What I Need From A Bank
I’ll start by listing, what I use my bank, Nationwide for.
- I use it to hold my working money.
- I use it to collect any payments from my pension or people like Zopa.
- I use it to pay all my standing orders, direct debits and other bills I pay directly.
- I use their cash machine network to get the cash I need.
- I have one of my credit cards from them, as I like to have both a Visa and a Mastercard, as some people only accept one card.
On the other hand.
- I don’t borrow money from them, except for my emergency agreed overdraft, if I get receipts and payments out of sync.
- I rarely write cheques.
- I don’t need a branch, except to pay in the odd cheque.
If banks dropped cheques, it would make a traditional bank unnecessary to me, as I could then do everything on-line.
So I would envisage in a few years time having a bank that did the few things I needed on-line and didn’t charge me for it!
Will it happen? Not if the banks have any say!
Jeff Tarango Gets It Right
I sent this in an e-mail to a friend last night, after hearing Jeff Tarango on BBC Radio 5.
Jeff Tarango has made an interesting point about the match tomorrow.
Murray played his semi-final with the roof open and Federer played with it closed. Tarango also said Federer may prefer the roof closed as it’s more like an indoor court. So the weather could have a big effect on the match.
I watched the match today, and both players were very different after the rain break, when the roof was closed.
There could be a case for not changing the position of the roof, once a match starts.
So how do the Welsh handle their roof at the Millenium stadium in Cardiff? This extract from a report here, shows it not all plain sailing.
The French coach’s stance led Wales coach Warren Gatland to demand Six Nations power-brokers change tournament rules and back Wales over the issue of the roof.
As it stands, both participating teams have to be in agreement for the roof to be closed.
If they cannot agree, it stays open unless there are exceptional weather conditions and the match is in danger of being postponed.
“If it’s our stadium and we have the ability to open and close the roof, then maybe we should be the team that decides,” said Gatland.
“I would hate to think that on Saturday, if it is pouring down with rain and we’ve got the chance to close the roof that we don’t.
But the row was because it interfered with a French player-tracking system, that seems to be a bit close to the rules to me.
It strikes me though that the fairest system, is that in any sport, if the roof is closed at the start it should stay closed and vice-versa.
Fifty Shades of Grey
There is an article in The Times on Saturday, where they ask several men to read this publishing sensation or so-called mommy-porn.
Out of curiosity, I read the book a couple of months ago and I think broadly, I have come to similar conclusions to the writers in yesterday’s paper.
The book is rather stereotypical in many ways, as no man could be as perfect in as many ways as is Christian Grey, and Ana fits a lot of male fantasies. Ana seems to have been created round the table in the local pub, by EL James asking all the men present, what they would like in a woman, what she should wear and how she would behave.
But I do think, that in some ways some long-standing and strong relationships do evolve a little like the one in the book. It’s not to say that I ever hit my late wife, or any other woman for that matter, but C sometimes wanted sex on terms her mother would have disapproved of and would dress to get it. She is probably not the only woman to have gone to the toilet, just before the sweet course, in a two-Michelin star restaurant and on return handed her companion, her knickers screwed up in a tight ball. She got the dessert for which she was looking.
One point about the book is that Christian is a pilot. I used to be and didn’t find those scenes too credible. I wonder if EL James has ever flown in a smaller aircraft, upside the pilot. C always found flying as one of those experiences, where you had to do as you were told, even if she didn’t at other times. Especially, as when I had a partial engine-failure in a single-engined aircraft. She didn’t panic at all, did what I said and never worried about flying with me again after the incident.
So! Did the book turn me on? And did I enjoy it? Not really! But it might have been fun to read with a lady. I would have certainly bought it for C, if she hadn’t bought it for herself.
A Morning Trip In The Rain
I’ve been there many times in my past, both as a child and as a parent.
It’s raining, cats, dogs and hippopotami and all of the things to do indoors have been done to death. So this morning, I decided to see what the new Emirates Air-Line is like in the heavy rain.
I took my usual route to the Northern terminal at Royal Victoria DLR station, by taking a bus and a tube to Bank station and then getting the faithful Docklands Light Railway. Is there a railway anywhere in the world, that was built as on-the-cheap as the DLR, that has morphed so successfully from an ugly duckling into a swan? Or possibly in the DLR’s case to a whole game of swans.
Even on the short trip from Bank to Royal Victoria, there is much to see, like the expensive yachts, housing and offices, the many spires of the East End and mud flats, factories and construction of the River Lea. It is a trip that delights most children.
I took these pictures on the way to Royal Victoria, during the crossing and then at North Greenwich.
Afterwards, I took the Jubilee line to Canary Wharf for a late Full Italian breakfast at Carluccio’s.
So was it a worthwhile trip? And would it be with young children?
- I only got wet walking between Royal Victoria DLR station and the cable-car and between the cable-car and North Greenwich tube station.
- The queues were less than last Sunday and marginally worse at North Greenwich. Is that because there’s parking on the South bank of the river.
- The view from the gondola wasn’t too bad at all. Is the glass treated with a water repellant?
So on balance, a trip in the rain, may even have an advantage in that the crowds are smaller and you don’t have to wait.
Scotland Has A Better Wimbledon Than Australia
I can remember as a child, when Mens tennis was dominated by Australians. But this year, those small countries; Scotland and Yorkshire had a better Wimbledon.
What’s gone wrong?
I suppose that Aussies can argue they have a world-class driver in Mark Webber, but even he, needs to drive a car designed and made in the UK.
Mitchell Johnson’s Nightmare
It seems Mitchell Johnson‘s tour is not going well and this article in the Daily Mail is a good bit of fun. This is the first couple of paragraphs.
A low-grade rumble went round The Oval on Sunday afternoon. It was the sound of schadenfreude, which until then had always felt like a concept, not a noise. But Mitchell Johnson had just overstepped in his first over – and few things titillate an English crowd more than a Johnson transgression.
Johnson is usually a self-contained problem, a pet project that Cricket Australia keeps telling us is almost there (and God help the rest of the world when he finally cracks it). But on Sunday he was symptomatic. And it was curious to watch.
There’s a lot more in the same vein.
Wanted: Wife No. 4 for Cult Pinup
This is the headline in the Sunday Times today and it is about Tom Cruise.
I think any woman who thinks she might like the position needs her head examined, as a man who has been married three times must have something wrong with him. And then there’s his so-called religion! I wouldn’t insult the great religions of this world, by leaving out the so-called.
And Virginia Will Take Tea With The Queen
The title of this post is a classic quote from Max Robertson, the doyen of radio tennis commentators, when Virginia Wade won the Ladies Singles in the Silver Jubilee Year of 1977.
They asked the commentator today, if he had rehearsed a classic line for today, if Murray should beat Federer.
Has Marray Taken The Pressure Off Murray?
1936 was the last year we won either of the Mens Singles or Mens Doubles titles at Wimbledon.
Now that Jonathan Marray with his Danish partner has won the doubles, does this help or hinder Andy Murray?
I wouldn’t know, but it gives him something positive to think about.
It will be interesting to see if we enter Marray in the Olympic Mens Doubles and who he is paired up with. Remember Tim Henman won the silver in the doubles in Atlanta.
The Anonymous Widower 