A member of the Lyons family wanted to have accurate up to date accounts for the 250 tea shops covered and devised a computing system which a department of Cambridge University was paid to develop. The resulting system was called LEO which stands for Lyons Electronic Office. I presume that this would have been immediately after WWII.

Nearly thirty years ago a junior RAF officer crawled up to some lady sitting on a bench at Ascot and using a camera attached to a pole was able to photograph the covered parts of the lady. For this he was found guilty of a crime. But this seems to me to have been a miscarriage of justice in that if the lady in question was wearing nickers no intrusion could have occurred and if she was not our gallant young man would have identified a gross breach of the laws relating to publ

Kick off is at 5.00 p.m. London time at Budapest. Take Paris St Germain to win at 90 minutes. 6/4 against will do.

His school report was brief and read: Rarely Seen Written by Simon Cawkwell, May 2026

There is no escaping this subject. When BBC Radio2's Vernon Kay and his wife of twenty-three years, Tess Daly, announced that they were splitting I was astonished. Although I base my judgment of Tess's position in legmanship contestants on a photo of her collecting an MBE at Buckingham Palace a few weeks ago I could have reverted to her sweeping pins revealed in Strictly Come Dancing. Anyway, it's done now and more's the pity.

Dominic died about four weeks ago. He could be good fun. For instance when working at the Daily Express he ran a story on a lady who had consorted with a cabinet minister. Dominic knew her and offered the headline story "She gave a great toe job". Which she might have. Not long afterwards he popped up at The Sunday Times and asked me whether Polly Peck could include a story which centred on the claim that Asil Nadir could include a racehorse in debtors. I assured Dominic that

As it happens I am a member of Reform UK and have paid the annual sub of £25. But I do wonder whether this position is strictly wise A few months ago Nigel Farage declared that e would save £234.9bn in HMG expenditure but he did not say how or where or when and knocking off £100m to make the promise look scientifically respectable is just tosh. And tonight Nigel Farage wants and will introduce favourable taxation of overtime earnings. This should be great for the earnest pru

I await the IR guy to contact me on patent protection. Today's surge would be nothing by comparison to what might happen if the order book continues to build as I hope it might. I paid 35p this morning.

Ms Cooper has described the Israeli Security Minister as Far Right. And there we all were thinking that this chap's job was to attend to the security of Israel. If he were to fail he gets the bullet. If not, he carries on. How can he be Far Right. Indeed what is a far right anybody? Written by Simon Cawkwell, May 2026

ULTP has been declining for a long term but recent results do not reflect the fact that this company is changing its nature and that it is probably into an expansionary phase and therefore on PE of 4 in 2027. TNAV is only £10m as against a capitalisation of £40m. But I reckon that the market will rate according to earnings rather than putative break up value. I bought 100,000 at 47p this morning. Written by Simon Cawkwell, May 2026

Jan Hetherington has written a series Conversations From A Long Marriage which is based on Joanna Lumley and Roger Allum. It is superbly presented (Radio4 2.15 p.m. Mondays). My wife has for many years been of the view that I am not safe with the thought of Joanna Lumley around and she might be just a little bit right. Indeed some years ago I wrote to the Honours secretariat suggesting she be uplifted to the Marchioness of Larfs. And I copied this to Joanna. There's adoration

Rather to my surprise Bulgaria did not win the Scottish premiership despite the non-intervention of VAR. Written by Simon Cawkwell, May 2026

There are circa 30m workers in this country of whom 500,000 are civil servants. For the next two months at least there will be a widespread lack of clarity and therefore effectiveness infesting the top layer whilst the Labour Party sorts out the staggering mess that it has generated. There is no apology from these monkeys yet. Incidentally, there is a belief on the left wing of the PLP that Britain is in thrall to the bond markets and that therefore the cure is to print out m

I had quite a setback on PANR when test drilling of the Alaskan property simply did not produce anything attractive - causing those whose original opinion had been that American majors had left the entire prospect alone for many years. However, Michael Spencer, an intelligent fellow, declared that he reckons that there is a great deal of oil to hand and has therefore taken a stake. I decided to wait until the price had started to lift - which yesterday is exactly what happene

I expect to be assassinated now that I disclose that I simply do not understand what feminism is. Please be gentle. Written by Simon Cawkwell, May 2026

It has been quite a while since, seemingly, IES got going. Electricity storage is very helpful and IES's batteries do just that. I paid 23p this morning and suspect that I am on a serious long term winner. Written by Simon Cawkwell, May 2026

This has been lately published by Sir Anthony Beevor. But I have found it very difficult to follow mainly because of all the many Russian names which cannot be be readily followed. For this reason alone, absurd though it may appear, I do not recommend this book. Written by Simon Cawkwell, May 2026

The late Enoch Powell pointed out that there was no evidence that the threat of the death penalty reduced the murder rate. Written by Simon Cawkwell, May 2026

Ms Heyer married a mining engineer and lawyer, a Mr Rougier. But my introduction to the family Rougier was through appearing as an expert witness of and for a Mr B, an unpleasant fellow, in the High Court. Sir Richard was very kind to me as I muddled through the misfiled papers given to me by Mr B's lawyers. Nonetheless Mr B won and I like to think that this was because of my efforts in large part. Anyway, a few weeks after the trial I invited Sir Richard to dinner at The Caf