Lost Without a Clock
For the last forty years I’ve had a brass-bezelled ship’s clock in the kitchen. Tooday, it’s not there as I’ve packed it!
The clock was bought in Liverpool and was rumoured to have come of the Great Eastern.
I doubt it, but I’m lost!
A Right Pair of Posers
I found a decent sized copy of this picture, stuffed in a drawer.
Charlotte and Daisy
Charlotte is behind the driving seat and her daughter, Daisy, is beside her.
The picture was taken on the drive at Debach probably about 1987 or so. I remember that I’d driven all round the centre of Ipswich with the two dogs sitting like that, but then English setters can be terrible posers. When I got home, I rushed inside and got the camera. Luckily they didn’t move.
Eleanor Oldroyd Solves the Aussies Problems
Eleanor Oldroyd is the First Lady of Fighting Talk and on today’s show she gave her learned opinion on how to improve the dreadful performance of the Australian’s so-called cricket team. She actually made two suggestions.
- We persuade the ICC to let the Aussies have a third innings.
- The English team play French cricket, which would mean they had to face the bowler directly.
The latter is a really serious suggestion, as it would probably mean that the likes of Strauss, Pietersen, Bell and Collingwood would rise to the challenge with superb stroke-play.
If you’ve never listened to Fighting Talk, it is one of the best programs on Radio 5 and is also available as a podcast.
Today’s was a particularly good edition, with the program finishing with Eleanor explaining how athletes fail drug tests for too much testosterone and/or Viagra.
The First Thing I Moved In
Despite all my troubles, there is two things I won’t do; let my standards slip and lose my sense of humour and the surreal.
So the first thing I moved into the house is this photograph.
Pride of Place
Sometimes I wish I had my uncle’s talent with drawing, as I’d create a picture, that would do C and our son proud!
As I write this it’s three years to the day since she died. So perhaps today is the first day of my new life, even if I haven’t quite moved yet!
C always said she married me, because she knew life would not be boring. So it’s now up to me to live up to her view of me. If I should get boring, please tell me!
The Devil Would be Proud of Me!
I’ve just found a whole box of bibles in the loft. They went straight in the skip!
The only religious book I’ve kept is a Protestant Dictionary. It’s the funniest book you’ll ever read!
The Devil would be proud of me!
The Alternative Annuity
The government has stated that it will be abolishing the rule on annuities that means that insurance companies chew up a large proportion of your pension in adminstration charges and incompetence. Whether they actually will abolish it is open to question, as I suspect that insurance companies will be difficult to throw off this particular gravy train.
There is an old joke, which goes something like “How do you make a small fortune?” with an answer of “Start with a large one! and give it to a financial advisor!”
I am not a financial advisor, but I’ve lost millions due to their incompetence. Don’t worry as I’ve also made millions by completely ignoring their advice! So on balance I know a good investment when I see it and a bad one, when no-one else does. I should say that I don’t invest in stocks and shares as I’m then at the mercy of a market over which I have no control. I do wish sometimes, that in the past, I’d used my technological knowledge to buy a few stocks. As an example, I told people that Alan Sugar would be a star in the early 1970s, as what do you get if you give technology to a man, who made his first money flogging car radio aerials and electronic goods from a van? But I had no money to invest when he took Amstrad public. I also met one of the founders of 3Com at Comdex in Las Vegas and thought they were a good thing! They had a tiny stand there which was probably about the size of Alan Sugar’s van.
So do I regret a life of missed opportunities? No! I’m with Piaf on this one!
Life is just a series of pauses, waiting for the next bus to come along. Luckily the buses are getting bigger, better and more comfortable.
It is two years and a couple of months, since I first put the money from C’s Porsche Boxster into Zopa. I added a bit from my pension fund and a few thousand here and there, so that now I’ve got about £50,000 invested. Not a large fortune by any means, but typical of the sort of pots many people of my age have in savings. Every month now, it repays me about £3,000 back in interest and repaid loans, which I reinvest immediately, so the pot is growing! I have had three loans go bad on me, but I’m only £350 down on them and one has even started repaying its debts.
So if you look at the sort of cash flow, you get with Zopa, it is a sum paid paid in, which gives you an income over a period of years, not unlike an annuity. But without all the charges!
So does a retirement financial strategy go something like this. As you approach retirement, you put a small sum into Zopa, so that you get comfortable with the concept. Then as you get happier, you transfer your money accordingly. There is one problem with Zopa though; that is that it is not liked by financial advisers. After all where’s the commission? If they are Zopa investors themselves they may get a bullseye, if they introduce a new investor, but that’s not going to make anybody rich.
Zopa though will be followed by other imitators. Some will be better, but the ones I’ve seen so far are not, often because they have tried to accommodate the dreaded financial adviser.
The Anonymous Widower 