djm1972

Ridiculous idea for a TLD, being 1 character short of the existing .com. Should never really have been allowed. I "own" quite a few .com domains, but I have no intention of being held to ransom by this and shall not be bothering registering the .co equivalent of any of them - the squatters can have them, run AdSense on them, and make far less from it than it would otherwise cost me in registration fees!

Was expecting a mention of Japan in the last 5 minutes discussion of interest rates but it never came.

Basically yes - depending on your LTV of course. You may be c) from day 1 be in a position to try and sell and clear the mortgage, which is effectively where I stand at the moment. I have an IO morgage of 150K fully outstanding against the property that I bought in 2007 for £210K. There are similar houses on the estate trying to sell today for £230-£250K - and mine is one of the better examples. I could go up against them at my 2007 purchase price, trump them all, bank £50K and rent for the foreseeable future. Seriously tempted TBH!

I certainly didn't lie to get my mortgage in 2007 at the peak of silly season, but it was a self-cert interest-only full term tracker for BoE base rate + 1% based on 75% LTV. The same product was available for lower deposits but I can't remember the specifics i'm afraid. Edit: might still have the blurb at home will check later.

Back when I graduated; I got a job, thought it would be "for life" and joined the company pension scheme without giving it a second thought - it just seemed like the done thing. Anyway, over the course of the next few years both the company, and the economy, turned to dust. No need for details; but over the course of mergers, acquisitions and other nonsense; I am now in the position of having this ridiculously complicated split-fund (to cover opted-in and opted-out nonsense) of about £13K. It's all too complicated to be merged with a nice straight forward simple private pension and It's going to be worth next to nothing all by the time I retire. I could put it to far better use now if the Government would let me and millions like me to have back pathetic, complex little funds like this in order to clean up and reset our pension plans. Or blow on a new car...

All true, of course. I was only really referring to an emergency token amount (I tend to keep about £60 stashed away that I try to pretend I haven't got) in case of a serious cash-machine or banking systems failure for a few days. But since starting the thread and researching the last issue date of the £20 notes in question; it is possible that they were given out in customer withdrawals during the run on Northern Rock; and how many of them decided that the mattress was the safest place for them?

Yes! It only occurred to me when in Tescos a short while ago and I noticed the sign. They were last issued in 2007, and ceased to be recognised as legal tender 2 days ago; so may form part of a stash created in response to the run on Northern Rock.

Everyone remembered to make sure that their emergency cash stash is still comprised of legal tender?

Why do developers position ovens with so little room either side.

Anyone else buy this for a laugh? It really is funny; I just wonder how many actual first time buyers their "advertisers" think they are reaching.

DUPE IGNORE forum_software.crap = TRUE;

It's just like those Marrakech market stalls with "Prix Fixe" signs up. "Your mate - selling the same thing, 2-stalls that way,prix non fixe..... "

Loved the part in Bravo-Two-Zero where one of the SAS guys comes home from secondment to find his home occupied by squatters. Nobody was around to witness exactly what was said; but the net result was that the squatters agreed to waive their rights on that particular occasion.

3.3% doesn't sounds like a significant swing to me, and needs more data to back it up. If the previous 5 years fell within a 0.5% deviation then it's significant, but to quote year on year with such a small value is meaningless.

Plus, this very cold spell has come the first winter after many gas customers were encouraged (and accepted the offer) to fix until 2011. Shortly afterwards gas prices dropped.