Peer-to-Peer Lending Losses To Be Eligible For Relief
An obstacle to some, who might want to use peer-to-peer lenders to save money, is that any there was no relief for any bad debts. But George Osborne has changed all that and you can read about it in the Guardian. This is said.
And this week the industry received a major boost when George Osborne unveiled a package of measures designed to help it grow. Crucially, the chancellor announced a new bad debt relief which will allow individual investors to offset any losses.
So it seems that peer-to-peer lending is getting less risky all the time.
Match Twenty – Ipswich 4 – Leeds 1
On the 19th November 1966, when I was a student at Liverpool University, Liverpool beat Leeds United at Anfield by five goals to nil.
A friend of mine;Ian Brown, had gone and was euphoric when he came home. Not only Ian, but the whole red half of the city was on cloud nine. Even nearly fifty years ago, most fans relished their team beating Leeds.
Today, on the train up to Ipswich, several Leeds fans were optimistic of a win, especially if the team kept up their good form of late.
But after scoring a very early goal, Leeds faded and got well beaten 4-1.
The 1960s match at Liverpool and the one at Ipswich today, illustrate one of the big changes in football in that fifty years. Ian had wanted to go to the biggest match of the day and he just turned up and bought a ticket, something I did many times before the 1980s.
Ladies In Red Hats
When I was in Liverpool Street station, there was a large group of ladies in red hats.
Ladies In Red Hats
It turns out, they were on the way to their Christmas lunch. There is more about Red Hatters here.
This group certainly seemed to be living along with their motto of Live, Love, Laugh.
I am reminded of an old story of my late wife, C.
She used to be a member of the Cameron Group, that visited prisoners in Holloway prison. The prisoners used to refer to some of the visitors of the do-gooder tendency as the Ladies in Pink Hats.
A Beautiful Day For December
Yesterday was sunny.
It’s supposed to be December. Unfortunately, the average temperature was about 4°C.
A Brass Band At Spitalfields
It’s good to have read music and this brass band were in Spitalfields.
It reminds me of the time a few years ago, when Ipswich played in Luxembourg and fans were playing musical chairs with a brass band in the main square. Hilarious!
The Spitalfields Snow Dome
Spitalfields have installed a snow dome for the season.
And it’s free to use.
Should Crossrail Go To Dartford And Gravesham?
here has been a call this week reported in the Kent News by local council leaders for Crossrail to be extended to Dartford and Gravesham.
Given that there is a garden city planned at Ebbsfleet, on the face of it, this could seem to be a good idea. This map taken from the Garden City web site, shows the layout of the new city.
Ebbsfleet Garden City
Note Ebbsfleet International station in the top right. The map below shows the area from Google Earth.
In addition to Ebbsfleet International, three stations are shown. From west (left) to east, they are Swanscombe, Northfleet and Gravesend on the North Kent Line.
Note how there is a loop on the North Kent line to serve Ebbsfleet.
Rail Lines At Ebbsfleet
I use the Southeastern HighSpeed service to get to places like Rochester, Dover and Broadstairs, generally joining the service at Stratford or St. Pancras. It is a good, fast service with modern Class 395 trains, but often when I travel the trains are run almost for my benefit alone.
I think that a general sorting out of train services in Kent, and particularly the Highspeed service will happen. Consider the following.
1. Hastings, Bexhill and Eastbourne could be added to the Highspeed network, by electrifying the Marshlink line. These trains will go straight through Ebbsfleet on HS1.
2. There is no easy connection between HS1 and Crossrail, unless you walk between Stratford International and Regional stations. In fact HS1 doesn’t connect easily to lots of places, due to not stopping at Stratford, where the interchange, except to the DLR is dreadful anyway.
3. Rochester, Strood and North Kent generally needs all the help it can get to lift the economy.
The obvious thing to improve things would be to have cross platform interchange between the North Kent Line, Crossrail and HS1, at Ebbsfleet International. Or if that is not possible, due to the design of the current station, they could apply the rules that have been so superbly demonstrated at Reading, Leeds and Derby.
London Connections has an article, where it discusses extending Crossrail to the east in Kent. It says this.
The original proposal was for Crossrail’s south-eastern arm to terminate at Ebbsfleet. Ebbsfleet seemed an obvious choice, but more thorough analysis showed some disadvantages. Curtailing it at Abbey Wood had distinct attractions to the planning team who would naturally would take a risk-adverse attitude to the project.
