The first cut is the cheapest: Tom Glocer's blog
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The first cut is the cheapest: Tom Glocer's blog

Nowadays, it seems that virtually every Tom, Dick and Harry has a blog. I loathe the word, but as the self-proclaimed Martin Peters of financial blogging, I can see the attraction of having a website where you can vent your frustrations and post your musings.

Some of you may be wondering who Martin Peters is – he was a great footballer and member of the 1966 World Cup winning team. Sir Martin Peters, to give him his full title, was so good that he was frequently described as being 10 years ahead of his time.

To call myself the Martin Peters of financial blogging is a bold and arrogant claim. But, even if I say so myself, it’s justifiable. In late 2002, I set up a website with various muckers under the pseudonym of Mr Angry. This was a pre-blog blog, and for that reason alone I claim to have been ahead of my time. The site’s purpose was to provide a forum on which people could rant about financial topics on a regular basis. One of our most popular tactics was to send an email to a company’s chief executive or chairman and ask awkward questions. As the site said: “The way these captains of industry respond says much about the companies they run.”

We scored some notable successes and along the way we discovered that those chief executives who felt able to respond without the aid of their lawyers were normally at the helm of companies that were either about to turn around or were already doing well – notable examples were Ben Verwaayen at BT and Stuart Rose at Marks & Spencer.

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