This week it rolled out interim profits 6 per cent higher at £3.8m and, for good measure, increased its half-time dividend payment.Although it runs a chain of approaching 500 pubs, Burtonwood is not quite a pure retailer. It still has brewing interests.Another portfolio constituent produced interim figures this week. City of London, the investment, internet and public relations group, suffered a 7.9 per cent profits downturn to £350,000 but held its dividend payment The company is the portfolio’s one and only hi-tech play. It has minority but powerful stakes in three internet companies, which seem, on the whole, to be making progress, albeit at a tantalisingly slow pace. Still, City of London’s hi-tech side was unlikely to ever be a quick return investment.The group’s shares have had a roller coaster ride since I tipped them at 117p in August 1999.

In the subsequent frenetic internet scramble they roared to 937.5p. The price is now a much more subdued 142.5p after dipping below 100p. Clearly City of London represents a splendid example of my policy of locking in profits by cashing in, say, half a shareholding if a share enjoys a surge into the stratosphere. Although the portfolio is intended for the long haul, I think such action should always be contemplated. After all, there is no harm whatsoever in taking a profit, even if it does mean leaving something for the next investor.In the main, the portfolio is a pretty cautious one City of London represents its most dashing investment.

With the chairman, John Greenhalgh, keen to continue dividend payments and the seemingly declining income from the public relations side, the group offers the unique combination of a high degree of speculation with the benefit of dividend cheques landing on door mats twice a year.Derek derekpain.totalserve.co.uk. I’ve been thinking about selling my Marks & Spencer shares Again. I’ve written about the M&S investment experience in this column before, but just to recap, I bought them in 1993 at 333p, watched them rise to about 630p by the autumn of 1997 only to watch them collapse to about 180p by last Christmas. Since then they’ve been one of the best performing FTSE100 shares, and are around the level I bought them at Nightmare over, but I am now gripped by indecision. Moneynetsavingssearch I’ve been thinking about selling my Marks & Spencer shares Again. Nightmare over, but I am now gripped by indecision.
I’ve weighed the prospects for the company’s recovery, read whatever I can about it, read interviews with the new(ish) chief executive Luc Vandevelde I’ve even been round some of the stores I still can’t make my mind up The only thing left was philosophy. Having shouldered my paper losses on M&S stoically, I was intrigued to read a piece by Alain de Botton in The Independent’s Wednesday Review.

According to de Botton, stoicism doesn’t simply mean accepting everything that life throws at you, including lousy results from M&S. The greatest exponent of stoicism, Seneca (AD1 to 65), asked us to perform an odd exercise every morning, which involved lying in bed before breakfast and imagining everything that could go wrong in the day ahead. That might make me even later for work than usual, but in the case of M&S, it’s worth a go.So what could go wrong for Marks? Quite a lot, like yet another poor Christmas. The disappointment would be more acute now than before because there have, so far, been some signs of recovery. What’s more, M&S will have less room for manoeuvre having gone through one restructuring already. After all, if you’ve sold all your foreign operations and leased back the stores, you can’t do it again.