in. This is true of any national sport. I find myself wanting the best team to win, but occasionally wanting a team with a particularly interesting story to win. Is that wrong? I would rather play at my best and lose to a better team than cheat, play cynically and win.

I don’t have any ill feelings towards the players, they are young men, trying to do their best for the few moments that they truly get to influence terribly much. They carry huge expectation and face venomous criticism, mostly misplaced and unfair from ‘fans’. However, I have always struggled with the concept of winning at all costs. The first World Cup I remember (which made an impression) was Argentina in 1978. Watching the fouls, diving, feigned injury, ham acting and general cheating was shocking to me at that point. Today it’s normalised.

The notion of fairness or fair play is hard to really quantify or even succinctly define, yet we know it when we see it. It’s why I have struggled with investing, knowing that many companies are far from ‘fair’ in how they treat their staff, contractors, suppliers, customers and the planet. I cannot pretend that they are “great companies”; they are not; they are successful ones in a rigged system. In the same way that a number of world leaders and politicians are ‘successful’ but it’s all based on deceit and corruption.

In the end, records simply show results, who won and when. They don’t capture context, struggle or any of the human aspects of what occurred. We have to do the remembering, which is flawed and full of bias and probably error. Over time the record is increasingly the only truth.

I am often accused of being too much of a purist, that this is simply how the world has always been and it’s not changing, so I must accept reality. The older part of me understands this, but the younger part is disappointed in my apparent willingness to accept unfairness and stop trying to make things fairer or better.

We collectively tend to delegate the role of making the world better to our elected “representatives”, but are reminded that being disappointed by politicians is normal, yet we continue to hope and have those hopes dashed. We will witness whether the new Prime Minister will be any better, fairer, just or empathic than his predecessors, we can hope, but the depressingly familiar reality is that words are cheap and positive, attacking, organised, thoughtful strategies to actually ‘win’ (improve our lives) are rare. It is sadly more likely that behind the scenes money and power will shape the results precisely how they intend. Just like in the World Cup.

But just so that you know, I live in the hope and belief that things could actually really be much better for us all, not simply for a powerful few. What I can tell you is that we don’t have as much control as we would like, a financial plan is an active attempt to regain some, where we can, determining how we live and the values for which we stand so that we can make the best of the limited time we have, our equivalent 90 minutes; and then we ourselves are history.

I work with real people who understand their values, want to live by them in a complex, imperfect world and that winning is about how you live, not the amount of gold you amass.

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Why don’t I watch the football?2026-08-13T13:13:42+01:00

Are You Singing Your Song?

Dominic Thomas
Post written: July 2026  •  Published: July 2026
3 min read

Are You Singing Your Song?

I rarely write about the death of someone famous, instinctively I find the outpouring a little false. Today I’m making an exception and acknowledging my own internal drama.

If asked for something they remember me saying, my daughters would probably say “everybody dies”. I have said this too often, sometimes placing emphasis on the gap between “every” and “body”. I don’t possess some morbid obsession with death, rather that I am aware of the brevity of life and the unstoppable journey we make towards our end. My family have lost a lot of people we hold dear, it’s a stage we all reach, but ours seemed to begin almost from the moment my second daughter was born, some 31 years ago.

In my work, I have been truly lucky to work for and with some wonderful people, who have also died. I’m mischievously sometimes called “Dom Doom” because I am not afraid to verbalise the darker realities of life, the potential disasters and its end. I can see how this may present as being a pessimist or curmudgeon as one person told me, but that’s not my intention, quite the opposite – which is to find joy, love and hope despite the misery and challenges, to encourage others to similarly seek to tread lightly, dancing to the beauty within and around, celebrating life as it is breathed.

I’m writing now having been listening to Glen Hansard songs. He’s not known to all in the way that Bowie, Jackson, Mercury etc were, but he is certainly well-loved by those of us who would describe ourselves as fans. Maybe it’s just me, but I also tend to think of other fans as people I’d like. He died yesterday at just 56 due to a motorcycle accident in Dublin.

I first became aware of his music through the film Once which is a small, joyful tale and a little representative of his own life (but not). We have a poster of the staged musical version, signed by the London cast in our Boardroom. There is something within it that always touches me to my core, something artists seek to explore and convey, what many of us might wish “to bottle”.

Since the film was released in 2006, I have attended many of his gigs when he was in London. The Union Chapel, The Southbank, The Palladium, The Apollo to name a few. I last saw him in December 2025 at a charity fundraiser for Streets of London at the Royal Albert Hall. As a street musician, he seemed to find an affinity with the homeless and each Christmas Eve has been running a street concert with others in aid of the Dublin Simon Community; there is something about this that sums up who I imagined him to be rather beautifully.

