Martin’s Blog…

Rarely are you listened to in your own home. My dad continues to ignore many MoneySaving opportunities and my big sister constantly amazes me by doing almost the opposite of what I suggest. Yet there is a Lewis household hope… Talya, my thirteen year old little sister is perhaps the MoneySaving junior, and was so proud of her supermarket spot I offered to let her blog on it. Here goes:

“I was in Sainsburys when I realised that as I have the Money Saving Expert as a brother, I’d better take advantage and check out the best deals. As the Special K cereal bars in our cupboards have run out, I ran straight towards the aisle which had them. I saw there were two possibilities there, either take the special big box with 12 bars in for £3.78, or take 2 of the 2 for £3 boxes that each had 6 bars in them. I realised by taking two smaller boxes I was saving 78p! I felt so proud of myself and informed Martin straight away! “

I hope you like my little money saving tip.”

Definitely some progress there; we’ll work on the downshift challenge version later!

Comment and Discuss.

There’s much debate about whether budget airline flights can really be cheap. We all know of the ridiculous number of possible additional charges, for checking in, extra baggage or even paying by DEBIT card. Yet even so, if you find a super-low cost or even one-penny flight you can have a holiday break for very little cash.

I’ve just read this great travelblog about a family trip to Weeze which is about 40 miles from Dusseldorf, on a flight found using the FlightChecker.

Comment and Discuss

Today the A-level results are out, and there are familiar scenes:

Lots of delighted and a few despondent teenagers; reports from the government of another record results year; calls that standards are dropping and it’s just due to easier marking; battles about coursework and exam-based assessment.

Whether exams have got easier I don’t know, but with 25% of students getting A grades, they’re certainly less discerning. By this I don’t mean that someone getting a top grade now isn’t as bright as 20 years ago - that’s virtually impossible to prove - but that the mere fact of 25% of students getting A grades makes it more difficult to separate the wheat from the not-quite-as-good wheat.

A simple solution that appeals to me as a numbers nerd is to adopt the US system of marking on the curve in national exams. Thus, from now on the grades are judged compared to your national year peer group, for example (I’m making up the numbers to explain):

A*… the top 3%
A… the next 7%
B… the next 20%
C… the next 20%
D… the next 20%
E… the next 20%
U… the next 10%

For employers and universities alike, this would give a consistent ranking; someone with an A grade would be in the top ten percent of their year group, which is a pretty good way of judging and providing consistency over the years. It also means if a paper or course happens to be easier one year, then marking on the curve smoothes out the problem.

Of course it’s not without problems. If everyone does well, some people who’ve only missed out on a few percentage points would end up with vastly lower grades and that could be demotivating. Yet it seems to me either we have a competitive ranking system of education – which is what A-levels and GCSEs are - or we simply scrap the whole thing and rely on teacher assessment of pupil ability.

Discuss this blog

As regulars will know, one of the key steps in the Cheap Car Insurance guide, is to use comparison sites in the right order. To decide that order we undertake a comparison of the comparison sites. The sheer scale of MSE and the fact the papers often cover the order, means it’s hotly contested.

Recently we’ve seen a little more lobbying and occasional calls too far asking things along the lines of ‘we’ve added Meanothing Insurance, can you change our numbers and move us up the ranking?’. So to help communicate the system better and explain exactly what we’re doing, I’ve just sent out a big e-mail to all the sites, which I also thought’d be useful to blog.

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Dear folks,

The questions have been flowing through to my team and I about the order in our car insurance tables, so I wanted to clear things up. Hopefully it’ll help you help us to get even better comparisons for our users and make all our lives easier.

The logic.

No one comparison site covers the whole of the market, even in combination there are still some missed, yet my aim is to ensure that in the shortest amount of time, by combining sites people can cover the widest range, with accuracy, ease and no hassle. Our order reflects that and it is carefully put together.

How often it’s updated.

I know there’s been confusion on this so I wanted to notify you of the new system. We will do a full survey roughly every three months, and this will then hold firm unless there is a seismic change (or we are doing a full article update) and it needs to be done more radically.

Yet in general small changes to numbers of providers included will NOT be updated during that period. Yet so that our checks can remain random rather than expected, the exact period of the survey will move slightly.

This three-monthly system will be communicated to our users, so they have clear expectation of the survey period. However the section covering specific providers deals (lower down, for cashback offers and things) will be updated weekly.

How we analyse the order.

This is based on a number of factors….

