Trimix, depends on how cheap a house you can get. Unless you have a hefty wad of cash lying around to buy outright, mortgage conditions are still very tight despite the low interest environment. And whose to guarantee the price of that property won't bomb over two years. Selling a house in a tough trading environment is the ultimate pain in the a*rse.

Gold – the real safe haven.

Get it out and stick it in gold (junior miners and some bullion coins).
Or keep it in but buy defensive stocks (BP, Tescos, things people need not want).

The pound will probably regain some territory on the Euro, as the Euro has a lot of stress on it with the European banks carrying lots of bad debts (not that the UK doesn't, but its already been devalued to reflect this).
Some people on here have however jacked in the UK and moved abroad, a lot around the Alps, and seem to be enjoying it all, so why not if there's not much holding you back here.

I see dead people.
Ive also used this flimsey excuse for a joke on numerous occasions.

Zaskar, you have a filthy sensibility old chap. I was planning to use the photo as a template for a watercolour portrait. As I'm a past winner of watercolour challenge I usually finish within the hour.

Torque is what they do on world's strongest man when they arm wrestle. Power is when they have to drag along a lorry on a rope.
I only watch the programme to check out the competition mind.

what pics is this?
stick it up again, I need to find something to do with the extra hour.

When I see a mudguard on a mountain bike I instinctively think of the French.
One question you need to ask yourself when changing features on your bike. What would Churchill say?

To be fair I have so little to do with my sad lonely existence I am sticking them forward.

The funniest thing is the physical awkwardness of youth.

Fatality, well yes to be honest this joke died in about the second sentence anyway.

I guess the time, I'm usually two minutes fast, so I just subtract two minutes.

who this?

I used to avoid c garden and c london like the plague on nights out, but have since returned as in these recessionary times its less full of t*ssers, many of whom now go out in hackey area to be trendy. C London is also more full of people actually from london born and bred (any colour of course, I'm not endorsing nick g) nowadays on a nite out, so you won't just be surrounded by loads of annoying northerners (who only talk about how great the north is, although im sure they probably only talk about how great london is when they go back to gloat infront of family and friends). Edit – I actually like northeners when I meet the ones up north,just not keen on the ones down here.
Anyway, rant over, check out a turkish place Tas in Bloomsbury; also the Sam Smith pubs to keep it real with the bank manager.

Agree with Edd Shotover is worth a visit from Reading, has a fun loop, but minimal jumps and more freeride (light) than downhill. Also great views to the right over that beauty Didcot power station.

I would look outside the EU, as mogrim says Spain's unemployment level is seriously screwed; Italy's job market is v nepotistic; France, well if you do get a job then you have to pay 50% of it in taxes pretty much; that leaves Germany, which in many ways is one of the best places to live in the world, but you need the language. Have you thought about South America? Chile is keen to attract IT specialists, and in some ways could be the new California (which is also screwed at the moment btw). Great quality of life in some of the coastal cities and a fairly stable government.

There was a mtb rider accident on today's episode, an American chap who broke his wrists and hurt his shoulder. Thinks the helmet saved his life as he landed on his head from a jump.

I see dead people.
I've also seen ex-Tennis player and tv presenter Annabel Croft in Swinley Forest.

"It was more her misguided belief that she is so good she should be getting megabucks for whatever it is she wants to do and that employers should jump at the chance to employ her and that employers are just out to exploit the "worker,graduates"
I dare say you probably work for a proper company, which has to make a profit, protect the downside, and employ commonsense, effective and generally nice people. But for the banks in particular, the arrogant "im the centre of the world" mindset is essential – this is how the major banks have acted (and continue to act) after all. Actual intelligence can actually be a hindrance – you start asking those damn silly questions like, will this person with no job and no prospects be able to pay back this loan? Better to be thick as a plank with the arrogance of Ceasar. Unfortunately having bailed out the banks, I think the young lady's presumption and arrogance sets her up very nicely for a career in high-finance.
Sorry for the ex-banker (by choice) rant.

You'd be amazed at how many hedge fund managers and venture capital bosses have history as their first degree (typically from oxbridge). As they tend to hire in their own image, I get the impression having worked in this field that they do not look disfavourably on history as a degree (one once told me that his main criteria to begin with was had he heard of the university, and if he hadn't (and in fairness he probably only knew about ten), the application went in the bin.
But it's getting increasingly hard to get high-paid jobs in town now straight out with a humanities/social science degree. Best to have a more specific quantitative background (economics, ppe). From the people I knew who studied history at oxbridge, many chose to go into law, another two years at uni, or took part-time on the job accountancy qualifications with an eye on climbing the corporate ladder through the finance division.

Pete, your chest may be ploughed, but you have the heart of a lion and the eloquence of a poet – keep fighting, and just as importantly, keep writing.

As with everything he has done, Paul Simon was being pioneering when he stole Martin Carthy's Scarborough Fair without acknowledgement. He anticipated illegal music file sharing by thirty years.

