my home macbook pro is now 4.5 years old, used all the time and despite a battering (stood on at a party, dropped several times) is still working just fine.

In the same period I’ve had 4 work laptops (one Lenovo at the end of its service life which worked fine but had required a new battery at least once a year for 3 years), two dells (one with a HDD failure, another with a motherboard failure) and one HP which in 18 months has now been rebuilt several times due to an O/S corruption, blue screening and the rest of the time windows being as reliable as an Alfa Romeo on a wet day.

Ironically the work laptops all cost more (with corporate discount) than my macbook pro, weighed more and weren’t ergonomically designed… HP for example requires you to press FN and the cursor to page up or down… and I’ve never got to grips with the point stick mouse.

bruneep, you’ve answered your own question – there is no “pot” so effectively the current government is very sensibly proposing a change to the rules moving forward. Previous accrued rights will be retained but all future service is subject to the new scheme rules.

Even with the new scheme rules, FF will still receive much better terms than the majority of people who generate the tax to pay for them.

today’s blog in The Telegraph sums it up pretty well from my perspective

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100233350/miliband-was-governed-by-narrow-political-interests-not-the-national-interests-or-those-of-syrian-children/

I moved to BT from Virgin and Sky before that.

The Youview box is pretty good – as good as the Tivo or sky plus box.

There’s an app to set recordings remotely on Youview and it has the usual “on demand” apps including a box office film thing that’s 1p cheaper per film than iTunes.

If you go with BT broadband you can get a BT Wifi app which for me has proven to be pretty handy to the point I use wifi more than 3g on my mobile these days and am probably saving a good £150 on my phone contract as a result. You can also get a BT smart talk app for mobiles and make calls out of your inclusive BT bundle on your mobile anywhere there’s Wifi – this is pretty handy for making 0800 / 0870 / 0345 calls from a mobile without being scalped for 45p a minute from the unscrupulous mobile networks.

With respect Imabigkidnow I don’t think you’ve got the balance right with your solution – it just smacks of trying to push your tenant around with little justification (whether or not you intended that).

As someone else said above, it’s your house but someone else’s home – within reason you can dictate rules providing they are reasonable but the tenant is simply required by law to return the property to you in a like for like condition (allowing for wear and tear) and clean to the standard that was documented in the check in.

What you seem to be minded to do is to use the non declaration of two dogs to force the tenant to cover up front costs you have yet to incur and which are not reasonable given the provisions for a clean / fully repaired house at the end of the tenancy.

The rent increase is further proof of a lack of reasonableness – aside from the fact that legally you can’t vary the rent anyway until the annual review, what extra cost are you incurring in the interim that justifies another £500 a year on top of the additional charges you are levying?

it could actually work out quite well – assuming she’s a reliable tenant the OP may land up with her staying for quite a long time because of the lack of places that take dogs – the minimal extra hassle associated with her having pets could result in not having to deal with any void periods for a few years.

If crime hasn’t dropped how come the self reported experience of crime surveys (i.e. not reported crime) show a trend that’s similar to reported crimes?

We’re not talking about a small sample size here either – we’re well into tens of thousands of people surveyed annually on their experience of crime and the downward trend isn’t just a UK phenomenon; it’s a global trend which some researchers have linked to two things:

1. A much longer term downward trend that started more than 200 years ago i.e. society is becoming more civilized
2. The removal of leaded petrol / additives of benzine from lead replacement petrol, both of which have been linked to neurological problems and violence

“2 yrs ago the NHS was doing rather well. Now it’s heading downhill” 😯

Maybe you missed yesterday’s report (and many thousands of individual stories from patient’s families) that for a good 7 year period going back to 2005 (and possibly earlier), 10% of NHS acute trusts were busy despatching their patients at a prodigious rate?

If this is “doing well” one can only wonder at how bad things would have to be for things to described as such…

woody 74 – google is virtually alone in having no internal sales transfers – instead we are told (i.e. it’s b0llocks) that google’s customers in the UK are purchasing (via Ireland) a license to use Google’s IP / toolset which is funny because most of them think they are buying advertising in one form or another.