Most of us don’t really know the artists we love, for me the ones that I particularly like are those who seem to bridge that very obvious and real void between us. Of course this is projection and fantasy from a psychological perspective, yet seems to pierce the spirit of human connection. It’s not simply the sound, tune, words, look or even the feelings evoked, but something beyond them when they align in a way that makes us, well me, vibrate at a very pithy, core, innate level of rawness.

I cannot make anyone feel as I do, I may encourage you to explore “the work” but we all have different tastes, preferences and responses. Hansard always felt deeply honest, broken, human, fragile yet incredibly strong, generous and loving. I projected onto him my “love of the Irish” for their deep history of art, literature, poetry and music, character- forming from centuries of struggle with brutal people much like the fools causing widespread misery and chaos who are in power today.

All eulogies pander to sentimentalism and selective stories, we all know that, but nevertheless they are valid and important expressions of what we value. This week I met with some business owners looking for an adviser, I don’t know if they will become clients, their enquiry was initially about something quite basic – what to do with the cash building in their business account. I wanted to encourage them to think more deeply and longer term, about what they really wanted from their business, how they wanted to leave it – starting with the end in mind as Stephen Covey might suggest. I don’t think it was quite what they were expecting, but for me understanding the end helps me anticipate some of the hurdles in between and how those are managed will depend on how clear the end goal or values are.

It’s a question that I have posed to you, maybe dressed differently – but how do you want to live? How do you wish to be remembered? What are the values that are truly and deeply important to you? What makes you really sing? What is your story? What is your great work? This is actually what I enjoy most about my work.

Life can be cruel, cut short, deliver bad and unexpected news. We have all had some, some more than others, and some of us use that as a guide, not the motive, but a reference to make our time count, and count well. It is my hope and desire to help you achieve that, and as much as I know there will be challenges, will still wish “your winning streak, may it never end”.

References:

Glen Hansard website: https://glenhansard.com/

Once – the 2006 film: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0907657/

Once – the musical (2013 launch at Phoenix Theatre, London) https://officiallondontheatre.com/news/onces-london-cast-ep-202624/

Streets of London Homeless Charity: https://www.streetsoflondon.org.uk/news/streets-of-londons-starry-night-2025-raises-150-000

Dublin Simon Community: https://www.dubsimon.ie/

Stephen R Covey – 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/books-the-7-habits-of-highly-effective-people-revised-and-updated-by-stephen-r-covey or any good taxpaying bookseller.

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Are You Singing Your Song?2026-07-30T18:30:40+01:00

What is it to be known?

Dominic Thomas
Post written: March 2026  •  Published: July 2026
3 min read

What is it to be known?

Most of us wish to live in harmony with our neighbours, as we all know there are various politicians and political parties who clearly attempt to find reasons to instil a sense of difference and division. The aim is not to harmonise, but to homogenise. What is disappointing (understatement) is the way in which media outlets, once respectable and respectful now collude to promote outrage and hatred. The coverage of the by-election won by Hannah Spencer both before and after the actual local vote is an appalling display of ignorance.

Story is important, it’s how we reflect who we are and how we hope to be. I was at the preview of the opening of Our Town at the wonderful local Rose Theatre in Kingston. The American play by Thornton Wilder (1938) has been described as a great American play. The central theme is that life is brief and we all fail to appreciate the joy of the mundane or ordinary.

Set in a fictional town Grovers Corners in the north eastern US State of New Hampshire touching the Canadian border, the region was home to natives like the Abenaki, until the Europeans arrived in the 1600s. The area renamed as New Hampshire in 1629. It is 1901 and only 35 years since the end of slavery, but of course not segregation. As I hadn’t read the programme notes prior to the performance I found Director Francesca Goodridge’s choice to set it in Wales yet to retain all the American names, terms and social icons whilst delivered as though set in the Rhonda valley to be an odd one.

It caused me to wonder how the Welsh might consider an affinity with New Hampshire. We can acknowledge the wars between the “English” and “Welsh” or at least Saxons since records began in the 5th century, a vast amount history and fighting over the control of land, with the first war of Welsh independence in 1277.

You may think I’m projecting more than is there, but surely we are all living through a period when misplaced nostalgia and a sense of historic cultural identity are very much being used to divide people around who truly ‘belongs’. So this seems like an odd and deliberate choice, to once again extol virtues that didn’t exist and the cultural norms based on little of substance, sharing the commonality of a lack of thoughtfulness.

