Saving For a Space Ship

Yes it is Krusty, Joining in with the politicians in impressions of the new kids programmes Blow, Ho & Doh!

REVIEW - Pacific Heights http://www.find-dvd.co.uk/r1/085391724728.htm Ever a had neighbour from hell? You know, the one who never cleans, makes too much noise at night with his jigsaw and breeds cockroaches and pumps them into your apartment? Never have? Well, pump up your paranoia with this outlandish if mildly enjoyable thriller starring Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine as San Francisco yuppies-cum-landlords who rent out an apartment in their Pacific Heights house to mild-mannered Michael Keaton in order to make the mortgage payment. What seems like a happy arrangement all around turns hellish when (a) Keaton refuses to pay the rent;( firmly entrenches himself in the apartment thanks to some legal manoeuvring; and © starts playing with the cockroaches. Ostensibly, Keaton wants to drive Griffith and Modine to bankruptcy and then pick up their fab Victorian house for cheap but as is the way of all thrillers, he's got a sadistic and homicidal bent to back up his real-estate envy. Director John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy) manipulates the thrills somewhat effectively, if not gratuitously, especially with Griffith's damsel-in-distress character, turning on the tension in the don't-go-to-the-attic/garage/basement set pieces. Part of the problem of the film lies in its schizophrenic tone: one moment it's a what's-in-the-dark? thriller, at other times a nifty cat-and-mouse game of psychological wills between Keaton and his landlords. Both sides of the movie are effective in their own right, and Keaton is a great psycho, but Schlesinger doesn't quite bring it together, despite a considerably amped-up climax. Still, if the sight of a beautiful house being slowly destroyed is your idea of the ultimate horror, you'll be chilled to the bone. Look for Griffith's mother, Tippi Hedren of The Birds fame, in a cameo role

I remember that memorable Car 57 Top of the Pops appearance. BTW Rfd, who was that chap with the hat in the car & from what tv series on your last avatar ?

"Bloody nulabor spinmeistress - they're so contemptible - they're all trained to breathe in the middle of sentences so that they can just keep going and going and going until everyone's so sick of the sound of them that all they want to do is creep out of the room and nobody can be bothered to argue. Bloody infuriating browbeating tactics." Totally agree, she was an expert at it, do they have an operation to insert a breathhole in the back of there neck or something? Even Paxman was pushed on that one. Maybe they need a time up bell to sound or Paxman to just cut their sound off to compensate. :angry:

Yes, a similar irony has been noted before, particularly with Ads for Thirsty Pornshop & Phils Book 'How to buy a house'

Charlie, Hooray for the hpc mods, battling the Uk PLC coming recession by trying to keeping the work rate up. Maybe you should ban him for his own good or he'll be on incapacity benefit for hpc addiction like me before he knows it. Its a slippery slope. Edit: Luckily, I've got your inheritance to bale me out

There is a responsible thread on the subject - http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...?showtopic=7454 Arguably, it could be better displayed than in the Classics section, or a list of the links contained in it could.

From you graph, both sites seem to have a massive drop recently. Any theories as to why that is ?

Horrifyingly, your not wrong there. I saw an Open University programme about a year ago on the expanding Chinese middle/ upper classes, they idolised Hummers as a status symbol! This was worsened by the Chinese city traffic often reduced to a crawl. Cars- 'make-up for men' :angry:

Sorry if this has been mentioned before, But I spotted this over on the Singed Minge Forum with some landlords not very happy about it. I thought it may be of use to some renters here. http://www.oft.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/DAAEFE5...EE/0/oft356.pdf

I just had a rant on this in the Manchester region thread http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...pic=8848&st=240 quoted below "On the North West part of the BBC 10 O'clock news thay just had some megga ramping of Manchester house sales /prices, saying prices had gone up 400%, Interviewing with 2 Ea's, usual sickening stuff. They said 'look the skyline still has loads of building cranes' Ok, we've seen this before, but it comforted me that it had an air of VI desperation & panic. One young Ea said prices had gone up 4% this year. I'll fire the usual complaint off to the bbc for what good it will do, as it seemed a time warp advert for Ea's ramp lies of ommission with no one putting the other side of the story. " Reply - QUOTE(apollo1966 @ Sep 30 2005, 11:30 PM) I think the 400% story related to the Nationwide report http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/historical/CMQPRQ305.pdf see page 6 And the 4% up this year, that concurs with Land Registry. Infact 4% sounds conservative http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/in_d...ces/html/bn.stm don't forget that the Land Registry is based on actual real sales recorded by deeds being deposited after completion of sales, so it's not speculation, just real data. I don't mean to dampen spirits for those hoping for a crash, but truely there is no sign of it here, and price drops in better areas of Manc are non existent with the exception of large detached properties in posh parts of Trafford borough and parts of city centre with new build BTL flats." My Reply - "I had a quick look on the BBc site news site & it may be here somewhere, but my r/player's not working right, so couldn't check. http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/england/int/ne/nw/...ews_console.stm or http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/ It appeared like they were referring to an interviewed lady who's sold her house this year, having bought in 1995, & price had gone up 400%, but I may have misread it as they said something about Manc. having done better than other areas. It was a bit weird at the beginning as it almost appeared like they were celebrating that this woman had sold her house! The land registries 3 months behind though isn't it ? so it only relaible so far, they said 4.6% i think. What gets my goat is the distortion, as that must be down from a 20%+ rise a year before. At least some academic could make an appearance at least to give a more balanced picture. IMO, Manchester is going to be a Neg equity/ Repo bloodbath with so many empty 'Yuppet' low grade built shoe boxes, now the economies tanking. It looked rough 6 months ago when I visited, as there were so many BTL city centre flats. Won't these have swamped the place rather a lot driving rents down ? I'm down ther road in Chester & i've seen some similar major delay tactics in finishing the yuppet flats on the canal, most likely praying for the spring/ summer / haloween bounce"