Google also use the double dutch with an irish twist tax fiddle to an extent that others do not – although there’s a pretty clear pattern in that it’s largely US companies d1cking about with internal transfers / IP licenses (starbucks doesn’t sell coffee in the UK apparently – it’s a brand license, IP etc etc. from Starbucks in Netherlands and Switzerland).

What’s quite frustrating is that if you look down the FTSE 250 (which includes many companies headquartered here that have the bulk of the businesses abroad), most are generally playing by the rules yet they are all tarred with the same brush.

Everyone bangs on about Vodafone with no knowledge of what the tax dispute related or the subsequent national audit office investigation into HMRC’s conduct which found they had acted reasonably – people continue to think Vodafone is a “British” company but most of their revenue is derived abroad, so they have (like many other companies) the usual challenges of moving money between markets in order to grow / invest / divest in markets and ultimately return dividends to uk shareholders (who are mainly pension schemes i.e. us) – that was certainly the case with the 2000 Mannesmann deal.

two things:

1. The fiduciary duty thing on google’s directors is an absolute load of crock. Almost no other company has set up such an elaborate web of companies to disguise what are clearly in-country sales via a plethora of IP cross charges, license fees, non selling “customer advisers” and other such nonsense. There are plenty of british based multinationals paying average tax of over 20% on profits whilst google pays virtually none and puts on a good effort of trying to bankrupt the likes of ITV who do play by the rules. Google are unethical and lacking in integrity and their business model and leaders should be held responsible for this in the court of public opinion.

2. HMRC estimate the total amount lost through aggressive tax avoidance planning for high net worth individuals and corporates is around £32B a year.

The unpalatable truth (particularly for Ed Balls) is that even if everyone and every organisation like google paid up, government spending still outstrips tax receipts by some margin and has done so every year since 2002 ish when Labour started to borrow £1 for every £2 they spent on welfare. It’s no good nibbling round public services slicing a bit off here and there – we need to radically re-think how services are delivered and drive significant cost savings if we are ever going to get back on a sustainable footing AND make sure high net worth individuals and the likes of Google pay up towards the cost of the services that enables them to create wealth in the first place i.e. education, infrastructure, health etc.

EE (which owns the t-mob, ee and orange brands) has considerably deeper 2g and 3 coverage now than any other network – more tranmitters in more places. The virtual operators on EE (including virgin) will offer the same coverage followed in short order by Three, and some way off the back of the pack by 02 and Vodafone who are just scraping 90% 3G coverage compared to close to 99% for EE and Three.

Part of the problem is that the alternatives like “nice lass Salma” off question time last night are quite convincing but actually don’t have a clue – this was perfectly illustrated last night by the number of facts / basis for her arguments she got spectacularly wrong.

I also noticed last night that somewhat hilariously and completely unaware of the irony, Salma did a boiler plate rant about privatisation of he NHS and the urgent need to stop it yet a few questions later told us her husband is a GP.
He (Aqil Chaudery) is actually a Principal Partner in a large practice and is therefore not only a private sector provider but is also making a very substantial income from his “private sector” involvement in the NHS although this point is clearly lost on her. Presumably it’s ok for GP’s to trouser anything up to £650k a year partly down to additional service contracts that aren’t openly procured but any other form of private sector involvement is somehow different and wrong?

Drac – it hasn’t been abolished at all – the benefit received is still index linked and massively outweighs the contributions from employees – which effectively means tax payers are picking up unlimited future risk. You don’t have to look too many years out (about 5 in fact) to reach the point when the cost of providing pensions for the additional 480,000 nhs staff added under the last Govt. can no longer be met by current contributions – creating an annual deficit that will get significantly worse year on year. They were forecasting a £960B UK public sector pension deficit as long ago as 2008 when incidentally it would have taken all paye tax for c33m working adults in the country for 4 years to balance.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1544058/NHS-pension-black-hole-rises-by-61bn.html

One more observation – the current change to community based commissioning is partly so expensive (although less than 1% of annual budget for 3 years which isn’t quite the calamitous figures that Andy Burnham likes to kick around) because staff contracts were so spectacularly badly negotiated in the first place – the last lot in power had and failed to take an opportunity to modernise some of them under Agenda for change with the result that even minor changes now give staff the entitlement to massive redundancy payouts for what are akin to tupe provisions for every other employer in the uk.