Ah the sixties. Anti-social behaviour, the degredation of the family unit, the increase in violent crime, the credit crunch, the west's selling of its soul to the east, the dumbing down of education, the existential angst of the priviledged baby boomer, and the withdrawn nature of their children…all can be traced back to this Bob Dylan interview.

Good week bad week good week bad week…that's the way it work innnit?Saying that, you've had a really bad week there.

Agree with Grumm. Dylan's voice is rubbish. A poor man's Paul Simon.

I've found that living is expensive since I've become underemployed. This means a) smaller wage and b) more leisure time, the latter is a real killer because it's very easy to spend money when you don't have much to do. I've tried to get round this by making a note of everything I spend (even if 40pence chewing gum) and tallying it up every week. If I go into the pub to read the papers and get out of the house I settle for half a pint (getting wasted not good for the bank balance). It's easy to take this to extremes – do all socialising on facebook and take holidays on google earth – nevertheless count the pennies, see the pounds (then go to the government).

"tragically died" could just refer to his relatively young age. I suppose dying after a long life cannot really be considered tragic, just the course of nature.

Ahh if only my bank balance was looking rosier…I've been twice, great accommodation, cool trails, weather reliable, and run by some of the nicest people you could hope to meet.

Machiavelli: I study the world for what it is, not what I would like it to be.

http://www.moneyweek.com/investments/property/uk-property-housing-market-hasnt-hit-bottom-yet-939.aspx
Thood for Fought.

To advocate the devil (or estate agent), reasons I've heard cited for house price growth include: the global economy is recovering, population growth in the UK (to be 70 million in 2030), social economic changes (more divorcing couples = need for 2 rather than 1 property), devalued sterling will bring a UK manufacturing boom, Gordon Brown will get re-elected (unlikely) and will then start another credit binge.
Aliens could also prove to be bullish UK property speculators.

mastiles_fanylion, the stock market has rallied but is still well below its early 2007 high. The recent rally is also a response to the stimulus, so once the stimulus is withdrawn, I wouldn't be surprised to see the ftse stagnate (it will rally and fall from time to time because traders need something to do).
The most instructive example for the UK and US is Japan, which after it stock market crashed, went through ten years of falling prices, especially in real estate (before the crash there the land around the Imperial Palace in Tokyo was worth more than the whole real estate of California).
You could flip the question and ask not why would houses prices fall, but why would they grow? I don't see many reasons, especially with a conservative government which has nailed its flag to the mast of public spending austerity. For the sufferings of the private sector just read the threads on here by recently redundant workers.
House prices are likely to fall, they could simply stay the same, but I don't see them increasing. Which would mean there is little motivation to panic buy in the expectation that you will get priced out of the market.

Re 40% fall, this would effectively mean wiping off around the last 5 years of housing price growth. The stock market effectively lost 40% in two months last year. The housing market has proven resilient so far because of the huge unprecedented fiscal stimulus, but the stimulus cannot continue indefinitely, and once it is drawn back, with no major driver for jobs (Edinburgh is a financial centre, lots of job losses there), unprecedented personal debt levels (rampant iron bru consumption), and a cutback in public spending (who's going to clear up all that sick on a sunday morning), a long period of deflation (cheaper bottles of ginger), I think it could be on the cards.
In other words I don't think the last year is a typical and therefore instructive period on which to base economic projections. It's like bench-pressing your max weight pumped up on steriods, then expecting yourself to be able to do that indefinitely after the steriods are taken away.

Your hunch is my hunch (and also the hunch of many of the economists/investors like Steve Keen, Mish, and Jim Mellon who predicted the 07/08 crash), keep out of it. Housing is over-valued, and will fall upto 40% after the withdrawal of the stimulus. Taking on a £1000 a month mortgage will look like a bad decision in two years time. My advice, keep saving, and diversify where you keep those savings – 60% sterling, 20% euro, 20% gold (you can buy relatively small amounts and gold is on a bull market). This is not aggressive investment advice, merely protective.

I'm a regular winter break man. December 08 – mtb in southern spain (20 degrees, sunny all day (bleeding cold at night and in the mornings); January 09 – Lanzarote (I wouldn't go again, the weather was poor, only two days of irregular sun, the rest overcast and windy – apparently for the last seven years its been like this out there).
Looking at Tunisia this year.

I used to live in Oxford, was a member of the uni mtb club, and for a quick short blast, Shotover rocks. The main loop also keeps fairly dry. If your going up from the city centre, you can string together some off road by going up the right hand side of south parks (where the trees are), then there is some fun singletrack starting at the junction at Warneford Ln / Roosevelt D (next to the Warenford Churchill street sign).

Try East London Stratford area, Olympics and all that.

Just get wasted.

"I know you do but I prefer to speak through a megaphone so everyone knows what I'm saying."

Liz, why the wide face?