Supply and Demand

Prospects for the UK housing market took another hit as data showed the number of mortgage approvals slid to a 16-month low in August, weighed down by job fears and tight lending criteria.

Net mortgage lending increased by £2.5 billion in August compared with £1.9 billion in July, according to the British Bankers' Association. A year earlier, lending grew £3.3 billion, the association said, suggesting that housing-market activity is now much slower than in the second half of 2009 and the first few months of this year.  "Even with stable or falling house prices the current economic climate makes it unlikely that demand will pick up in the near future."

If ever there was a self fulfilling prophecy then that last statement was it! And the proof is in the first paragraph: tight lending criteria.

The banks are asking for 25% deposit, to be a customer and a saver, 3, 4, 5 per cent over base (which is 0,5% at the moment) and also charge a fee of up to £1,000.

No wonder there is no demand if that’s the cost of the supply.

So if you cant buy , you rent, but anybody trying to get any loan from a bank to buy rentable property is laughed at. “Don’t you know we lent squillians to corporate investors and we have to get it back somehow!”

You cant sell a house in the UK at the moment as there is no supply of property, unless you reduce the price. If you do reduce the price some other poor bugger in your road may becomes a negative equity ‘owner’!

The British Government (that is the taxpayer) own most of the Banks, RBS, Northern Rock, Lloyds etc. Can’t we have a say in what goes on in Banking circles?

No Chance!!

McDonalds

And I bet they are too. The shareholders that is.

In the USA McDonald’s the world's largest hamburger chain will now pay a dividend of 61 cents a share, and sees total cash returned to shareholders about $5 billion in 2010, split between dividends and share repurchases. The dividend of 61 cents is equivalent to $2.44 per share annually.

McDonald's said it saw total cash returned to shareholders in 2010 at about $5 billion, split between dividends and share repurchases.

I know that the UK McDonalds is a franchise solely owned by Associated Foods and they have done as well as in the USA.

Just goes to show that selling bits of recovered beef with added salt, plus those horrible fries can make you a rich man.

Blockbuster to slash debt by $900 million via bankruptcy

Do you remember in you a long time ago your area having a local video store? In the village I lived in we had two a Betamax and a VHS. Both were run ‘part time’, one was in an off licence the other in an ‘open all hours’ store.

Not a fantastic collection but run on a honesty type of operation, if you return a day late it was no bother. As the growth of ownership in video players grew so did their business.

However in the background big brother or Blockbuster came along and shut them down by either buying them up or getting the video makers to only sell to them. The operation was rigid with fines for late return, snooty staff and overpriced popcorn and sweets. Well now its their turn!

Video/DVD rental chain Blockbuster Inc filed for bankruptcy as part of a pre-arranged deal with bondholders that would slash the company's debt by about $900 million. The company's senior debt holders have agreed to support the plan and provide $125 million in "debtor-in-possession" (DIP) financing to help support Blockbuster's operations while it is under bankruptcy.

Internet downloads no doubt taking business away. Lol. What comes around goes around.

Casualties in Afghanistan

This is an up to date list of Coalition Forces casualties as at 22/9/2010. In total 2100 casualties.
I think that the statistics from http://icasualties.org are telling us that we are not wanted.
I think its time to go. Don’t you?

Pony tailed man (Rant alert)

You must have one in your office or in  the area or as a minimum seen them in the street. Bald middle aged men with a smallish pony tail at the back. We have one in our gym. He is German, losing is hair but with a small pony tail at he back (similar to the picture).
He is a bloody pest. He spends 95% of the time talking to people about how wrong they are doing the exercise but never doing any himself.
Other times he stands looking at people doing their exercise and then shakes his head and moves on. He hopes they will say what? and then he can tell them.
He never ever does this to the real weight lifters and muscle men in the gym who just totally ignore him. which is the best thing too do.
The plonker!

LFC – To be owned by the State?

if you read my blog entry of 4th August 2010, you can see that I read the situation well and no bidder bought 'my' club before August 31st. Since then we, the supporters, have supported the club in their football attempts so far this season. In my opinion the Euro matches have been well supported, more than I thought they would be.
So were from here?
If RBS decides in October to call in their loan to H and G in October that, as they say, would be more or less that or would it?