Personally I’d start with a root to branch reform of NHS Culture and Leadership – both are spectacularly lacking and are a large contributor to the poor outcomes we get in England compared to other european health systems such as those in Netherlands and Germany (where interestingly the significant participation of the private sector is routinely cited as having helped to raise standards and constrain cost).

As for money saving, there’s some low hanging fruit some of which is being tackled / about to be tackled:

– Clinical merit awards (don’t call them bonuses!) for Consultants which can run into tens of thousands a year yet don’t have any performance criteria attached to them. They are also pensionable so cost around 1/3 on top.
– The blatant scam run by many GPs on property whereby they purchase premises (some times with low cost loans from PCTs), rent them back for exorbitant rents, sell them on and pocket anything up to 7 figure profits without having paid anything themselves:

http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/07/03/revealed-the-gp-property-scheme-that-costs-the-nhs-more-than-600m-a-year/

– get rid of underperforming staff and tackle sickness absence pee taking- it’s almost impossible to get fired in the NHS and even when it does happen the staff normally pop up at another trust a few months later. More than anything the lack of this at present is a drag on the many hard working committed staff that don’t do it, and despair at what their colleagues repeatedly get away with.

– change the pension from final salary (adding around 1/3 to pay costs to the taxpayer) to defined contribution.

The last change would at a stroke enable the NHS budget to be sustainable and would only put NHS staff on the same footing as the majority of the working population.

How exactly does one “read” a publication that largely seems designed for a cabin crew readership and thus mostly consists of endless pictures of fat celebrities / celebrities looking hungover / celebrities out with their kids / celebrities that have had gastric bands fitted / celebrities with new fake knockers?

This took me less than 1 minute to find – does no-one use google?

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-475_en.htm?locale=en

A plasma cutter

The dwp’s IT systems have been a shambles for a good 10 years ever since John Prescott was specifically cautioned against the proposed changes to existing systems by Microsoft’s Enterprise Consulting team – they have advise to the DWP and ODPM that the changes to accommodate tax credits were complex, open to fraud and would be costly and difficult to administer . That advice was pretty much spot on as it turned out so I’m not sure it’s fair to blame IDS for the mess that the last lot left.

As for Hague, he was a pretty exceptional strategy consultant at McKinsey and is still held on high regard by those who worked with him – he’s certainly no idiot and I rather suspect could run rings round most people.

Isn’t the discussion about arming the rebels just a lever to ensure that Assad starts to participate in the formal talks?

+ 1 for swarfega jizer … Works a treat

If your g/f bought her bike in the last 3 months on credit card you can claim back the cost from the card company

Her:
Washing bedding
Telling the cleaner what to do
Cooking occassional Sunday roast
Turning the heating up
3 hour supermarket shop that costs £250 a go
Listening to her complain about her job for an hour a night for years on end

Me:
Sorting all the bills
Taking care of computers / backups for the next time she’s thrown a cup of tea into the keyboard of the laptop and blown it up
Cleaning up after the dog after it’s puked up at 3 in the morning
Taking the dog out for a pee in the rain at 3 in the morning to stop it whining
Getting quotes / sorting tradesman
30 mins supermarket shop that costs £50
Always having cash on hand because she never goes to the bank or has forgotten her purse again
Monitoring the joint account on a daily basis and topping it up to avoid an overdraft fee because she’s used the joint account card again for dresses / contact lenses / cocktails with the girls
Anything that needs installing or maintaining
Building fences / heavy stuff in the garden
Car mot, servicing, insurance, keeping it clean, checking tyres etc.
Walking the dog when it’s raining
Re-sorting all the recycling because its been mixed together
Cleaning the kitchen bin out because she couldn’t be bothered to put a bag on before dumping a load of food waste on which has now started to rot
Putting the bins out
Cleaning up after she’s spilt wine / tea / coffee again and didn’t clean it up
Cleaning up after every single thing in the kitchen has been used to make the Sunday roast
Paying the vet bill for the dog’s latest ailment / Munchausen by proxy
Paying for anything needed for the house like new tv, carpets, shelves etc

bearneccessities, not sure I agree.