From an operational point of view, it would eliminate the need for Crossrail trains to run on third rail routes and therefore simplify train construction and add robustness to the plan. It would also leave this route self-contained and not at the mercy of trains on the south-eastern sector, which was already notorious for being vulnerable to problems anywhere on the crowded network affecting the whole service. It also had the added attraction of reducing the cost of a minimal-viable Crossrail project.
So yet again, Southern Railway’s third-rail electrification throws a spanner in the works.
It certainly needs a bit of planning to sort out the problems of the past.
I suspect that engineers, architects and real railwaymen, will sit round a table in a pub somewhere and get the special engineering fag packets and strong coffee out.
They do have some formidable resources at their disposal.
1. The dual-voltage Class 395 trains, which if more were needed could probably be built in the UK.
2. Acres of space at Ebbsfleet International.
3. A new cross-platform interchange between the Kent Lines and Crossrail at Abbey Wood.
4. In a few years time, ERTMS will have arrived to enable trains to go a lot more places on the comprehensive network south of the Thames.
5. Transport for London may well have succeeded in adding the lines to South East London to the London Overground, that they were refused this year. This would have enabled Dartford, Gravesend, Rochester or even Ebbsfleet to be the terminal of an extended New Cross branch of the East London Line.
6. Transport for London has all of the traffic statistics from payment cards, so they just need to analyse rather than speculate.
I have a feeling that there may be a better solution to getting better access to Dartford and Gravesham, than the simplistic one of extending Crossrail.
A Different Class Of Footballer
Every few years or so, a footballer breaks through, who is at a totally different level to all his peers, both on the field and off.
In my sixty years of watching football, both live or on the television, I’ve seen just a few players like this; Franz Beckenbauer, Danny Blanchflower, Bobby Charlton, Johann Cruyf, Emlyn Hughes, Kevin Keegan and Jurgen Klinsmann. In a few years time some others like David Beckham, Lucas Radebe and Sol Campbell might be added to this list.
Of the players I’ve named, some like Beckham and Keegan would never be in the same class as the others, but they both possess an intelligence that enables them to make best use of what they’ve got.
Tyrone Mings is an unusual footballer, in that after being discarded by Southampton, he got a football scholarship at Millfield School. Here’s the first two paragraphs from the report in the Wiltshire Gazette and Herald.
Tyrone Mings, son of Bluebirds boss Adie Mings, has begun a football scholarship at the prestigious Millfield School and is still dreaming of becoming a professional player.
The former Sheldon School pupil, 16, had been on the books at Southampton FC but was released the financially-troubled club in December after their youth budget was slashed.
Then by way of unfashionable clubs like Yate Town and Chippenham Town, he got transferred to Ipswich for the sum of £10,000, to realise his dream.
So just like Beckham and Keegan, he probably has this will to get to the top.
On the BBC web site today, Mick McCarthy talks about a possible bid for Mings from Arsenal. The article says this.
Ipswich Town manager Mick McCarthy has said he is pleased that Arsenal are keeping tabs on defender Tyrone Mings.
It then goes on to say this under a heading of The Generosity Of Mings.
1. In March 2013, Mings provided two tickets to a supporter who had said on Twitter that he was too “skint” to go to a game.
2. Last year he spent part of Christmas Day feeding homeless people. “We spent a couple of hours helping to prepare the food and talking to the people there.”
3. After his squad number changed from 15 to three in the summer, he arranged for two fans with the old number to receive new shirts.
So he’s certainly got the intelligence and character, so let’s hope he doesn’t waste it.
But has he got the football skills? He reminds me in a way of Cyril Knowles, who I saw many times playing for Spurs in the 1960s and 1970s. He’s also certainly got speed to rival most players and the instinct of turning up in the opponent’s penalty area like Liverpool favourite Chris Lawler. Only in a couple of years time, will we know how good Mings really is.
Farage On Breastfeeding
Nigel Farage has been giving his views on breastfeeding, on his phone-in show on LBC. The BBC reports it in full and says this.
“This is just a matter of common sense isn’t it,” he added. “I know particularly people of the older generation feel awkward and embarrassed by it”
As a member of the older generation, I don’t feel awkward and embarrassed by breastfeeding.
But Mr. Farage and his outdated views certainly embarrass me!
Premier Foods
Because of the reports like this one on the BBC, I have just crossed Premier Foods off my list of preferred suppliers for my kitchen.
I didn’t like Marmite anyway!
The Anonymous Widower 