Two options strike me immediately.
One. Kop Football (Holdings) would be directly owned by RBS and run as a part of the bank which is itself owned by taxpayers in the UK.  In other words it would be nationalised just as RBS is.  With the American owners not able to provide any more guarantees they would be thrown off the board.  The bank would then deal with the matter directly.
That means that citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will own the club.  We will all have to be vetted as fit and proper persons – and I am rather worried about one bloke in our apartment block in Liverpool.
Two. The courts cases start and LFC go into limbo or more accurately, purdah. G and H will fight RBS in the courts, providing they can raise the money. They will cause all kinds of mayhem, thus depriving LFC from moving on and drawing a line under our American ownership. The courts will take forever to give a verdict and we will be rudderless and more importantly penniless for the remaining part of this season and maybe more.

Whichever way it goes, I can still see problems for LFC at the end of the season. It has been hinted that no penalty deduction will be suffered if RBS takeover the club, however, if Liverpool qualify for Europe next year, in any form, I can see the clubs missing out challenging the ‘deduction ruling’ in court.
Its all going Peter Tong!

Being Sorry is not Enough (Rant Alert)

"Just say sorry and it will all be okay."

So while Uncle Roy, Babel, Jovanovic and even Eccleston trot out their apologies they would do well to remember who they manage and play for.

At Liverpool we don’t expect apologies, we demand performances.  We demand a bit of pride in the shirt they are paid a lot of money to wear.

What are they apologising for? It’s either they didn’t work hard enough or they aren’t good enough.  If it’s either then they shouldn’t be at Liverpool FC. Simple as that.

Everybody knows that until the current owners are removed future prospects are bleak, but that doesn’t excuse the players from putting a shift in for the fans. What has been served up so far this season is dross.  Any hiccups in the next 5 league games could etch some serious stains on a number of people’s CV’s

Liverpool’s domestic season has stuttered: this season Liverpool are struggling to even find the opponents penalty box.

Birmingham away was as dismal as it got, lucky to walk away with a point.  Sneaked past West Brom. at home. And totally outclassed at Man City and Man Utd.

Ryanair dethrones Iberia in Spain

It is hard to beleive but I checked it and it is true. Despite trating passengers as cattle, having the worst behaving (to passengers) cabin crew. They have done it.
Irish low-cost airline Ryanair said it had overtaken Spanish flag carrier Iberia as the largest airline in Spain in terms of the number of passengers carried.
The company quoted official statistics from Spain's airport authority AENA showing that Ryanair in July transported 2.98 million passengers to or from Spain, compared to 2.77 million for Iberia. The budget carrier congratulated itself for having "dethroned Iberia as the preferred company in Spain."
The company, which began operating from Barcelona's main airport El Prat, said in a statement it planned to add 12 new destinations from Madrid's Barajas airport this year, to reach a total of 44.
Iberia by contrast has said it plans to further cut its domestic offers in order to concentrate on international routes, in particular to Latin America.

Spanish Banks Hooked on ECB Cash for Years

Spanish banks have become reliant on the ECB, the European Central Bank, (the lender of last resort to EU countries) as investors sidestep their bonds. This will make Spain subservient to the stronger EU countries that loan their money to the ECB

The borrowing from the ECB by the Spanish Banks since the inception of the euro, based on Bank of Spain figures indicate that they asked for a record 130 billion euros ($166 billion) in July, accounting for 29 percent of total borrowing from the ECB, almost four times their average 8 percent share since 1999.

Spanish banks have been all but shunned by international investors since the collapse of a housing boom in 2007 triggered the worst recession in 60 years, with the unemployment rate surging above 20 percent. Bad loans reached 5.5 percent in May from 4.7 percent a year earlier.

Fredrico the Frog

We recently had a visitor to the pool. You can see him just under the basket handle sitting next to the ‘Lilly Pad’ of a chlorine tablet. We think he moved into the pool as the recent dry weather has dried up the local small pools and lakes.
We had to rescue him from the pool as the chlorine content in the pool would have eventually killed him.We eventually trapped him with a net and put him into a spare empty tub.
And here is is waiting transportation to a water course about 2kms away.