A trawl through a rich and growing history of violence abroad suggests that this type of barbarity is a matter of course in many countries and takes places whether or not it’s reported – in fact in many of those countries those who report for a job are often a prime target. We may not hear about children being blown up on the way to school or beheadings in every day news but it’s certainly happening.

R4 are saying it was Islamic militants who attacked a soldier and decapitated him whilst shouting “Allah Akbar” or “god is greatest”.

If you have lost coverage due to EE’s recent network integration project with mBNL you can get one for free with enough haggling.

I’ve been using one since last November and it has been very reliably – noticeably more so than the Vodafone sure signal I tried a while back. EE are upgrading all of their masts at the moment so all of them will be 2g,3G and 4g by the end of next year – the 2g signal is also stronger. In our area that has meant since 4g was switched on the signal is stronger and faster all round with the result a signalbox isn’t really needed anymore.

I’m seriously tempted by the 29er version… wonder if there’s a carbon one in the works though..?

try a PAYG sim first – their 3G network coverage area is significantly smaller than the others (they have less coverage than any other network) and even on voice / 2g coverage they stopped being the leading network quite some time ago.

which ones is best for actually getting the meat you ordered and paid for?

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/1-3-curries-fake-restaurants-1754087

Per the A couple of the posts above we’re on .49% over base rate for life – so with isas returning 2% over base rate and other investments returning 6-8% over base rate there’s no ever point paying the capital element.

The calf in a cagey is still how it’s produced on the continent – Brit veal
isn’t though, tastes good, gives farmers another income and saves them from the pain of shooting calves minutes after being born – something even pretty tough farmers apparently find difficult.

dualit make the ones Waitrose sell – there was a court case last week about Nestle’s intellectual property rights – Dualit won.

56 is bang on for a 33″ inside leg

have they served a party wall notice?

A pretty bad situation and one that’s probably already caused quite a lot of upset…

Did you search recent planning applications for the road yourself before making your original offer to buy the property?

Putting the above aside, if the seller did receive a full set of plans from the neighbour you may still have a job proving that unless the neighbour is willing to confirm it in writing.

The solicitor’s duty to the client is the main line to go down here – forget about suing the seller, your solicitor has potentially not discharged their duties if the work was subject to planning permission and you can find the original planning app on searches (assuming the work isn’t being done under permitted development, or as linked worked to an original permission granted more than 3 years ago that was done in phases, with the roof works being the final phase).

Also worth checking to see if your home insurance provides any legal cover as what you should do at this point is take some independent advice on what your conveyancing solicitor should have done as part of the process.

I’ve got the charge – great bit of kit for rides up to 3 hours.

I’m not Scottish so my personal view is probably unimportant but a cursory of the key questions is quite interesting – there are precious few answers to questions such as:

– Can the 1.2m workers in the private sector in Scotland support the remaining 4m population including the roles in the public sector, the young, old, sick and unemployed?

– What are the additional direct costs of independence e.g. picking up a share of the bank bailout / RBS bailout costs, adding an extra layer of civil service roles etc?

– What’s the additional cost to Scottish tax payers of picking up all of the social and welfare costs when at the moment Scotland receives significantly more out than it pays in….

– Are comparisons with the Scandinavian countries wishful thinking or good bell weathers for a future independent state?

– What are the costs of delayed entry to the EU if as seems to be the case automatic entry is not possible?

– If it goes wrong, what’s the plan B, and assuming plan B needs support from south of the border, what will happen if this support isn’t forthcoming?

get leaders to show the way. I’ve worked in a couple of organisations where the fact that the CEO, CEO and board members cycle / run to work or do these activities at lunchtime makes a massive difference to culture… just seeing the CEO walk through a building in running / cycling gear makes it ok for everyone else to do the same.

I’m quite tempted by the new Nokia 720 which apparently gives 3 days usable time and 13 hours talk time on 3G / 23 hours talk time on 2g.