October 2009
1 post
September 2009
1 post
Bank of England Governor says currency fall would...
The Times reports that the Pound drops to 5 month lows against dollar, Euro now worth 91.4p etc. etc.
Mervyn’s right of course, the UK economy is in a mess and you need some stiff inflation to stop people spending money they don’t have and to start reducing the UK current account, but I liked one of the user comments to the article:
“Boost output of what? Increase exports of...
June 2009
1 post
Canon Digital Camera Customer Service -...
I’ve had a Canon Ixus V2 digital camera since about 2002, just 2 megapixel, great picture and it’s been solid as a rock. A few months ago, however, I switched it on and the screen wouldn’t show the picture from the lens.
I couldn’t work out what was wrong, so I did a bit of hunting around on the web and it turns out that it was probably the CCD, the part in the camera that...
May 2009
1 post
April 2009
1 post
3 tags
Petition on the 10 Downing Street web site, you... →
March 2009
2 posts
January 2009
1 post
M&S cuts 1,000 jobs as fashion sales dive →
To be honest, it wasn’t the headline that grabbed my attention, it was the comment that was left at the bottom of the online article by a reader of The Times website:
“This is no ordinary P45. It is a Marks and Spencer’s P45, complete with a crisp white envelope and in delicately detailed print.” Andy, Liverpool, UK
I didn’t realise that they had M&S in...
November 2008
1 post
1 tag
October 2008
5 posts
1 tag
The old ones are the best... →
Now that the Icelandic Landsbanki bank has gone bust, the UK government wants to short-term lend it £100m. Given that Iceland has no money, a load of debt and a now a ‘patchy’ credit history, I wonder if the interest rate will be at a ‘Crazy Joe’s’ level of, say 29.9% APR?
Anyway, let us not ponder why the UK government watched Landsbanki collapse, asked for our...
Word of the day: 'Genau'
Think ‘Get’ and ‘Now’. Lose the ‘t’ and say them together. ‘Genow’. This is a word used in everyday German, well, it is where I work, anyway. It means ‘exactly’.
It’s usage is like when you buy a car that you’ve hardly ever seen around before; when you get your one, there’s one on every street.
Once you stumble across...
How about some good stuff?
You know, my blog seems to be full of misery. Mostly about the UK economy and all that. Well, maybe that’s just how it is.
But actually, I’m feeling really good. I knew all of this was going to happen, so I’m not too fussed.
The summer has been good, I can afford to go shopping and drive around and my partner is usually cheery. Life could be a lot worse!
A few days ago, she...
Frying Pan and Fire: Landsbanki Goes Bust →
I always wondered how Iceland could have a couple of banks that were offering great interest rates on savings, yet still have UK FSCS backing, so you get a pay out if they go bust.
Actually, Landsbanki has only partial FSCS cover, the Iceland government has to stump up the first 15 grand, which is why I favoured Kaupthing when looking for a good place to dump savings, but I’ll come to...
September 2008
2 posts
“Selling the cherries, but keeping the stones.”
– Some random comment about current the UK ‘Government’ from a Times Online article this weekend. Quite appropriate I thought. More bailout for your toxic assets, Vicar?
“Ich bin lerne gern nicht Deutche. Ich finden es sehr schwer.”
– Phillip Eaton, 2008-09-12
July 2008
3 posts
Instructions: Open bag, insert computer.
I just received my new carry case for my work laptop. It’s nice one, made by Lenovo, to match the computer. I’m not sure why it needs a 32 page manual, though, each page covered with 10-point Times New Roman…
Nationwide Polishing a Turd?
You have to love Nationwide’s optimisim when dealing with the House Price Crash, it makes them sound like a used-car salesman. This is from their House Price Index website, http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/default.asp:
Pace of house price falls slows in June
House prices fell by 0.9% in June, less than half the rate of the previous month.
Prices are 6.3% lower than this time last year,...
“Simplicity, Focus and Action”
– Apparently this is how Stuart Rose (CEO of M&S) should deal with his business in the coming year. Maybe, maybe not, but I like the phrase. Let me write that down…
June 2008
1 post
Don't fancy yours much...
The weather has been great here in Switzerland/Austria for the European Championships, which Spain managed to win. Last week, despite Google Weather saying it was going to rain, it averaged about 33ºC in the shade and the temperature in the apartment hit nearly 40ºC on one day.
