Whitey Grandad

But does 'not taking any money out of the club' also mean 'not charging extortionate interest on any loans' ?

The money is paid to the pension company net of 20% basic tax, so if you want to pay in £1000, you only have to give them £800 and the pension company gets the other £200 from HMRC. If you pay %40 tax then you claim the other %20 back through your tax return.

Indeed, the only one?

And the VAT - if they choose to hand it over.

But they would have got better seats

Anything's better than the crap that's on now. (Wasn't the quote from Blackadder?) Edit: no, of course it wasn't. I really must wake up earlier.

'Personal reasons' being that he's personally not up to the job?

But you might just have typed '****' instead of '****'

Thanks, I'll let them know tomorrow.

Indeed. I know someone who wants to go but can't make the Carlisle game. They are happy to buy a linked ticket for any other home game.

I was talking last night to somebody who had a ticket for the Charlton game and did not know that the game had been moved to April. Had I not said anything she would have turned up next Tuesday to find the stadium closed. I wonder how may others there are like her?

I love languages and being able to say at least a few words to the locals. Like most people of my age I took Latin at school and it certainly helps with a lot of european languages. I speak French, which I use a lot in my business, German, Spanish, and I have spent the last 4 years in Italian evening classes. The trouble is that it is so similar to Spanish that it has partly driven out those words from my memory. I used to do a lot of business in Denmark and over the years picked up quite a bit of that language. First you need to find out if they're talking about you, then you need to know the numbers so you know how much they are willing to pay. Before I get too old I'd like to have some sort of understanding of Russian, Chinese and Arabic.

We've been twice, first to what is now called Diva Resort on Didhoo Finolhu and then to Olhuveli, both were wonderful holidays and both times in February. The islands are just north of the equator so get very hot, but the water is like a warm bath and very clear. Good for relaxing, snorkelling, diving we will definitely be going again but it will spoil you for anywhere else. Look carefully at the travel arrangements, charter flights usually arrive on a Sunday or Monday and there can be several hundred people arriving at the same time. The first time we went Air Lanka, hardly anybody on the plane and only 16 people got off the plane so all went very smoothly. We came back via three nights in Dubai - my wife loved that too. Used Air Lanka next time both ways but coming back we had some pigs in front who reclined their seats into our knees and got very shirty when I started kicking their seat backs. Deeply unpleasant and next time there will be a fight. Have a great time! http://www.olhuvelimaldives.com/

I agree. It looks to me like it says: 'you can, unless it turns out that you can't'.

'twas also in the Mail. (Mine )

I'm not clear whether you are you saying that the overspending did or did not cause the crisis. Personally, I don't believe that it did, but it has certainly left us poorly equipped to deal with the consequences.

I would say that the banks triggered a recession that was inevitable. Reporting a train crash that has already happened is different from speculating on what might happen. Remember the toilet roll and sugar runs from a few years ago? Shouting 'fire' in a crowded night club is irresponsible.

There are other factors at play, as of course you knew. A flat-tax policy has worked wonders for Hong Kong, for example.

Please read what I said. All commercial activity, be it banking, buying a new car, investing in new machinery, moving house, is based on confidence. Anything that undermines that confidence, that dissusades someone from making these choices, will reduce economic activity. The difference between 2% growth and 2% recession is very small and it only needs people to make their car last one year longer before replacement, or go without a holiday, or decide not to move house just yet and very soon you will get a 4% difference. Alarmist like Robert Peston would be well advised to keep their traps shut if they don't know what's going to happen.

Nothing of the voodoo about it: http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080917194649AAazgnj http://www.moneyexpertise.co.uk/what-has-caused-credit-crunch.html 'The credit crunch cannot be said to have been caused by any one aspect; those who suggest that the current crisis has been caused solely by the ‘evils’ of fat cat bankers are painting an overly simplistic picture.' The current (September 2010) view amongst economists is they still do not understand exactly what happened to cause the Credit Crunch, but that they expect to be able to keep debating it for years to come.

No, I did not consider it relevant to this debate.

Interesting that you raise Robert Peston. I blame him for the severity of the UK recession. All his talk at the time about how bad it could get and how we could be in for a 30's style slump must have been worth at least a couple of percentage points. Funny how he never saw it coming, did he?

Which one? That the banks caused a recession that caught the government unawares? The banks did not cause this recession, just as they did not cause the previous ones. The government spent money that they did not have because they thought that the good times could 'only get better'. Just like everybody else who overborrowed. Are you going to blame the banks for lending to these people? Perhaps if they had imposed tougher lending criteria then things would not have collapsed so spectacularly, but you are really talking about American banks here in the North American housing market where people like Clinton were encouraging home ownership amongst people who could not really afford it. Once more than a small percentage started to default then everything went belly up and we were caught in the downdraught.

No, the banks were only one of many causes.

They're a bit too barren for me. I'm more like, caribbean?