International day of Peace

The United Nations' (UN) International Day of Peace is celebrated on September 21 each year to recognize the efforts of those who have worked hard to end conflict and promote peace. The International Day of Peace is also a day of ceasefire – personal or political.

Cant see it happening in Afghanistan or Iraq can you?

No weather this week

Of course there has been weather in Spain this week. It just that we have not been there to record it.

Talk Like a Pirate Day

Today is the International Talk Like a Pirate Day (ITLAPD) a holiday announced in 1995 by Mark Summers and John Baur of Portland, Oregon, who declared 19th September each year seeing that the day when one and all in the globe must converse like a pirate.

For instance, a follower of this holiday would meet friends not with “Hello”, but also with “Ahoy, me hearty!” The vacation, and its celebration, spring from the romanticized sight of Golden Age of Piracy.

My offering: Were are your buccaneers? On me buccan head!

More of Spain in the UK

Almost two million bank customers at Royal Bank of Scotland are to unexpectedly have their current and savings accounts transferred to Santander. The migration of the accounts comes after the Spanish banking giant bought 318 bank branches from state-owned RBS.

The sale was forced on RBS following the Government’s multi-billion pound rescue package. The branches include all 311 RBS branded branches in England and Wales and seven Natwest branded branches in Scotland. 

The accounts will not be switched over for another 12 to 18 months. Mortgage customers will also be switched to Santander as part of the deal if they bank at one of the affected branches.

Do these customers have a choice? Not mentioned.

However, customers should be concerned about what is going to happen to the terms and conditions on their accounts. It may be the catalyst that makes the affected customers check out the whole market for a new account rather than just accepting the changeover to Santander.

Following the deal, Santander will have some 1,645 branches, about 12 per cent of the British market. It bought lender Abbey in 2004 and has since added Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley.

Love the French?

I am not a great lover of the French, however, every now and then they do things that only the French can do.

The latest is the deportations of Roma (people) that are part of a high-profile crackdown on illegal camps in the country. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said comments by an EU commissioner criticising Roma deportations from France were "outrageous".

EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding appeared to compare France's actions to persecutions in Nazi-occupied France.

Sarkosky replied: "The disgusting and shameful words that were used - World War II, the evocation of the Jews - was something that shocked us deeply," he added that they would continue to dismantle Roma camps.

In other words we are carrying on even though its wrong and can be compared to the the Nazi persecutions in World War Two.

SPAIN: More hot days, fewer cold nights

Researchers at the University of Salamanca decided to consider the impact of climate change on mainland Spain they chose to look at it in a different way from many other scientists.

Instead of studying average temperatures, they looked for changes in the incidence of two climate extremes - warm days and cold nights.
After studying climate records from 1950 to 2006, they found that mainland Spain has had a greater increase in the number of warm days than the rest of the planet and a drop in the number of cold nights.
I must admit that this has been my experience since arriving 4 years ago. The days are sunny and warm to hot or the winter days are very cold. Last summer was not as hot as this and last winter was the coldest.

Your Safety and your Children’s Safety

The holiday season in Spain is over, however, what struck me most was how people ignored safety either of themselves or their children.

Parasailing from the Beach looks cool, however, its a whole lot different when a 16 stone bloke gets strapped in. Did you check the knots? Knots? Surely you mean harness straps and buckles. Landing? Oh my good I am doing 20 miles an hour and my 15 minutes are up, what did the Spanish guy say? Where’s my crash hat? Is that the sea coming up? Boom! Splash!

It is a bit funny to see all this from the beach bar. Most come back laughing and trying to ignore the pain of splash down or torn ligaments. Insured? I don’t think so, not on most holiday insurance!

And as for letting the kids hire a scooter, its laughable. Sure you can prove he is 16, it says so on his passport. Insurance, well the bloke said so in all those forms I signed in Spanish. Crash hat was extra and it more or less fits. Shoes, eh, well don’t flip flop count? And  am sure that the T shirt and shorts will protect him if he comes off. And I told him no passengers.

Other road user? Spanish drivers, well I told him just the quite roads and no more than 30 mph, what’s that in kph? 50? 60? Oh well I am sure he will be OK.

The local hospital are full of people who normally take care in the UK but for some reason all safety thoughts go out of their head when on holiday.