This morning before leaving for work, I was watching the BBC news on breakfast telly and they were talking about the NHS...
May 2008
7 posts
Man U win the Champions League again
Normally, that last team I want to win anything are Man U, but I can’t help feeling that it will be a sad day when it’s proven that you can buy the best team around. If Cheslea would have won, that’s what would have occured, and let’s not forget that Blackburn bought the English league title all those years ago, albeit on a different financial scale. So I’ll be...
“Defeat is Brown’s ‘John Major moment’”
– Derek Wyatt, Labour MP. Not quite, Derek, John Major won an election, quite convincingly, I recall. Actually, I feel sorry for GB. Compare him with Boris, London’s new Mayor. Boris says all the wrong things, but you know that underneath he’s actually very bright and cares. GB is the...
The return of DVORAK
No, I’m not referencing a return of Blake’s 7. All you people using a QWERTY keyboard, you don’t know what you’re missing. And you don’t seem to care. That’s why even when I’ve told you that a DVORAK keyboard can make you more productive and attractive to women that you stick to a QWERTY. Still, when I moved to Zurich, I had to suffer with a Swiss-German...
Wallet Jealousy
I was in the Financial Bar at work today (well, it is Friday) and when I whipped out my wallet to check my diary one of the guys noticed that my wallet has seen better days. He alluded to some obscure claim that the quality of you diary was indicative of the way you treat your women or some waffle. Nonetheless, I couldn’t fail to be impressed by the neatness and functionality of his wad. I...
Guys wearing high heels? Not quite, but...
I’ve always wondered why guys wear those long shoes with about 2 inches of space in front of the toes at the front - they seem to be the fashion in London at least. For a start, they must be a real pain when you’re going up stairs, you surely can’t get your heel on the step? Just like girlie high heels, they surely must be style over function. Now I don’t really mind...
“Gordon shouldn’t smile. It looks unnatural.”
– George Mudie, former cabinet minister, when interviewed on Radio 4 today.
April 2008
4 posts
“Want to look ten years younger? Just say you’re ten years older.”
– Jane Shilling, Times Online
“You can’t afford to miss hydrolyzed collagen at 50% off!”
– 10 second Holland & Barrett advert on UK daytime TV. What on earth is hydrolyzed collagen? No, don’t tell me, I don’t care, I shouldn’t have been watching daytime TV anyway.
Chemical Brownie
Do you remember a few years ago, the performances by Chemical Ali? “There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad”, he declared to journalists on the roof of the Palestine Hotel as gunfire echoed across the city and tanks fired from the banks of the Tigris just a few hundred yards away. Classic. Now consider the words of Gordon Brown a couple of days ago when...
“How many times have you heard people say ‘I wonder why someone...”
– Mark Fyvie (1972-2008), founder of the EnglishForum.ch website.
January 2008
2 posts
BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Quick guide: US... →
I had to chuckle whilst reading this page about the US elections. I wanted to find out how they worked, as it seems to be taking a lot of UK news bandwidth at the moment. I started reading and then came upon a little box on the right hand side, where the BBC usually put some useful insightful comment or some links or further information. This time in said WHAT IS A QUICK GUIDE? Quick guides are...
TalkTalk? More like HoldHold.
Since I moved house over Christmas, I’ve only now managed to find time to call up my service providers for the old place to clear everything up. I decided to close all my unused bank accounts and everything else I could think of as well. I must have called 20 customer services today and all picked up the phone within a few minutes, in fact most picked up in under a minute. But not TalkTalk,...
December 2007
1 post
“If the British property market looks like a bubble, feels like a bubble, smells...”
– Crash that ‘won’t happen here’ looms large | Business | The Guardian Larry Elliott, economics editor, The Guardian, Monday December 3 2007
November 2007
1 post
“Gold is not a way of getting rich, it is more a way of not getting poor. I...”
– Barry Tyler Author of the ‘Inside Track’ Newsletter
October 2007
2 posts
Led Zeppelin promoter wishes eBay would 'drop dead... →
I admire Harvey Goldsmith’s way of getting things done, but he has made an arse of this. He must have already known that these tickets would be straight on eBay, yet he never bothered to put any system into place to stop the ballot winners selling their tickets at a profit. Now he’s complaining that eBay will not ban selling them of and people are marking up their value. If eBay ban...
“I want the chance in the next phase of my premiership to develop and show people...”