Court case in sight for eBay Sean Poulter, Daily Mail 29 September 2005 THE Internet auction site eBay is being prosecuted after being accused of allowing the sale of cheap disposable contact lenses. http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money-savers/...19&in_page_id=5 Trade Associations (cartels), Retailers & industry trying to slow the slide to online trade is surely a sign of an increasingly desperate high street . In one way, its good ebay are too big to take on now, the big boys would destroy many smaller players.

From 13 years in London, I always saw Hackney as a hell-hole. It does seems to slipped down the rankings in the Crap Towns guide. www.CrapTowns.com seems to still be down but I found the humourous list & comments to all the uks crappest towns still here http://idler.co.uk/crap/?page_id=50 along with the top crap holidays & crap jobs

In addition, there seems to be a serious bit of Fly-to-let or holiday home property ramping going on with BBc Breakfast, with a special report all this week . http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/breakfast/4264534.stm I just caught the end of this mornings one, which seemed to include all the old ramping tricks in Eastern Europe, with the only defence being some local moaning about the downside of a developer buying up a whole coast, but I guess this was hidden 'buy it quick' ramping as well. They make me sick :angry:

I sell 20 to 40 collectables & antiques a week on ebay, it s developed into a part time job. I find it quite tough, but preferable to the nightmare of a lease on a shop / dealing with face to face public etc.. Must agree with other posters on not being able to see how people make any money selling newish stuff, its very cut throat, but I heard the tax man is targetting users with 50+ feedback now & the paper trail is like shooting fish in a barrel. To me it seems difficult to judge if its an economic indicator or not. In an economic downturn, my opinion is that ebay will get flooded with stuff, but then, this happens anyway as many categories like kids clothes already are flooded. I'm undecided on the effect on buyers, as people being hard up may drive them to use ebay more in search of a bargain, so usage goes up, but also stop them buying a lot of the luxury items, like gifts, decorations, dvds etc reducing sales. The High st. will definately suffer more. Charity shops & boot sales seem to suffer as more people use ebay to sell their items instead & there is a massive problem with piracy, that ebay cannot cope with quantity wise, particularly from the far east. Its a great shame it remains a monopoly, ebid & qxl are rubbish as there no comparison in amount of buyers. Paypal has its problems, but makes selling abroad easy, cheap & quick compared to bank transfer etc & you do get paid upfront .

"And put them through for "humiliation" purposes you could say the X Factor is the modern day equivalent of the Coliseum" Nice analogy, that would be the 'Cowelliseum' then Maybe soon we will see a 'desperate debtors as contestants' version with the panel as lenders/ baliffs The 'look of horror' on the contestants faces when they are turned down for the loan or chastised for their previous spending binge. The morbid voyeurists smile on contestant comments like 'Oh, but I am so determined to believe that house prices alway as go up' the panel bring them down to earth with ' while you were here being interviewed, we sent the baliffs in to repo you & lock you out'

It was excellent & from a 'Money Programme' Special I think. But sadly I think it was nearly over a year ago The daytime property porn (porn for cowards) repeats are still going strong, I just checked the listing & homes under the hammer & the related 'beat the burglar are still on. The atrocious 'To buy or not to buy ' was on until the other week. C4 keep repeating various 'in the sun' type scum. While on the BBc subject, I just watched the 1 '0'clock news, when reporting on returning New Orleans Katrina victims they said 'no sign or tourists yet though' unbelievable

The last housing bubble crash was 89/90 to 95/96 so from judging the future by the past the next crash should have been around 2001/2 shouldn't it ? Hence the flurry of predictions

I noticed the drop in addition of thread to the 'classic forum' too. In fact I think one has been removed.

I totally agree with the 2 replies above, but I would add that what reminds me of the X factor contestants, is the muppets who did not realise the consequences of stretching to buy in a housing bubble in the last 2 years or MEW'ing their house to death. They are now having a rude awakening. So much of the truth spoken on HPC reminds me of Simon Cowells comments & the hostile response they sometimes get. What is sad is the revelling in these contestant outbursts by ITV , but hey, that car crash tv :angry:

I cannot answer your specific question re: Banks going down, but off the top of my head, I would have thought it depends on the contract you have signed with the bank. I would have thought that if you keep paying you repayments, you are keeping to your side of the contract & the bank cannot do anything. No doubt some othe hpc member will have an answer. Theres a thread here with a lot of links on debt advice generally http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...?showtopic=7454

Links here top right of page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/default.stm#

This looks like a great links & resource page for Diesel Motorbikes http://www.peace65.freeserve.co.uk/Pictures/diesel.htm Check out the photos on the diesel bike rally ! Almost exciting enough to make an HPC regular trade in his Proton :-) http://www.peace65.freeserve.co.uk/Pictures/hamm.htm

I'm duvetstated

They are saving it for the wicker man