The British Way of Military Death
I have a strong sense of history and want to try to make sure that we learn from the past and don’t make the same mistakes again.
I first noticed when we went to the cemeteries on the River Kwai, that every British grave has a personal message. There were a lot of Dutch graves on the Kwai, but they were plain and identical except for the name. I found the same messages at immaculate cemeteries in the Gambia and on the Somme.
And now we have the respect shown at Wootton Bassett, a town through which all the British victims of Afghanistan pass on their final way home.
There are some things in this country that we do very, very well.
Liverpool and Meccano
There are various events, cities, techniques, toys, people and just plain things that has shaped my life.
If I take events, there would be the first Sputnik, Sharpeville, the assassination of President Kennedy, England winning the World Cup in 1966, man landing on the moon for the first time, the Six Day War, the suicide of Jan Palach, the Falklands War, the fall of the Berlin Wall and many others. Perhaps one that will mean more to me in a few years time, was being in Trafalgar Square, when London won the Olympics for 2012.
I will be proud of the London Olympics because London is my city. I was born there and when I’m sad, lonely or just plain bored, I make to the most fabulous city in the world. The London Olympics may be a failure because of circumstances, good or bad, but London will do its best. And that will be better than most, as when you throw London into turmoil, Londoners respond in a unique way. Why unique? Because Londoners are the biggest mongrel race in the world and they can draw from experiences like no other.
I met my wife in Liverpool at the University.
For that and other reasons, to me Liverpool will always be my second city, just as it is the second city of the UK. Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham may make this claim, but they are lightweights compared to the city of the Beatles. I sometimes ponder how life would be different without the Beatles and it may be a bold claim to say that without them the UK might have been some insignificant island off mainland Europe. But those four did give England and Great Britain a new pride, that had been lacking since the end of the Second World War. I still play their songs virtually every day.
At one time my late wife shared a flat near the Meccano factory in Liverpool.
I had a very large Meccano set, which was very much part of my life until about sixteen when I sold it, because I needed the money. I’d while away the time in my bedroom, building all sorts of machines. Later when I worked for ICI, we’d use bits of Meccano to make instruments work. Do engineers still do that?
So it was with pride and a lot of sadness that I watched James May’s Toy Stories about Meccano. He built a Meccano bridge over the extension to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. I cried as it was set in my university, the university where I met my wife and was about my favourite toy.
Life is a powerful mixture of emotions.
How Banks Treat Competitors
As you know I’m a great fan of Zopa. I started with a post called Peer-to-Peer Lending – Zopa in July and have posted several since. Just click the “Zopa” tag.
Have the banks found a way to stop this upstart competitor? This has just been posted on the Zopa web site.
What’s happened to debit cards?
You may know that in order for a business to receive debit card payments, a merchant services licence is required. When we started out, our business model was unique and something of an unknown; as such, RBS Worldpay (the body associated with our banking partner that grants the ability to receive debit card payments) declined our application for a merchant services licence. We felt that debit card funding would be a useful service to offer our lenders, and found an alternative solution with the support of a third party in the anticipation that it would be a short term arrangement.
Given Zopa’s growth – and thanks to all your fundings – this year we thought it an appropriate time to revisit the application for our own merchant licence, with a solid track record to prove both that our model is working and that debit card business is popular with very little risk of liability to the merchant services provider. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts RBS Worldpay refuse to accommodate Zopa’s model, and have openly shown no appetite to work with us in coming to an arrangement or indeed in understanding our business. Equally, our volumes are such that the short-term process is no longer sustainable so it’s become unavoidable for us to draw the debit card funding service to a close.
The transfer will now take two days as opposed to being virtually instantaneous.
Why is it that banks assume that they are special? They are no different to any other company and should live within the same rules. But they don’t!
The Anonymous Widower 