GeordieAndy

What industry are the layoffs in?

I have also lived, worked and owned property in Thailand and canbuywontbuy please listen to Crumbles as it sounds like they know exactly what it's like in the land of smiles in reality. As a farang you are tolerated but if you ever make a Thai lose face in public then your card is marked and they will get you one way or another. You only have to read around the headlines of what's happened to the previously lovely Koh Tao e.g. here to see what happens to the alleged rule of law and safety of farangs once the locals get greedy and become untouchable to the local police.

I graduated just after the .com bust and would call myself a reluctant web developer more than anything else as I end up doing a fair bit of back end work. This usually means customising templates that clients have seen or already bought and then charging them consultancy rates for this work as well as SEO and other bits that will actually increase their sales / business productivity. Actual proper programming bores me and I have never been a natural at it to be honest - the best programmers I know just instinctively get all languages & concepts and genuinely seem to enjoy it. In terms of working hard and paying off mortgage etc, I have been self employed for over 10 years already and doing ok but not started a pension yet but would say I have the work life balance ok in terms of being able to walk kids to school / nursery etc and not missing that part of life but still fancy doing something else.

Good article and some decent comments on here. As a dad of 3 in my mid 30s, reluctant homeowner (bought 3 1/2 years ago) and working in IT mainly due to the money being ok I have seriously thought about uprooting us all and trying to live off grid, self sustaining etc in some way. This is mainly due to the fact I'm not sure I have the enthusiasm for keeping my IT skills up to date for the next 20 years but globalisation and automation like this means there is always a cheaper / more enthusiastic option for clients

Try http://www.elminvestments.co.uk/gold-coins.html or http://www.hattongardenmetals.com/gold-coins.aspx

The East Coast franchise when it went back to state ownership seemed to do ok but no idea if that could be replicated across the country

With all the EU subsidies Spain gets etc I'm pleased we've contributed to giving them a nicer rail network than our own

Some clever mates of mine who used to be quite active in Labour have often talked about this guy who sounds better than the favourites so far...http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/03/war-westminster-labours-dan-jarvis-future-prime-minister

Yeah the writing has been on the wall for some time I think...

Closing some stores and sales down again: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30712762 and

If anyone is seriously interested in looking it all more then just look at the number of registered companies at the same head office address ;-) About time it all caught up with them and it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of tw@tz than the directors there!

Anyone got any thoughts on the the latest Tesco news?

Credit is very cheap at the moment with the latest offer from Lloyds on their credit card being the following which if you can make the money work better for you elsewhere for the interest free period of 2.5 years that they will lend you it interest free (1.5% fee) then it's not hard to see how people rack up such debt!

We've started getting the main weekly shopping delivered for £1 from an Asda about 5 miles away as it takes the hassle and cost of driving there and back plus at least 1 hour of our time as our previous shop is saved and all waiting in our online basket. We did shop for several years at our local Aldi / Lidl stores when we could but never been loyal to any one supermarket however I think the prices at the so called discounters have crept up over the last 12 months to a point that we feel the quality and prices at Asda were close enough that making use of online shopping was more beneficial to our family of 5.

If you are happy with your current mobile phone like me (I still have a Samsung Galaxy S3) then it makes sense to just get a sim card only deal e.g. micro sim only deals as I just did which gets me unlimited mins, texts and 2GB 4G internet for £9.99 month on EE after cashback over 12 months and I have never had issues with such cashback deals. At some point I will probably get a cheap Chinese made phone with an octo core processor etc but I think the most important bit of the phone for me these days is the camera and I might actually be better going with a brand for that bit.

I think as the article states, a lot of people simply wouldn't get their current mortgage let alone a remortgage to MEW with due to the new affordability rules so what's the point in trying when it will probably put another mark on your credit record too?

Not seen those sites before only dx.com and I agree it's only a matter of time before the middlemen or UK retailers as you could call them get properly squeezed! Some clients I work with are already seeing the Chinese move onto Amazon.co.uk and selling direct from Amazon's warehouses (FBA) however I wouldn't like to bet they aren't paying the correct duty / tax when sending their stuff by the pallet load to Amazon's warehouses...

I hate Mike Ashley and the way he runs both NUFC and Sports Direct empire so hopefully he will lose A LOT!

Where did the earlier thread from today go called "Tesco’S Lewis Seeks To Get More From Staff To Help Halt Decline" ???

This has just been on BBC and not going to make things easier for Tesco http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29306444

Interesting development as for people like myself who are tied to local schools for kids and work from home / locally then a 20 or 25 year fix with low early redemption penalties could make sense and I'm surprised it's taken this long for more than 10 year fixes to make it here.

We have a 1.6 TDI engine in our 2008 car with 45k on it and have had the Turbo go on it. Once it goes then you are very lucky if the sludge and any metal doesn't get into the rest of the engine and we went through 3 replacements before we got one that has so far lasted a year. This same engine and flawed turbo design is on cars made by Bmw, Citroen, Ford, Mazda, Peugeot, VW amongst others so I would highly recommend anyone to Google "Car Make + model turbo problems" to see if yours is one of those known in the industry to be dodgy. Oh and that's separate to the DPF issues that most modern Diesel owners will also face. If I was buying again I would buy petrol.

A long and detailed article on it all here: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article47228.html

Wow - wrong side of bed this morning? Lol. I really don't know why I bother with this place any more as I was genuinely intrigued why someone would go to the hassle of walking into what is essentially a grocery store at it's core looking to buy a physical CD / DVD of something they can get via the very internet connection they are trying to protect themselves from and be surprised the staff in a supermarket don't know the difference between similar software items!!!?? Your point that "...no matter how much you spend tarting up the stores if you have staff like that you are going to lose customers." is also missing the bigger point of this thread and why they are losing sales which I will reiterate mine and others views again for you - Tesco have lost focus on their core business of providing the best value weekly grocery shop hence why their staff are probably overworked and short tempered dealing with customer's computer hardware / software problems which they likely don't have any real training in or specialist knowledge of. Tesco got too greedy trying to do everything and even now when they should be concentrating on merchandising and customers in the food sections / checkouts they are still trying to sell people non food items they have no expertise in. As for your diatribe I think I will just re highlight one bit I particularly liked, "Enjoy being a geek thinking you are right about everything and ranting your self opionated cr*p on the internet. It is a sad pathetic existence. Don't worry - there are millions like you." alongside the fact that you have posted 38,273 times on this forum

Yes this is a bit geeky but can I also ask why is there anything being posted - it's software which you can download as a complete package via your / friends / library broadband connection within an hour at most I suspect If you / your friend don't have a fast internet connection on most of the time then anit-virus software / firewalls are pretty wasted on you anyway as your computer will be pretty useless to trojans / spyware / ransomware! Anyway this can be brought back onto topic somewhat as Anti Virus software is just like other 'branded' products that used to be cash cows for the mega corps which have had their heyday as more and more people are educated that their are cheaper, viable alternatives in the same way quality food items can be found at their local Aldi / Lidl. Also the fact that Tesco are selling (badly) such software and dealing with people's tablet computer problems whilst also trying to proclaim they are the cheapest / best place to do your weekly shop tells you all you need to know about how unfocussed Tesco have become on their bread and butter grocery core business.