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Two points (depending slightly what deal you have):
1. Best advice is to switch from equities into cash, gilts etc as you approach retirement age. Being less in equities reduces the risk of a market crash reducing your pot by, say, 25% overnight on the eve of retirement. Even though most people don’t switch into annuities the way it used to be, this gives you more certainty. 2. Market has bounced hugely since falling in early March but don’t assume that is for ever. We are still in a high risk environment and (IMO obviously) the market is ahead of itself and not pricing in big losses at banks on property, high street retail, private equity, never mind CV second wave. (Other opinions are available).
You can always (depending on your plan) move money around as you see fit,unless it is one where you are obliged to buy an annuity.
Good to note that whilst the Hungarians were not averse to pulling down the odd statue, they did a very sensible and elegant repositioning of their history, post 1989, with all the old Commie-era statues being put in a memorial park. People could visit, and learn and reflect, at their leisure about the past, whilst recognising it was off centre now. It’s a popular tourist destination.
PS they changed a lot of road names too. You could tell who was ‘old school’ or not by what name they used for some of the main streets ... not in a bad way, usually, though.
There’s nothing I want to read, and precious little I want to watch, on the BBC. Their weather forecast is reasonably good.
Separate issue, but if its ‘public service’ elements were carved out I would pay a licence fee of say £10-20 p.a. very happily. The rest should be made to pay its own way.
I took The Times on trial - £8 for 8 weeks. I used to only buy the Saturday, and on other days would occasionaly read it free in Nero while popping out from work.
It will shortly default to £26 per month and on balance I think I will keep it. Lots of useful freebies to pass the time like crosswords and Sudoku and there are some columnists I do like.
I’m saving over £50 on commuting (bus pass) which I suppose is an offset.
Edit - nothing in the Times (apart from Hugo Rifkind on Saturdays) is as funny as John Crace in the Guardian though. Fortunately he is free online .... I have paid my dues to the Graun over many years so have no conscience about clawing something back.
Illustrates how much room there is within the term in the law ‘reasonable excuse’.
Yes, we have both got c-virus but we are going to get in the car and drive the thick end of 300 miles with our kid. Hopefully non stop, though we may pick up a Costa, some sandwiches and top up with petrol, and might as well use the loo while we are at it. Then turn round and come back a week later.
Seems reasonable ... let’s all go out for a drive.
20th century fiction - work your way through Kingsley Amis. Amongst other things, he paints wondrous time-capsule pictures of how everyday life was.
Lucky Jim is the original closely followed by That Uncertain Feeling (set in an anonymised Swansea, where he lived at the time) and at the other end of his output is Booker winner The Old Devils, also set in South Wales. I wish the TV serialisation of that could be found but I don’t think it’s out there.
His memoirs are hysterically funny though ‘unreliable’. The bio of him by Zachary Leader is an immense work. Both of these also paint a vivid, though not fawning, picture of Swansea in the 1950s.
What is potentially interesting here, is that you have a group of people who presumably all think they are clean, hence come in to training, and yet are shown to be carrying (and presumably unaware).
An interesting indicator of the latent (either asymptotic or just low impact) incidence in a broadly healthy sub-group?
That’s a sad one. Sometimes news like this really hits you and it’s like a chunk of your past has gone. They were great: original, talented and funny. Not their best song, but a great party one:
Speaking up for the minorities - a mix of managers whose teams I watched, and whose teams I didn’t, but when I felt the team was in ‘not bad hands’
- Burrows - Hollins - Jackett
Can I have one more? Roy Bentley. Managed the first team I watched and they played what I think would be regarded as decent football, more passing than hoof ball.
Went through the list of managers to help with that, and there are some right good laughs such as John Bond. I lived in Norwich when he was manager there. Incredible how the football world has changed.OT but I have a vague memory of a fly on the wall documentary when he took over at Man City from Malcolm Allison and his first talk to the squad was pricelessly funny. Even locals in Norwich thought he was a one.