Wilder exposes us to the competing churches, of essentially the same religion, division already calcified and formalised, which is certainly a Welsh experience. The socially approved singular pathway to happiness of marriage, children and death. These are currently politicised, with Reform and misogynists contemplating taxing childless women (all a part of the eugenics and replacement theory nonsense) and a vile toxic male culture fostered online by some dreadful examples of ‘men’ who seem eager to tell women how to be and what families are, whilst never having one or abandoning those that they have.

Central characters George and Emily marry, but with a sense of forced urgency passed off as nerves, seeming to lack time for a thoughtful discussion about what each might want from life, but to simply follow the path set down by their ancestors, with George taking over his uncle’s farm rather than heading off to further education (How Green is My Valley? anyone…) So I’m not sure if Goodridge was merely pointing to a smalltown mentality and the commonly shared experiences of life – but why not change the terms? Isn’t the point of a common experience to relate rather than replicate? There is a sense in which Wilder seems to bemoan the changes ushered by progress, the arrival of the motor car and locking doors, the growth of the town yet the sense of familiarity as those who leave return and almost everyone stays. The newsworthy gossip and the suggestion that Policing was once friendly and amenable and newspapers were fair.  It is these nostalgic notions that politicians attempt to exploit.

Wilder, like all of us, a product of his time, doesn’t appear to have anyone in his fictional town of any other ethnicity. There is an ability to witness depression, hardship and struggle, dress it up as stoicism and resilience whilst ignoring any attempt to engage, remedy and repair; failing to encourage thoughtful different approaches. To my mind this isn’t a very Welsh approach, a nation that has protested and fought hard for positive, inclusive social change. The community of Grovers Corners seems to be pretending that everyone is happy, as Mrs Soames exclaims, “I’m sure they’ll be happy. I always say: happiness, that’s the great thing! The important thing is to be happy.”

A Director makes choices, the cast all worked extremely hard on their execution of a precise and energetic living set, but I found the play to be reductionist and overly simplistic. Michael Sheen plays the Stage Manager, a role that’s been performed by Henry Fonda, Paul Newman and Alan Alda and he is a wonderful actor (and a very decent human).  I’m just not convinced that the play is really terribly worthy.

Your financial plan is a reflection of your values and is arguably a record of your story, full of major and minor events, but any good plan starting with the end in mind – the goal to make your own meaningful life, rather than meaning made from it by others. Context is everything, adapting to circumstance and reality whilst holding firm to values that actually matter to you rather than social expectations. Whilst Wilder reminds us of the brevity of life and to appreciate the time we have, I think he fails to convey the complexity, the nuance of the struggle of living in the present whilst having a mind for the future. In my opinion, It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) is a far better take on the same ideas.

Anyway, as ever, make up your own mind. Here is the promotional trailer.

References:

New Hampshire “Official” History: https://www.nh.gov/almanac/history

Native Nations Institute: https://nni.arizona.edu/

Welsh History: https://hwb.gov.wales/resources/welsh-history

Taxing Childless Women Comment: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2026/02/19/sophia-money-coutts-declining-birth-rate/

Kruger rant : https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/24/reform-danny-kruger-uk-totally-unregulated-sexual-economy

Its a Wonderful Life: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/

Welsh National Theatre Our Town Information: https://www.welshnationaltheatre.com/our-town

Kingston Rose : https://www.rosetheatre.org/whats-on/our-town-m74x

Our Town – Thornton Wilder: https://thorntonwilder.com/our-town

Replacement theory nonsense: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/08/a-deadly-ideology-how-the-great-replacement-theory-went-mainstream

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What is it to be known?2026-07-24T16:54:25+01:00

How can we make Spotlight better?

Jemima Thomas 
Post written: May 2026  •  Published: May 2026
2 min read

How can we make Spotlight better? We would love to hear from you!

We’ve been receiving some glowing reviews of our latest edition of Spotlight (thank you all so much!). We do try to ensure it’s an easy read as well as being as informative as possible – Spotlight is and should be completely designed for you.

I would like to take this opportunity to ask if there are any topics you may want to read about that we have not yet touched on. We know the changes to IHT rules in April 2027 are looming on the horizon, and so we will be communicating with you on this subject to ease any concerns that you may have.

Additionally, we are exploring new ways to enhance your reading experience, whether through interactive features, expert interviews or in-depth analyses of trending topics. We are committed to keeping Spotlight fresh and relevant, and your suggestions play a crucial role in this process.

Please do not hesitate to reach out with your thoughts and ideas; any feedback is greatly appreciated as it helps us further tailor our content to better suit your needs. Your input is invaluable in guiding the direction of our future editions and ensuring that Spotlight continues to serve as a reliable and engaging resource.

Thank you once again for your continued support and enthusiasm. We look forward to hearing from you! Please feel free to email me at [email protected]

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How can we make Spotlight better?2026-06-23T15:10:27+01:00

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