Did I also mention banana boats? Ski Jets? Kayaks? Peddalos?

183 day rule

If you spend more than 183 days in Spain during one calendar year, you become liable for Spanish taxes whether or not you take out a formal residence permit (Residencia).
These days do not have to be consecutive. You do not become resident for tax purposes until the morning of the 184th day. Temporary absences from Spain are ignored for the purpose of the 183-day rule unless it can be proved that the individual is habitually resident in another country for more than 183 days in a calendar year.
This is not negotiable.
If you still pay taxes, think you live in the UK, have all your family there, etc. It does not matter. You still have to pay Spanish taxes and are considered a resident in Spain.
The good news is that you don’t have to pay UK taxes, if you do, then that is your fault. Paying taxes in the UK or any other country does not exclude you from paying Spanish taxes if you are resident for 183 days in a year.
Not a Spanish Tax year is the same as a calendar year. 1st January to the 31 December.

Weather in Spain 6th September – 12th September 2010

Monday: Hot and Sunny with a temp of 33C. Warm overnight with a temp of 20C.
Tuesday: Overcast morning but hot and sunny later with a temp of 28C. Cool overnight with a temp of 20C.
Wednesday: Warm and Sunny. Temp of 29C. Cool overnight with a temp of 20C.
Thursday: Hot and Sunny. Temp of 28C. Cool overnight with a temp of 20C.
Friday: Warm and sunny with a temp of 29C. Overnight warm with a temp of 22C.
Saturday: Sunny and hot with a temp to 31C. Warm overnight with a temp of 25C.
Sunday: Hot and sunny all day. Daily temp of 30C. Warm overnight with a temp of 24C.

Losing It

For the last couple of months or so we have been getting our English TV, our Internet and our ‘phone service from a new company.
They keep adding TV and Radio stations, one recent edition is Gold, based in London and playing as they say ‘greatest hits from all time’.
I really enjoy it, especially when I am reading or doing the prep for a meal. However, every so often a record will come on and trigger a memory from the past.
Am I losing it?

Earl Grey Surprise

Years ago , longer than I can remember I gave up, like most people, sugar in my tea and coffee.
About 7 years ago I gave up milk, after I went on an Aid convoy to Belarus, were there was no milk due to the background and soil radiation from the Chernobyl disaster.
I found after much testing the best tea to have with no sugar or milk was Earl Grey. Whenever I wanted something stronger, especially in the afternoon I had Gin and tonic.
Now thanks to the Sunday Times Magazine and our best mate Susie Q we can have both.
Here is the Ingredients and recipe.

• 5 earl grey tea bags
• 4 tbsp sugar or to taste
• juice of 2 lemons
• 200ml gin.
   
  Brew the tea for 1 minute in 200ml of hot water then remove the bags, stir in sugar and add 500ml cold water. Cool in fridge or for speed add ice. Add lemon juice then 25ml gin per cup or to taste! This serves 8-10 cups!

Hurry up over Suzie Q, Hic

GUARDIA CIVIL OFFICERS TO ISSUE MORE FINES

Traffic police in Spain are starting to be evaluated based on the number of tickets they issue. According to the Civil Guard’s transit security division, traffic cops will be given points for each infraction they cite. For example, issuing speeding tickets could earn the officer two points while four points will be given if the officer issues the driver a citation for transporting prohibited materials or too many passengers.

All alcohol-related infractions will be worth nine points, the Civil Guard said in a statement. If they don’t reach a set number of points they will have their salary reduced further!

Text Messages

I am not a great texter. In fact when I first got a mobile phone I refused to text on the grounds it was anti social and preferred to phone. Now I have grown up I do from time to time text but much prefer to leave a message.
My brother is a great texter, mostly jokes and mostly about Liverpool FC (he is a bluenose, Everton supporter to the uninitiated). In the press we are always told the number of texts is increasing and recently I was talking to a friend who works in the industry about the increase.
He says its how the companies really add the cream to their profit. They have people who make the jokes up and then send them to the most prolific texters who send it on and so on until it goes around the country and beyond.
Each time a joke is sent (it can be monitored) the creator gets a fee or commission on the text. A fortune can be made! 

