Things you have recently learnt
Comments
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That my wife’s 3 x great uncle was the first captain of the Queen Mary. His log book is on display in the ship were on and he has a cocktail named after him in the one bar.0
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That's quite a coincidence.Pross said:That my wife’s 3 x great uncle was the first captain of the Queen Mary. His log book is on display in the ship were on and he has a cocktail named after him in the one bar.
My great uncle was Elgar's landlord in the Malverns. The house is now a museum.seanoconn - gruagach craic!1 -
Ny son is related to William Williams of Pantycelyn (wrote Bread of Heaven), despite being a deeply religious man he was a total shagger so this is not as impressive as you might think.pinno said:
That's quite a coincidence.Pross said:That my wife’s 3 x great uncle was the first captain of the Queen Mary. His log book is on display in the ship were on and he has a cocktail named after him in the one bar.
My great uncle was Elgar's landlord in the Malverns. The house is now a museum.1 -
Proper Welsh lack of imagination in the naming process.surrey_commuter said:
Ny son is related to William Williams of Pantycelyn (wrote Bread of Heaven), despite being a deeply religious man he was a total shagger so this is not as impressive as you might think.pinno said:
That's quite a coincidence.Pross said:That my wife’s 3 x great uncle was the first captain of the Queen Mary. His log book is on display in the ship were on and he has a cocktail named after him in the one bar.
My great uncle was Elgar's landlord in the Malverns. The house is now a museum.0 -
Well, my great uncle was bonkers. He had a carer/maid/servant (hard to ascribe a particular noun) and she looked after him for years and years.surrey_commuter said:
Ny son is related to William Williams of Pantycelyn (wrote Bread of Heaven), despite being a deeply religious man he was a total shagger so this is not as impressive as you might think.pinno said:
That's quite a coincidence.Pross said:That my wife’s 3 x great uncle was the first captain of the Queen Mary. His log book is on display in the ship were on and he has a cocktail named after him in the one bar.
My great uncle was Elgar's landlord in the Malverns. The house is now a museum.
When he died, he left her the whole Malvern estate and country home despite her being in her early 70's and without any signs of there ever being a more personal relationship between them.seanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
The reason pirates (and presumably sailors in general) wore eye patches. I always assume it was just a caricature to make them more sinister but apparently it was to protect the night vision in one eye and they would then take it off to work in the dark below deck.
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If you, or anyone close to you, are nearing death then I'd suggest getting all accounts in home country, if not the same institution. I'd also suggest to never use an executor who lives abroad. I'd advise it if you are healthy in case of accident come to that.
Being an executor in a foreign country is an administrative nightmare. Even with full probate, power of attorney, use of lawyers etc, etc. I have come to the conclusion that institutions want you to simply give up so they can keep the money. I'm not giving up. 🤬
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Out of interest, which country are you having to deal with?
I hope I'm not close to death, but I was advised to make a separate French will for the house & possessions there, which I did, though no idea how it works in practice. Obviously, I hope it doesn't have to 'work in practice' in my case, but I thought I ought to have something in place in case of an unplanned shuffling off of the mortal coil.
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Where there's a will, there's a way.
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Fiji.
For context it was a communist country up until December 2022 with all the administration and corruption that comes with it. Those practices are still in place.
To make things more infuriating the latest runaround is from the bank ANZ. You'd think the Kiwis would be more enlightened, but no.
Yes, there was/is a will.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
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Not remotely a surprise to anyone in the private sector who interacts with the public sector.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition1 -
Beat me to it - us in the private sector doing all the heavy lifting and the public sector is holding us back. So if we shrink the state, then productivity goes up. Sounds sensible....
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
It already has been and that is partly what is creating the problem. If you underpay for a low morale you don't get the quality of staff and it just gets worse.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
With a bit of luck you'll need to sign something in person though. Silver linings.
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Are they really underpaying? Especially when you consider that value of those final salary pensions that many in the public sector still receive.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Well, they are failing to retain staff, so the remuneration package is not good enough however it's framed. Staff turnover is verging on the ridiculous.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Been there twice already to deal with this.
The remaining estate would basically cover the 3rd trip and I detest the place. It’s not what people think. Lawyers verifying paperwork by post is the solution. Might only take 3 months.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Do groups of men line up facing one another and stick their tongues out? Because that's what I think happens.
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It's a good question - I sometimes think about going back to top up my pension in the last 10-15 years of my working life. The cut in take home pay now would be tough but the biggest issue for me would be that at the level I would go in at I wouldn't really do much technical work and would spend most of my time dealing with politicians. I don't think that would work well as they tend to be idiots (no matter which side of teh spectrum they represent).
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No, they don't. Maybe for sporting events but I've not seen it in 6 weeks being there.
They do spend a lot of time drinking kava (Google it and learn something trivial 😉) and sleeping.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
When you say 'they' are you talking about the entire public sector?
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
The bit I deal with is Local Authorities. As you know they are almost all either broke or teetering on the edge. The entire construction industry, not to mention infrastructure projects great and small have to squeeze through the planning process, which is operated by Local Authorities. It's a huge bottle neck and a brake on so, so much economic activity.
It's size and quality has already been reduced to the point that some boroughs are sharing planning officers to make ends meet.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
This is a let down.
I have a friend of a friend in the Solomans. Says it is depressing as fuck and high crime. I'm imagining that outside of oil drilling and mining compounds, populated by not locals, there is a depravation problem across the region.
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Probably. Fiji is a designated 3rd world country. I've seen why.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
I'm was going to say, because my experience with NHS doctors and HMRC staff is that most of them stay put and generally only bail out early because their rather generous DB pension schemes allow them to do that. And guess who's paying paying for that...
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
I quite like Smiths Salt & Shake crisps, without using the salt packet. They actually taste of fried potatoes
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I used to love seeing how many salt packets we’d get in the bag when I was a kid. Quite regularly got 3 or 4 and sometimes more. I assume salt bags were cheaper than the crisps to make up a packet weight.
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Never seen more than one in the current ones!
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