Cleanup Solutions
I saw a guy on the Tube this morning with Cleanup Solutions on his smart black T-sheet. As I read it out of the corner of my eye, I thought it was called Cheerup Solutions!
Now there’s a name for a company!
Smokers’ Mess Outside a Pub
I took this picture outside a pub yesterday morning.
Smoker's Mess Outside a Pub
Isn’t smoking a filthy habit! I’m sure the road-sweeper will agree.
Is Holland and Barrett A Health Store?
I was surprised on Sunday to see one of Holland and Barrett’s employees outside their store having a quick ciggie.
I though they were a health store?
Or have I missed something and ciggies are now healthy?
A Glorious Celestial Display
The next few months are very exciting if you are an astronomer or even just someone interested in the stars. This excellent summary from the BBC lays it out well. Last night, I was able to see Venus and Jupiter above the houses at about six, as I walked to the bus to go to Islington. So if I can see it in Central London, the view must be much better, where there is no light pollution.
The article mentions a Transit of Venus in June. I was lucky enough to observe the one in 2004 from Suffolk.
Considering they occur rarely, Iwas very lucky. In 2004, no-one actually was able to watch their second Transit of Venus, as the previous one had occurred in 1882.
Wikipedia says this about their frequency.
Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena. They occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years.
I’ll try and find the pictures, I took at the time.
Charlotte Rampling and Elizabeth Frink
There was a piece in the Times yesterday about Charlotte Rampling and how at 66, she is still finding good parts. The article mentions her father, Godfrey, as an Army officer, but he was more than that. He was a superb athlete, winning gold in the 1936 Olympics and died three years ago at 100.
Charlotte was born in one of the villages surrounding Haverhill in Suffolk. As was Elisabeth Frink, one of our finest sculptors.
There must be something in the water.
What Is The Plural of a Plural?
Most surnames are singular, like Smith, Brown or Cameron, so if you’re say going to supper with friends with this name, you might say you’re going to the Smiths.
But what do you do, if your friends have a name that s already plural? I have friends with such a name of French origin that in French would be plural.
So what do you call them collectively?
What Are Bews?
This was the screen, when I was listening to Radio 5 this lunchtime.
What Are Bews?
Perhaps the BBC would tell us what bews are?
A Better Picture
In this post, I said I might be able to get a better picture of the TBMs from a main line train. So today, I tried again.
I took a train to Ealing Broadway station and back again. I actually think if you want to take pictures it might be best to actually go to Acton Main Line, as the Oxford train, I got on return, went past the tunnelling site rather fast.
Note that each of the two tunnel boring machines consist of a large cutting head, with all sorts of ancillaries trailing on behind, like some giant tadpole.
I think that the gantries will be used to lift the machines to the portal at Royal Oak and support the conveyors taking out all of the spoil.
Is Now The Time To Invest In Zopa?
I ask the question as I was at Zopa‘s seventh birthday party and some of their people said, they needed more lenders.
If that had been said by many, you’d have smelt a rat, but I have been feeling for some time, that the value of loans wanted has been growing in size compared to the amount of money on offer.
So I have just been looking at the figures in my Excel spreadsheet that I use to track the company. In January 2011, the ratio of money offered across all markets to that demanded was 4.74. In February 2001, the ratio was 2.78. By comparison in January and February this year the two figures are 1.79 and 1.35. So the amount of money on offer has dropped with respect to demand over the last twelve months.
The drop is totally due to the rise in demand. The average demand in January 2012 was £12.19m, as against to £5.46m twelve months ago. This is a rise of 123%, whereas the money on offer has actually fallen. This could be for any number of reasons, but my guess is that because of the recession, more people are withdrawing repayments and interest, rather than reinvesting them.
So it would appear that Zopa has a bit of a funding gap for new loans.
Also. on the positive side the interest rates returned to lenders have also stood up well and if you take the A* market, this has hovered around the 7% mark since January 2011.
What is interesting and might frighten some investors is that there are occasional monthly fluctuations in the figures. For instance in November and December 2011, rates dropped, but had bounced back by the turn of the year. This probably explained by a slight lack of demand and an increase in money offered. Could savvy investors be putting their Christmas bonus in a safe place?
If I look at my bad debts over the last year, they have gone up by about £80 and 10 contracts. As I limit my exposure on any contract to £50, it is unlikely I’ll get any big hits of a hundred or so, I got in the early days.
So what are the rules for investing?
- Start slow, with investing something you could totally afford to use. I recommend a hundred pounds or so, until you have fully learned how to use the system.
- Concentrate on the two most creditworthy markets; A* and A. The rates you will get aren’t as high as in other markets, but they are less risky. I have a small proportion of my money in the Y or youth market, where 5 contracts have gone bad. But then 6 have in the A market, although these are obviously out of a lot more contracts.
- Set a maximum lending limit for each customer of £50.
- Check your account daily to make sure that the rates you are offering are in the zone or the Zone of Probable Agreement as Zopa calls it. If your rate is too high, no-one will borrow from you and if it’s too low, you might get less creditworthy customers.
- Join the forums on the site, to learn how others think and act.
- Only when you are happy with the system and can trust yourself, do you add larger sums of money to your lending pot!
The Anonymous Widower 