– Gordon Brown BBC NEWS | Politics | PM to hit back at poll criticism So does David Cameron. Neither of you were elected to be Prime Minister by the British people, so isn’t it time for an election?
September 2007
4 posts
BBC NEWS | Business | Northern Rock shares plunge... →
OMG, how tempting is it to buy Northern Rock? Shares have plummeted by 24% this morning and they’ve already halved in the last 12 months. They’ve been hit hard by the US credit crunch, but how does that affect NR? They can’t borrow money as cheaply any more and so their turnover will drop. But it’s likely that LIBOR will revert to somewhere much closer to the base rate...
Scott H Young » The Critical 7 Rules To Understand... →
An intersting read. You see, it’s not just you that doesn’t care about anyone else…
BBC NEWS | Business | Chancellor warns on consumer... →
Alistair Darling: “Institutions have in some cases been prepared to lend to people without actually checking if they were ever going to repay it.” “When someone comes up with a fantastic way of making money they need to ask, how is this money being made and what are the risks?” No shit, Alistair (who is obviously trying to not upset his boss). You...
'Mortgage rates out of control' - King | This is... →
Interesting implications here. Usually, in the UK, mortgage rates are linked almost directly to the Bank of England base interest rate. That’s under normal, benign market conditions, where money is flowing freely between banks. At the moment, though, many USA mortgage companies are going bust due to reckless lending practices. All their debts have been traded worldwide via difficult to...
August 2007
5 posts
BBC NEWS | UK | Record number of people leave UK →
It seems that as immigration swells the UK population, emigration also reduces it. The population might not be going up, but those that are leaving are usually original UK citizens. The reasons given are those that you hear about every day, but it’s only when you put them all together that it makes you think ‘Do I really want to stay here?’. Increasingly, people are coming to the...
BBC iPlayer - Too little too late
It’s not just the BBC, Channel 4 have done the same. They’ve released a player that downloads and plays previous programs on your PC, but it’s crippled with DRM so you can’t put downloads into your library (not that I keep a ilbrary, life’s too short) and the picture quality is rubbish. They’re also way too late. You can download pretty much any program in the...
BBC NEWS | Business | Q&A: World stock market... →
This article sums up quite well why we’re seeing the recent world stock market falls. Unsurprisingly, I blame it all on Gordon Brown. If the BoE were able to track the correct rate of inflation (RPI, not CPI) then we’d have had higher interest rates, thus steadier house price growth, thus less house equity-funded buying, thus steadier financial market growth, thus much less of...
Amazon opens payment system to other Web sites -... →
Yee-ha! At last, there is a viable alternative to PayPal and it’s extortionate charges. (Hopefully.)
Home repossessions soar to eight-year high - Times... →
House prices are still going up. Interest rates will probably keep going up. Individual Voluntary Agreements have gone down a bit (because lenders are stopping it). Repossesions are up 30% to 14,000 in the last 6 months. Now, OK, it’s still only a 1/4 of the repossesions from the previous housing crash, but with millions of low fixed-rate mortgages coming to an end in the next couple of...
July 2007
7 posts
Toxic waste anyone?
So I went away on holiday for a few days camping with the girlfriend. Yup, the weather was crap and we came home a day early, but still had a lovely time with her and her folks - I even managed to create some nan breads from scratch on a barbecue! Monday morning I logged onto the web and, hold on. Wasn’t the FTSE at somewhere near 6700 when I left? Now it’s 6200. Hmm, that’s a...
Today's Rant
I just received a check out report from the property management company that looked after my previous flat, 4 months after I moved out. Why did it take so long to reach me? Well, I actually moved in next door and I saw someone in the old place, so I inquired if any old mail had been left there for me. The check out report had been sent to my *old* address, 2 weeks after I moved out. How stoopid...
Something that brightened up my day...
Extract from an interview with Vladimir Kramnik, current World Chess Champion: Interviewer: …Einstein once said: “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal.” Which goals does Vladimir Kramnik still have? Vladimir: “Well, everybody has some goal in life. At different times one has small goals. One of them I have achieved: I became world champion. I always have small...
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Computers crack famous... →
So the game of draughts has finally been solved by a computer. After 20 years of brute force computer program calculations, a Canadian team have now played from the 500 billion billion Draughts positions and proven that white or black can always at least draw against any opposition, even if it is perfect. Quite an achievement. I’ve always wondered if it is possible for a computer program...