You seem never to speak to the same voice twice in fact most of the time you

You seem never to speak to the same voice twice, in fact most of the time you are lucky to speak to a live voice at all.Private investors tend to fall in love with the shares they research. A reasoned and dispassionate expert opinion before a final buy decision is made would be invaluable.All these problems can and should be tackled by the brokers if they want to provide a meaningful and comprehensive service to their customers.But I have saved my biggest grouse until last and it is one the industry generally seems to be ignoring. Many of the largest stockbrokers, particularly those that are owned by Americans and want us to trade via the Internet, insist we use their nominee accounts to hold our shares I have no objection to that, it cuts out paperwork. However, it also divorces the investor from the company whose shares he has bought.I have used an execution-only broker to manage my active portfolio (as opposed to my PEPs, ISAs, pension and so on) for four years now. At a conservative estimate we are talking about a total of more than 50 shares.

In all that time, and despite repeated requests to the broker, I have never received a copy of an annual report or any other communication direct from the companies in which I am a shareholder.From talking to other investors I know I am not just unlucky. But I am a patient fellow, I will send a copy of this article to the broker and give him one more chance. If nothing happens I will take my business elsewhere.PS: When is the market going to crash? Not yet, Alvin Hall tells me. He's the American guru who's becoming a television star over here with a new BBC series on money and how to manage it. Alvin reckons markets around the world will be fired by Millennium fever and will make sure we go into the new year on a high.PPS: Thrilled to see one of my investments, The Money Channel, bounced a third this week on news that it had signed a sales and marketing agreement with Granada. One national newspaper referred to the company as "Adam Faith's Money Channel" but my researches have not revealed an A Faith among the shareholders There is however a Mr T Nelhams-Wright who owns 13.7 per cent Are A Faith and T. Nelhams-Wright one and the same? I think we should be told.Terry Bond is a private investor with a substantial portfolio involved principally in British and American equities.

He is also a director of ProShare (UK) Ltd., the organisation which looks after the interests of the investor in the corridors of power. He is responsible for guiding the development of the investment club movement.. A CRASH helmet is now standard for children. Ellis Brigham stores have added helmets to their rental service because schools are making them compulsory for under-10s on ski trips; the same company reports that virtually 100 per cent of parents buying skis for children also buy a helmet. And in some resorts they are necessary: in Scandinavia, for example, lift-passes are free for children - provided they are wearing a helmet But for adults, it's a different story.

The recent deaths of Michael Kennedy and Sonny Bono highlighted the issue of whether adults should also wear helmets, and last year's Good Skiing Guide campaigned for their use. Drawing a parallel with the growing use of safety helmets by cyclists in London, the guide was "confident that skiing and snowboarding will follow the same pattern". But Snow+Rock, which offers four types of adult helmet (from pounds 69.95 to pounds 129.95) in its retail catalogue, was unable to report much evidence of this, revealing only that sales were "in double figures".In a debate in US Ski magazine, both sides agreed that the deaths of Kennedy and Bono - caused by collisions with trees - would not have been prevented by helmets; and the pro-lobbyist accepted that "the risk of a catastrophic head-injury [while] skiing is statistically infinitesimal".With odds like that, it seems that hard-headed British adults don't feel the case for helmet-wearing has really been made.. British skiers are creatures of habit, and some of their habits are quite peculiar Take the chalet holiday, for example. Back in the Forties and Fifties, when money was tight and skiing was an adventure, the idea of mucking in with a makeshift chalet community was obviously acceptable, perhaps desirable; but why does the tradition still live on, though there are few other circumstances in which holiday-makers would willingly share bathrooms and meals with a group of perfect (or imperfect) strangers? Adherence to the discipline of staying for a week in a single resort remains fairly strict, too, at a time when other travellers are demanding the flexibility of short breaks, twin-centre holidays, and so on. And the ritual of Saturday transfers lives on, to the extent that when Eurostar - which normally dashes back and forth through the Channel Tunnel - provides a service for skiers, it has the frequency of an obscure branch-line train, with arrivals and departures in the Alps offered on only one day each week. Yet things are changing.

Innovations such as First Choice's Friday-night flights and the growth of the North American market, where most operators offer 10- and 11-night packages as well as weeks, have loosened the traditional strait-jacket. The proportion of skiers travelling "independently" (ie making their own arrangements, or booking through a small operators) has increased, from less than 5 per cent at the beginning of the Eighties to 24 per cent last season, further freeing up the market.And, to the consternation of Alpine resorts, which have always appreciated British skiers for their willingness - not shared by their local clients - to commit themselves to a full week of skiing and spending, there is a growing trend for weekend breaks.Gavin Foster says that when he started Ski Weekend with his wife in the 1985/6 season, "there might have been some companies featuring weekend breaks at the back of their brochure, but there was no one in the marketplace actively selling them". In its first season, Ski Weekend had 350 clients; this season it expects to have 2,000 And it is not alone in the market- place now. There are other weekend specialists, notably White Roc and Flexiski; and several ski operators, such as Momentum Travel, offer weekend breaks alongside a more traditional holiday programme.Foster came up with the weekend-break idea while working as a ski-instructor in Chatel ("I was a bit mature for that sort of work; I was bored, and that got me thinking"), where he set up Ski Weekend's first season. "But it soon became apparent that Chamonix, to which we sent a few clients, had far greater scope as a weekend destination," he says. Since then, Chamonix has been Ski Weekend's Alpine base, with about 70 per cent of its clients skiing there; it has an office and representatives in the resort and, on an average weekend, seven or eight mountain guides and instructors out on the slopes each day.Ski Weekend's prices start at pounds 369 which, in the pre-Christmas season, buys a three-night trip to a three-star hotel in Chamonix, including the scheduled flights and airport transfers.