Don’t buy a “HD Ready telly” thinking it’s high-definition – it’s not
Pop into any TV shop or look on any site online right now, and you’ll see a mix of HD Ready and Full HD TVs. They don’t sound very different, yet the way retailers use "HD Ready" makes it a terribly misleading name that needs changing – I’d call it "Half HD". Far too many people buy...
Payday loan self-regulation may be more of a stick than they bargained for
Payday lending, or high cost short-term credit providers (you know – Wonga, QuickQuid, et al with their 4,000% APRs) agreed a revised system of self-regulation last week. While it’s far short of what’s needed, and doesn’t touch the cost of credit, at least it scrapes a little mud off this dirty industry. Better still, I suspect this...
The 10 worst acronyms if you’re a pedant (grrr)
It’s called RAS syndrome (Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome), and if you’re a little obsessive and start thinking too hard it can be excruciatingly annoying. The actual syndrome wasn’t something I’d heard of until I tweeted the following… Why do we write "EHIC card" when it stands for European Health Insurance CARD, and "PIN number" (Personal Identification NUMBER)...
No, I WON’T play you at Scrabble online
On Saturday via Twitter and Facebook, many of you asked to play me at Scrabble (or a renamed version thereof) online (6 points). I don’t want to be rude but may I just say, NO, NO WAY, NEVER, IT’S A BASTARDISATION (17 POINTS) OF THE GAME. This rant all came about as I posted the following message...
How safe is Santander UK? – What I really think…
Spanish bank Santander’s had its credit rating downgraded and understandably some are asking questions about its UK arm. I woke up this morning to see I’d been quoted in a few newspapers on this – as can happen when small snippets are taken from larger conversations – they didn’t quite reflect the entirety of what I think,...
Wish I’d never blogged about it now…
If you read my blog last week on a canny bit of gift recycling, you would’ve read the tale of the multi-gifted "Next stop 40" t-shirt. Originally given to me on my 30th birthday by my friend Justin, I gave it back to him the next year for his birthday. Then it was regifted to me last...
Sainsbury’s launches mostly meaningless price promise
A price promise press release has just dropped into my inbox from Sainsbury’s Personal Finance. It’s on shaky ground with me, as I’m no fan of this type of marketing hype where companies promise to reduce prices in the unlikely event that having signed up, you search elsewhere and find it cheaper (see my Price promises aren’t...
A canny bit of gift recycling…
On 9 May 2002, as I hit 30, the gift one of my best friends, Justin, gave me was a ‘next stop 40’ T-shirt. The following May as he followed suit (he’s just under a year younger), I, of course, gifted it back to him. Then last May as I hit 39, I found the same T-shirt...
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Recent Blogs
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How much the Govt expects you to give your children for university
16 July 2019
Update Note 25 May 2017: The ready reckoners below have been updated with the new 2017/2018 living loan amounts. Also since first writing this blog, and seeing the strength of feeling it attracted, I have written an open letter to the Uni Minister asking him to start telling people about this. Yet sadly received his no we won’t...
