indiepanda

God, I hate management speak, hate it when I find myself doing it. The one that drives me potty at the moment is when I am asked to do a report in powerpoint slide format for people to "talk to" in a meeting instead of for them to use in a meeting where they are talking to other people. This example doesn't even seem to make sense, "develop, review and implement objectives..." at best you develop the objectives, given them to your team to implement and then you review their performance against them.

I'm not saying it's depressing, but financially I do fine here, I don't need to go overseas for the better life. I like to travel, I'm just not sure I could commit to living overseas for any length of time. When I enquired about it once, most companies who wanted people in my profession wanted people who were willing to commit for 5 years, which was too long. I'd have tried it for 2 years. Might do it as a secondment in my current job I suppose. But it's different doing it as a single person to being married & taking your family with you and always having the people you are closest to in the same country.

I considered working overseas for a while, but despite its faults, I'm still rather fond of England, and whilst I'm not exactly nipping home on a weekly basis, I like knowing it's not far to go if I need to. Only good argument for working overseas seems to be money, and there's more to life than that.

So what's actually changed about ED in the last 18 months? Or is it you've just got bored now you know the place? Personally I think what matters is who you hang out with, not where you hang out. I had some great times living in Swindon.... and if you can enjoy yourself there, you can probably enjoy yourself anywhere!!

Hmm, an estate agent suggesting things are going to improve in the autumn. Not at all self interested eh!

Hmm, an estate agent suggestion things are going to improve in the autumn. Not at all self interested eh!

I'm better off, but I don't think it's anything to do with new labour, just the difference between still being a student in my profession 10 years ago, and being qualified and having lots more work experience. I'd be a lot better off if I'd been sensible with my money when younger, think I was consistently living beyond my means for some years and wasted a lot of money on things I didn't really need. Debt all paid off now, but probably mainly because I could offset against growth in property value. Sold my house a year and a half ago when I moved to London, was fully expecting to have bought again by now, but obviously thought better of that since I moved here! Not the best time to buy if you can avoid it. So, will be trying to save my money to get as big a deposit as I can to put down when I buy again... could be some wait though! Hoping to learn to be a bit wiser with my money too...

I've noticed the plane noise last few days too - and I live near CPT. Hadn't occured to me it would be an issue living SE, expect it living SW London where I lived until last week.

What time will this be starting?

Really cool to meet everyone on Saturday evening, gave me a lovely break from the unpacking and made me start to feel nicely at home in the area, totally justifies my decision to move here. Hoping to make the Gowlett on Friday too, though will have to work out where it is first! If I seem quiet this week, it's not because I've been scared off! It's because I am internet connectionless at home and can't post much from work :-(.

I'm banking on the market going down further for sometime yet, have signed up for a year's lease when I could have afforded to buy on the grounds I'm sure I will get more for my money in a year or two's time. This isn't going to resolve itself overnight, prices haven't come down that much and are still near an all time high with plenty of people who are well above poverty line not being able to get on the first rung of the housing ladder never mind buy something large enough to raise a family in. I don't think the Bank should be cutting rates to promote the market, it's a bubble, it needs to burst and get back to reality. In any case, the cost of borrowing issue isn't caused by the central bank, it's the margin over the base rates the mortgage providers are charging. With most having taken a hammering on their balance sheet they are charging a bigger margin over base rates than usual. Until they are financially more strong they won't necessarily cut their rates even if the Bank of England does. Most people will still have plenty of equity in their home, and interest rates are hardly at the 15% high they went to in the early 90s, they are still low in the grand scheme of things. I appreciate some people who bought near top of market and stretched themselves to the limit will be in trouble if they can't remortgage to a decent deal when their fix runs out, but you are always taking a big gamble if you take on a mortgage you can only just service... surely the experience of the early 90s with interest rates up to 15% should have taught people that?

Highly amused by all the comments re second homes - the suggestion they should be subject to a higher rate of stamp duty suddenly turns into no luxuries for anyone whether they can afford it or not... slight overreaction don't you think? I can't think of anything else that is as limited in supply as homes in this country, not unreasonable something should be done to disincentive people from having more property than they actually need. If the water companies were allowed to put prices up in the face of higher demand, would people find it acceptable if in a hot summer rich people filled their swimming pools because they could afford it while others less fortunate couldn't afford to wash? I hope not, but that doesn't strike me as that dissimilar to the housing situation. We all rely on having nurses to look after us when we are in hospital, teachers to educate our children etc etc, but the housing market has got so silly they can't afford to buy now so we have to have schemes to help key workers buy homes, part ownership etc... it's crazy. Anyway, rest easy, I rather doubt any government will have the balls to do anything about it.

