salamander

10% up over the month isn't too shabby though! Edit: Graph added

I had trouble with this too. As I recall the key is not to click on your user name next to "Logged in as", but to click on the "My Controls" link (next to "View New Post") at the top right of every page. You should then see "Edit Avatar Settings" in the "Personal Profile" section in the menu on left of the new page and from here you should be able to upload your avatar. Edit: Read previous post (I must learn to type faster....)

Yes, but don't forget... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet

Like this, you mean? http://www.londoneats.com/images/lapiccola.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28TeUbYvXS0

Well, yes, except he added the "Van" himself, presumably for aristocratic effect. Whatever he calls himself, he's a thoroughly nasty piece of work. :angry:

What goes around.. I really hope he gets put away for a long time. If anyone has got it coming to them, it's this egotistical, money-grabbing, murdering piece if sh*t.. ... and breathe out.....

If you're a higher rate taxpayer, the tax free NS&I Index-Linked certificates are actually extremely good. Assuming RPI stays at 4.0% over the next 12 months (and Merv suggested today that inflation will likely increase in the near future) you could invest 15K in the 3 year certs, with interest of (4.0+1.1 =) 5.1% in year 1 and 15K in the 5year certs with interest of (4.0+0.95 =) 4.95% in year 1. Taking the average over the whole 30K of 5.025% for the first year, once tax is taken into account, the effective rate for a higher rate taxpayer is around 8.4 % and for standard rate taxpayers around 6.3%, factoring in the change to basic rate tax in April. While the return isn't outstanding for standard rate taxpayers it's not bad, and assuming RPI doesn't fall (which of course it might), the return for higher rate taxpayers is pretty much unbeatable at the moment. If you haven't used your ISA allowance for this year, again the NS&I rate isn't bad at 6.05% and (like all ISAs) is tax-free. Once you've stuffed 3K in that or any other cash ISA. That just leaves 7K to worry about. Edit: Forgot to mention I was referring to NS&I accounts. Doh! Also updated because RPI was 4.0 in December and not 4.1 as I originally stated.

Yep. I have them and that is exactly right. Wish they'd hurry up and issue some more. Been 9 months now Perhaps they are expecting inflation to rise sharply and want to keep their costs down.... Oh hold on, didn't Merv say something along those lines earlier today ? Edit: Beat me to the draw christh

Ahh! April 2007. A much more innocent (and blissfully ignorant) time for me - specifically 12th April 2007. On that day, having found, viewed, and had an asking price offer (yes, I know..) accepted on a "compromise" house in W. London, some nagging doubts about whether I was making the right move led me to this article on the BBC News website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6549299.stm There was a link to an interesting looking website called "housepricecrash.co.uk". Clicking on it changed everything. Needless to say the offer was very hastily withdrawn (two days later). Since then: - I have learnt more about money, economics and finance than I would have thought possible, and I know I have barely touched the surface. - My pension funds have been moved (over last summer) from equities, commercial property etc into the relative safety (IMO) of cash - Not only is the money from selling my old place now 1/3 in gold and 2/3 cash in NS&I but I actually prefer this "gamble" - I have come to see that in a few years I might be able to afford to live where I actually want, rather than having to compromise. Now finally, those nagging doubts back in April last year make perfect sense. Thanks to everyone on this site from whom I have learned so much. Perhaps now my nickname on here makes sense...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdMDWEpbrHU

I listened to the article before checking him out. Sounds like a fairly hardcore conspiracy theorist, but if the Telegraph is to be believed he might actually be right about France... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../24/wfra124.xml

Link looks like it got mangled. Is this the one ? http://www.alliance-leicester.co.uk/saving...e=FixedRateBond

'Tis ever so slightly camp, I agree. However... http://www.jsmineset.com/arhome.asp?VAfg=1...amp;T_ARID=5715 Check out the last sentence.

Comrade In Golden Arms, I believe. Edit in bold

Dunno about that one. However, if you're looking for giant goldfish....

..but the fish looks tasty

Bump because the "Chiswick House" is on Property Ladder on More4 now. About half way through... Edit: and it's still not sold http://www.findaproperty.com/displayprop.a...p;agentid=03068

Yes you can but additional investments must be at least £100 [see paragraph 29 of the T&Cs] and you can only top up in this way until either you hit the investment limit of 15K or a new issue of the same term is launched. Once a new issue is launched the old issue is closed for new business and you will only be able to invest in the new issue, which may have a different rate of additional interest ( it's 1.35% over RPI in the current issues). Is it worth it ? As always it depends. If RPI falls to 3% a higher rate taxpayer would need to find a bank account paying 7.25% to get the same return. For a basic rate taxpayer the effective return would be lower, between 5.44% and 5.58%, where the existence of range is due to the fact that the basic rate of income tax changes from 22% to 20% in April this year.

Fair comment, and if I'm honest, the unedited post was more about seeming to back down but actually to do with getting the last word in because at that stage, I was still "possibly right" as far as I was concerned. The edit was a genuine attempt to address this, but on reading back I can see it was completely over the top, and didn't actually convey the intended message, which was "I was wrong, and I was doubly wrong to call you a patronising tw*t" I'm thinking that perhaps simple "Oops! Sorry!" might be better should this happen again...

It sometimes takes a lot to make me back down, but when I do, I really back down, just to make sure there's no confusion.

I got it wrong. You can stop being a patronizing tw*t now, if you like. Edit: I completely missed post #35, which pointed out the even more obvious errors than my mis-interpretation of the statement. I didn't get it wrong, I got it badly wrong. I unreservedly withdraw all and any comments about individuals being patronizing tw*ts and will write out 100 times: I must check my maths more carefully and properly read responses before getting into fights I must check my maths more carefully and properly read responses before getting into fights I must check my maths more carefully and properly read responses before getting into fights I must check my maths more carefully and properly read responses before getting into fights ... I'll do the rest on paper...

Agreed. The raw nubmers are much more useful, which is almost certainly why they don't reveal them.

I got the statement wrong, but the equation right, according to my interpretation of the report, which may itself be wrong