So, this is probably going to disappoint a lot of readers but this isn’t really a “blog” as you’ve come to know them this week. Instead it is a self-serving request of you, my favourite people, the ones who have sacrificed at least 15 minutes a week for the past 10 plus years to humour me as I rant and rave about subjects dear to my heart, if to always yours.

To explain. As some of you regular readers may know, I turned sixty last June and my lovely wife did the completely unexpected and unthinkable for a birthday gift.

She took the entire compendium of blogs off our website and with the assistance of online tools published what can only be described as the collected works of Stu Parnell – sometime investment banker and Friday afternoon scribbler (except for that one guest blog by the smartest energy guy in the room, Rory Johnston).

At any rate, this was a monstrous undertaking. Five volumes, 500 pages each. Apparently I had a lot to say!

But out of this came an idea, which was to collect the “Greatest Hits” so to speak and arrange them into a smaller more concentrated volume, perhaps in the form of a coffee table book featuring commentary from myself primarily but also anyone who wanted to share something.

I would then self-publish this book to conveniently use as Christmas gifts, promotional material and doorstops around the office but also to make it available for sale (on whatever platform does this) with all proceeds for a designated charity – to be determined once this project achieves lift off.

What I need from you

I need your favourites so that I can start assembling them. Any blog that resonated either because of the theme, the tone, the subject matter. Whatever.

It would be presumptuous of me to select my favourites without asking you, who suffers through this along with me, what yours might be.

So, please feel free to email me at your leisure two or three blogs you remember liking, and if you want to say why, please do that. And if you want your comment to be preserved and immortalized, please give me permission to do so.

Emails should go sparnell@stormontcapital.com and please include as much detail as possible so I can search more effectively. There are after all close to 5000 entries (good lord). And it will easier to search for “the one where the waiting to build a pipeline was done as a rewrite of the existentialist despair of Waiting for Godot” than “I liked the pipeline one”.

I am forever grateful for your continued subscription and support in the continuation of the blog and this project. If you want a copy, let me know and I will add you to the list.

Regular complaining will resume next week with my Q3 forecast report card. Ugh.