Summer Ski Jumping

I was in the gym the other day and like most gyms it has a TV facing the treadmills. On the TV was ski jumping on grass! Ski jumping is now a summer sport!

Is it me or is this the most insane sport ever? Can you imagine how it started? In a pub one day in the 1980’s in Scandinavia a bloke says to his mates “I know, let’s get some ski’s and ski down the local hilly road and when we get to the bend why dont we go straight over the edge and see who can go the furthest”. “Brilliant” say his mates as they don there skies!

Ryanair and Murcia Airport

Our nearest airport is San Javier Airport, Murcia its only 25 minutes away and Ryanair has a route from Liverpool (our UK base). It is a really nice smallish airport with no hassles.  However, from November it will no longer exist. Not because of lack of passengers but for a spat between Ryanair and the Murcia Airport Authorities.

The airline is furious at the airports inflexibility and its handing €3 million to the small regional airline Air Nostrum, which mainly operates domestic flights from Madrid. Ryanair sees the grant as throwing good money after bad. Air Nostrum’s traffic, despite the massive cash injection, has seen its traffic decline by 23% during the last year.

Ryanair points out that their airline carries 49% of all UK traffic to Murcia. It operates 76 San Javier flights bringing 120,000 tourists each week during the winter months when local businesses are desperately trying to stay afloat.

After several months of meetings the Murcia authorities have been unresponsive. The airline feels its only option is to switch its carriers to more responsive regions such as rival Alicante with which it has reached amicable agreement for more slots.

So its off to Alicante, which is an hour away. However, it is not clear if Ryanair will go from Liverpool to Alicante, we know they, like other airlines go from Manchester to Alicante. So it could be an hour to Manchester Airport for us on the other side.

So in one swoop our travel plans have to change and at least a half an hour added to each end plus additional costs for cabs in Spain and trains in the UK. 

Weather in Spain 30th August – 5th September 2010

Monday: Hot and Sunny with a temp of 33C. Warm overnight with a temp of 27C.
Tuesday: Overcast morning but hot and sunny later with a temp of 28C. Cool overnight with a temp of 20C.
Wednesday: Much cooler day. Temp of 29C. Cool overnight with a temp of 20C.
Thursday: Overcast day with light rain showers. Temp of 27C. Cool overnight with a temp of 20C.
Friday: Warm and sunny with a temp of 30C. Overnight warm with a temp of 25C.
Saturday: Sunny and hot with a temp to 32C. Warm overnight with a temp of 26C.
Sunday: Hot and sunny all day. Daily temp of 31C. Warm overnight with a temp of 24C.

Matt of the Telegraph – On traitor Prescott

Spanish Will

Living in Spain as an ex-pat we obviously have assets in that country, a villa, a car, bank accounts etc.
So it came to pass that we needed to explore what happens if either of us dies or we both die. This came a more serious problem after my uncle died recently and I was the executor of his will. It sparked us into life. The question was, what happens in Spain?
We did not need to see a solicitor in Spain, we had to see an accountant who helped us draw up the wills and help avoid taxes (an absolute must for the Lady of the Villa who hates paying anymore taxes than she has too!).
Once the will was drawn up it had to be notarised by a Spanish Notary, then legally filled with us and the accountant holding copies. All very straight forward, except any beneficiary of the will has to have a Spanish NIE number. This is the equivalent of our National Insurance Number (the one you get at birth but can never remember).
So our children will have to apply for one if they ever want a share of our Spanish assets.

Matt of the Telegraph – Well Said

Come Dine with Me

I don’t know if you have seen this program it is on Channel 4 in the UK.
The concept is that they get 4 people, strangers, from the same town and they each have hold a dinner party for the others (some eating if its in the same week!). The others then give marks out of 10. The winner takes home £1,000.
The dinners are hilarious and the channel 4 website has all the recipes. However, they some times have a vegetarian in the group. So the other meat eaters have to produce two menus. One meat one veggie.But when the veggie cooks they just do one, a vegetarian.
Surely that’s not fair! They should be made to cook a meat/fish meal. That will teach them. LOL

The most annoying thing is the sneering narration. Not nice and not needed.

