The Hope Street Hotel
On Friday night, I went to Liverpool for an Alumni Dinner at the University and stayed in the Hope Street Hotel,where the dinner was held. Here’s a few pictures.
One of the reasons, I like the hotel is that it does gluten-free food superbly well. It did in the dinner on Friday night and the food was summed up by the superb smoked haddock and poached eggs that I had for breakfast.
Other hotels should take note about the breakfast as fish and eggs is so simple and also impossible to add gluten.
The German Jihadist
This cautionary tale is in the Daily Mail and a few other papers.
let’s hope his story deters others from joining.
The Two Sides Of The Personal Banking Crisis
We have a personal banking crisis in this country and I suspect many parts of the developed world.
A headline in the FT says that the bill for mis-selling PPI has now passed ten billion pounds. And that only includes direct costs to the banks. What about the indirect costs to all of us, who never went near PPI, but are constantly plagued with all forms of nuisance calls and e-mails. Hopefully after the action of Richard Herman, these calls will stop.
We also have the story on the BBC about basic bank accounts offered to those with bad credit histories. Apparently,more and more banks are dropping these accounts.
So what does a basic bank account do. This
These are simple accounts which allow customers to have their wages, benefits, and cheques paid in.
Customers can gain access to their money from some cash machines, or the Post Office.
Bills can be made by direct debit from the account, but these accounts offer no overdraft facility or access to credit – unlike most standard current accounts.
According to the BBC.
In fact that is not unlike the facilities, I use my Nationwide account for.
Although, I do have a credit card, the ability to get my money from virtually all cash machines, full on-line access and a small authorised overdraft, which I never use.
But I never buy anything from my bank or phone them up.
So the opportunities for making money from personal accounts by retail banks from most of their customers is dropping like a stone.
Especially with investors like myself, who use things like Zopa to hold our savings and surplus cash.
It all sounds like to me, that there is a real gap in the market for a personal bank that has these characteristics.
On-line only.
No expensive High Street branches.
No phone lines, with all queries dealt with on-line.
No cheque books.
A simple savings account.
Small overdrafts.
Cash out from any cash point.
Even some of the new entrants to banking like Metro, Marks and Spencer and Tesco don’t seem to be ditching the physical branches. With all the work I did with a major clearing bank in the 1970s, I know that these contribute significantly to the cost of doing everything.
The only certainty is that banking will go this way and there is going to be a lot more empty spaces on the High Street. I just wonder what is going to fill them. We can only have so many mobile phone and payday loan stores.
It’s The Teachers Fault
This report says that the reason for the GCSE results fiasco, was that teachers marked course work too generously.
Surprise! Surprise!
It just illustrates the dangers of using course work to grade results in exams, that was pointed out by so many experts before the practice was introduced.
I might have benefited from course work in my English O level,but I doubt it, as it wasn’t my strongest subject. But at least I performed well enough in exams to just get a pass in both English Language and English Literature.
William Hague Has A Problem With A Snake
This non-news story ended up on the BBC’s web site.
Surely, with all the problems in the world, one dead snake could be consigned to the dustbin of history! Or it could be returned to Guyana, where it allegedly lived!
A Ginger Damsel In Distress
On the way home tonight, I went via Kings Cross to pick up a train ticket.
it was one of those times, when I wished I’d had my camera with me, as in front of the ticket machine was a ginger damsel in distress. She had an enormous ruck-sack on her back and was trying to bend over to pick-up the Oystercard she had dropped. Suffice to say she wasn’t managing to pick the card up.
So I did the gentlemanly thing and retrieved her card.
When I heard she was on her way to Norwich, I did wonder if I’d done the right thing!
Picture Of The Day
This same picture captured by Stanislav Duben in the Czech Republic is in The Times, The Telegraph and the Mail. And I suspect many other newpapers and web sites all over the world!
It is one of those remarkable images captured occasionally by sheer luck. Look at it here in the Mail.
It does show the importance of having your camera handy at all times.
Is This Britain’s Worst Tourist Attraction?
I’ve never liked waxworks. I went once to Madame Tussards in probably the 1950s with my mother and we weren’t impressed. To me once was enough!
So when I see the pictures and read the reports in today’s Times about Louis Tussauds House of Wax in Great Yarmouth, it doesn’t change my opinion on waxworks. Read what Trip Advisor says here. The Telegraph doesn’t mince its words either and describes the attraction as facing meltdown.
On the other hand, I might go there, as it sounds so awful. But then there are much better things to see in Great Yarmouth.
Hollande Shows He’s A True Champagne Socialist!
There seems to be a big row brewing in France, as President Hollande has upped the tax on beer by a whopping 160%. He left the tax on wine and spirits alone. Read all about it, here in the Belfast Telegraph. This is the first paragraph.
France is planning heavy tax increases on beer, upsetting brewers – even in other countries.
President Francois Hollande is pushing through legislation to increase taxes on beer by 160% to help fund struggling social security programmes as France tries to lower a budget deficit hit hard by the economic crisis. The tax would affect local brews and the 30% of imported beer the French drink.
I suppose though, I’m not bothered, as I’ve never heard of a gluten-free French beer. Although, there’s some passable Belgian and Spanish ones.
Applying Control Engineering Principles To Pensions
Pensions are a nightmare and more rubbish is talked about them than any other financial matter, except possibly credit cards.
I’m in some ways typical, but the size of my pension pot is not typical.
When I worked for Metier, our wonderful accountant, Brian, set me up with a pension that I can live on.
I also have an income from the cash I got from selling the stud.
And when the DWP sorts it out I’ll have my State Pension.
So basically, I have a fixed sum coming in each month, from which I take my living expenses. Which of course varies on a month by month basis.
So at the end of each month I have a current account, which either has a small surplus or perhaps a small deficit. If it’s a surplus, the money goes into my Zopa account and if it’s a deficit, I withdraw a proportion of the payments made in at the first of the month.
So Zopa acts like a deposit account, that pays a reasonable rate of interest. The great thing, is that it costs me nothing to transfer money to and from Zopa.
There is of course a slight risk with Zopa, but I’ve used it long enough to have developed a philosphy that minimises bad debt.
Effectively, I’m using Zopa to damp out the fluctuations in cash flow, just as a control engineer might add damping to a feedback system.
The Anonymous Widower 