Northern Rock mortgages – news

Northern Rock, the news says tonight, is getting back into mortgages.
So, what’s the current score with Northern Rock?
Well, they only have £9bn left to repay of the £30bn or so they borrowed from the taxpayer. That’s good.
They have been lending mortgages all along, gradually getting nearer the ‘going rate’ – so today’s news isn’t really [...]

Texting can b gd 4 ur kids

New Scientist article that shows a study of 10 – 12 year olds that better texters are better readers.

Curb on banks – soundbite economics

Gordon Brown made this speach as reported by the BBC.
The Daily Mail journalist makes some comments at the bottom, and as I’m talking about him, we’ll start with the last paragraphs – where the new Banking Act allows emergency intervention in secret for banks that are struggling. I have an issue with this – we [...]

Radio Advert

My first Radio advert
LOL – this is well outside my comfort zone, but, nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Shaving experiment – is cheapest best?

Can Disposable Razors Hack it?
In the interests of my readers I have conducted ‘research’ today.
I was in Sainsbury’s yesterday and remembered that I needed new blades for my Gillette fusion razor – The shopping fairy normally organises for them to arrive with the Tesco delivery, I rarely have to buy them.
Consequently I’ve not had a [...]

Recession Tips – in the Viz style

DON’T waste money on expensive iPods. Simply think of your favourite tune and hum it. If you want to “switch tracks”, simply think of another song you like and hum that instead.
HOMEOWNERS: Prevent burglars stealing everything in the house by simply moving everything in the house into your bedroom when you go to bed. In [...]

85% mortgages

Through the – well, do we call it a boom now? 100% mortgage and higher were commonplace and a ‘good’ deposit was 10% (the threshold where the better rates started appearing).
There were further thresholds at 15% deposit and 25% deposit and occasionally at 40% deposit, but that was unusual.
Since the crunch, 25% deposit has been [...]

100% mortgages – reports of their demise etc…

A couple of weeks ago I arranged a ‘rate swap’ for a client with Halifax – the client was with Halifax already and as their house had fallen in value a remortgage to a new lender was out of the question, so we looked at products the Halifax hasd to offer their existing customers.
I called [...]

Stanford arrest

This is a curious story – clearly, it’s just journalism at this stage, but it sounds very strange.
This is the Citywire report on the scandal.
It’s quite improbable in it’s own right, but, click on the link to the Evening Standard article – it makes it all sound even stranger.

Monetary policy Committee meeting – Feb 09

I daresay most people won’t have read the MPC meeting minutes from this months meeting.
As usual, I have, while eating a cake and having a cup of tea. The cake was a Franzipan – kind of like a Bakewell Tart, but ‘for one’. The tea, well, it would have been Earl Grey, but as I’m [...]