Gadgets and Me – The iPad

When the iPad was first announced, I was really excited, but a little bit wary of all the hype. I expected that I wouldn’t need to carry around my small notebook, instead I would have a device that provided almost the same features as my laptop. I nearly began to believe that this cool new device would reduce the number of electronic gadgets people carried around. Nearly. But my years in IT held me back and I looked very hard at the specification of the hardware and software and decided, NO, it did not do the business. Why?

• You can’t easily load Microsoft Office documents on the iPad 
• No access any data via a USB drive.  The iPad has no USB port, and its means of transferring documents—through iTunes—is pathetic.  Apple’s cloud strategy seems to be centered on iTunes. Which I have found to be wanting.
• Apple’s Microsoft Office-like products on the iPad are just cheap imitations. Apple’s Pages looks like a decent word processor, as does Numbers a spreadsheet manager, but these don’t hold a candle to Microsoft Word and Excel.
• You can’t use the excellent cloud-based word processing tools that other people offer like Google Docs. The iPad doesn’t recognize the rich-text format that these applications use, so it doesn’t display a keyboard when you try to type.
• You cant view different applications in multiple screens when using the iPad. I want to have my web browser appear in a split screen next to my text editor, and I want to be able to jump between applications—just as I do on my Mac and in Windows. The IPad allows you to listen to music as you work, but doesn’t do much more.
• You can’t watch Flash presentations that are used on many news sites
• there is no camera. The iPad lets you make Skype calls over Wi-Fi, but there is no chance of a face-to-face call, that’s because there is no camera. 
• Difficult to read in Sunlight
• Shuts down when temp gets to around 35C

I am sure that the iPad 2 will rectify all of the above, if not I will wait until they do.

Villa Next Door

The Villa next door to ours has been purchased, it was actually the one we wanted, by a Danish speculator. It has never been lived in and is no looking very sad.

The pool has been vadalised and the filters and pumps stolen as no securty wall was built. We had to empty the pool as the water became stagnant. The water in it is from rain water. We will have to empty that soon.
The Danish guy pays his community fees and we presume his mortgage. I will send these photos and others to him and hope he will sort it out.

Books Read in August 2010

Let it Bleed. Ian Rankin. A true winters tale set in Edinburgh and Rebus finds himself sucked into a web of intrigue involving Scottish civil servants. Was the Lord Provost's daughter kidnapped or just another runaway? Why is a city councillor shredding documents that should have been waste paper years ago? And why on earth is Rebus invited to a clay pigeon shoot at the home of the Scottish Office's Permanent Secretary? Sucked into the machine that is modern Scotland, Rebus confronts the fact that some of his enemies may be beyond justice but battles on to what….. 4 Stars.
An Army of Convicts. Cliff Roehr. This is a free e-book from a website were authors post their novels and downloads are free. Initially found it a very interesting plot but not that well written, the timeline was disjointed. Also when the hero needed something to happen, it happened. So much so that that side of the plot became to surreal and unbelievable. Near the end the plot got bad that I had to skip over the last 20 pages, nearly missing the fact that the hero was dreaming it. Not a good book even free. 0.5 Stars.
The Perfect Murder. Peter James. Victor Smiley and his wife Joan have been married for nearly twenty years, but each barely recognises the person they wake up with every morning. They both decide to kill each other. Victor plans the perfect murder, Joan just murder. Nice twist and the end but you could see it coming. What I did not see was that it was just a short story, there should be some indication of the number of pages in this eBook (42 pages in all). Not a great tale. Waste of money and time, not necessarily in that order. 0.5 Stars.
Black and Blue. Ian Rankin. This is the best one so far as well as being the longest Rebus novel. At times I could not put it down. Multiple crimes, some old, some new, intermingle and cross each others paths. Two serial killers, one hunting the other, Rebus as a crime suspect, then in a fit up inquiry, drugs on oil rigs and clubs in Aberdeen, trips on helicopters to oil rigs, this story has it all and a plausible ending. 5 Stars.
Captain Blood. Rafael Sabatini. While Blood is a fictional character, much of the historical background of the novel is based on fact. The Monmouth rebels were sold into slavery as described in the book; and the shifting political alliances of the of 1688 are used in the novel as a plot device to allow Blood's return to respectability. Written in an old romantic style this book, difficult to get into, soon got my interest and I enjoyed the book. 3 Stars.