I definately agree with the people who say people buying second homes should have to pay extra stamp duty. It's things like people buying a weekend cottage which sits empty a lot of the year that prices local people out of the village they grew up in and the facilities closing down as there aren't enough people using them regularly to make them viable. If you can afford an extra house, you can afford the tax. I do think they should change the way stamp duty works so at the price it goes up, it should only be on the additional bit over the threshold not the whole lot, creates a real distortion at the moment. Even if the market is going up, if your house should really be worth ?255k, no one will pay that because they pay ?2,499.99 in stamp duty if they can get you to drop your price to ?249,999 and ?6,250 if they pay the asking price, which is a big difference. But putting it up overall might help price escalation. Think some sensible controls on mortgage lending would make a real difference too - some companies have been lending money to people they really can't afford to repay. I read today something like 9 in 10 mortgage advisors are guilty of misselling, and a good percentage of those don't check the borrower can afford the repayments. Ok, people should take responsibility for their finances, but I reckon a lot of people will assume the bank wouldn't lend them the money if it wasn't affordable. And I'm sure some don't understand impact rising interest rates would have on their repayments.

I thought savants were a subcatagory of autistic people rather than it being an alternative name. The savants are the super talented ones - like that boy who was on the TV years ago who was amazing at drawing very detailed pictures in a small amount of time This article seems to back that up:- http://www.autism.org/savant.html If people are choosing to describe all autistic people as savants maybe it's because they think it is a more positive thing to call them?

I've tried it once and ended up with a seriously bad hangover despite only have about 3-4 units, which usually wouldn't affect me. If you react the same as me, you could expect to feel like men with hammers were standing by your bed walloping your head when you wake up the next day.

I've only lived in London for the last 15 months. Grew up in a dormitary town in SE Essex - which was crap - few facilities because so many people worked in London they just went out after work instead of locally. I went to university in Bath, which I really enjoyed, but there's nothing doing in my line of work there. Before moving to London I lived in Swindon and in a small town in Hampshire. I had fancied the idea of living in London before but didn't fancy doing it till my salary would be enough I wouldn't have to live somewhere really rough. And I didn't want to have to commute while I was still doing my professional exams - time was precious then. I'm glad I've made the move now, I was getting bored of being one of the only single people in town - think people settle down younger outside of London - less distractions! Plan to stay for sometime, but whether I would stay forever is another matter. As I've said before, I don't expect to have a family, so I haven't that incentive to move out. But I could see me moving back to Bath when I retired - property a bit cheaper, and I expect I am going to be less worried about having good gigs to go to when I am into my 60s.

I definately find I get a lot of charity emails - my department is about 90 strong and any time anyone does anything charitable I seem to get a sponsorship request, and then there are friends outside of the office too. I generally respond positively especially if someone has taken the time to compose a more touching email that gives their reasons for supporting that charity. However, if it's someone I am not particularly close to and for a charity I don't care about, if they catch me when I am having a busy week, I may simply hit delete. For some people who drown in emails on a daily basis, another one demanding their attention may be too much, or it may be they can't afford it (let's face it, lots of people are in signifcant debt), or already support charities via a regular convenant that really matter to them. I'm a soft touch when approached in the street and have about 5 monthly covenants to different charities now.

Like the hosptial cleaning that went to private companies, and now we have people dying from MRSA and other superbugs in all our hospitals?

I'm no socialist. And certainly not up for total redistribution of wealth. What would have been the point in me working hard and having spent years doing professional exams and fucking up my social life in the process for ages to just give back everything extra I earn in tax. But there is often a big gap between Gov't rhetoric and practice and sometimes that gap hurts most the people that least deserve it. Child Support Agency sounded like a good idea in theory and that has never worked. If this works as I've heard it should work from one of the doctors who advised the government it'd be good, but we all know someone will make mistakes somewhere along the line. Which is not to say they shouldn't try, but shouldn't underestimate the pain that change can cause if not sensitively handled.

Gimme More - Britney Spears

outlaws

What do you do Anna?

Amen to that Sean. I can't believe some of the things Labour have done - I'm not a socialist, but I'd have felt really betrayed by them if I was. Tuition fees for university was the one that really drove me mad - would have scared me silly if I was going to uni now, although I think I might have got something towards it under means testing. If they didn't have ridiculous targets of getting 50% of people to be university graduates when much less than 50% of jobs need degrees they wouldn't need to ask people to pay. Another example of the ill thought through targets you mentioned earlier IMO.

will

Yes, agree it's all quite arbitary Sean. Whole thing does smack a bit of the government trying to find a way of reigning in spending now we are up to eyes in debt. And agree we wouldn't want to copy the worst of insurance companies (they aren't always bad, much to my surprise!) I'd rather the government saved some cash by quitting getting us into wars we shouldn't be in - Iraq must have cost us a fortune!