• Number of different insurers/brokers included. This is the lead data, but is only ever one of the factors. However the order is more specifically about “additional insurers” that you add on top of what’s already been used before you.
• Number of quotes returned. We also separately do our own random independent checks on how many actual different competitive quotes are returned for a number of profiles. You will not be told this is happening, this is done as normal users. So a comparison site listing lots of providers but only actually giving results from a few will be downgraded.
• Feedback. We receive huge amounts of feedback both by email and on the forum on providers, and we use these to help (though our own judgment is also used) us assess ease of use, accuracy and overall performance. This does leave newer comparison sites at a disadvantage to older ones, as there’s less feedback, but we consider in such a competitive market “tried and tested” has its advantages, and a good new site will be able to prove itself quickly and soon move up.
• NEW. Follow up phone calls. We’ve had a lot of complaints about these, so wanted to give you advance notice that from our next review we will be including this as a major part of the process. Firstly we will note whether companies offer an ‘opt out’ or ‘opt in’ to follow up phone calls option – the preference obviously being an opt in system. We will also consider the actual feedback of how many phone calls people receive. Quite simply after doing a comparison, people get pee’d off with five or six follow up calls from different insurers.

Of course, some of these factors could be manipulated. For example we know a number of insurers provide identical quotes as they use the same systems, so it’d be easy to deliberately add these to comparisons to bulk up the numbers. To put your minds at rest, don’t worry, if we see any one doing this (or similar tricks), we’ll drop’em like a stone. In fact so much so, for a bit of fun, I’ve asked Richard (one of the MSE team who used to work on the other side – ML) to come up with the tricks he’d play if he wanted to cheat, so we’ve a full list of things to watch for.

As I say, the aim of this note is to give you a legitimate expectation of what we’re looking for, in the hope it will make life easier for all of us, and provide an even better result for MoneySavingExpert.com users.

Kind regards,

Martin

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Comment and Discuss

On Friday’s daytime edition of The Weakest Link, apparently the following question was asked: “Which name is shared by a BBC news presenter and a Money Saving Expert?”

It seems they got it right!

Comment and Discuss

We received the following e-mail today:

“Hello,

My name is David and I am contacting you on behalf of Name Removed Building Society.

I read your homepage and found your site contains some quality content relating to finance. We would like to request a link from this page, as your users may benefit from access to mortgage offers. While this would benefit us and your customers it would also in no way detract from your website layout as any of the occurrences of the word ‘mortgage’ could be used as a hypertext link (ie to link to the building society’s site - ML). Could you reply to me either way if you are interested in this offer or not?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Name Removed,
Researcher,
Name of Global Search Company removed”

I don’t need to tell any MoneySavers quite how ridiculous sending an e-mail like this to this site is.

When we called up and spoke to the manager, his face apparently paled even on the phone. Quite simply they’d let someone on work experience send out some emails and this was a result.

So as not to haunt him through his career I’ve removed the identifying marks.

Comment and Discuss

I’ve just had one of those mind blank moments. I was doing a recorded interview for James Watt’s late night TalkSport comedy programme this Saturday am. He’s set up the Bum Reading Expert website as a homage to this one, and in the home he can “read bums on TV”. As my dad’s a regular Talk Sport listener, he heard this and them talking about me, and after a wee exchange of emails I thought it’d be fun to do the interview, but I digress…

What do you do other than save people money?

That was the question he asked me, and I must be honest: I blanked. Yes of course I work ridiculous hours (though less than I used to - I do a typical 70-hour week now), yet I simply couldn’t think of anything to say other than “spend time with my fiancé and scrabble.”

Afterwards I thought how bland this made me sound. Of course I like going to the cinema (The Dark Knight; amazing film), eating out, seeing friends, travelling and I’m learning to play golf (again), yet this makes me sound like a losing contestant in Miss World.

So to make myself feel better I pounced on the team here at MSE Towers to see if they had any hobbies (ignoring MSE Richard who’s an extreme sports fanatic and regularly does strange things with a paraglider, and Kate who’s a drummer in a metal band). The answers were sports, reading, cinema & opera; but do these constitute hobbies now as they did in the old days?

Comment and discuss.

About ten days ago, by coincidence just before the mass of energy price hike news (which is why it’s taken me so long to blog this), I was delighted that three representatives from Ofgem came to MSE Towers to gather info on the energy market and our perspective on it.

As it’s rare for regulators to step outside their ivory towers, it was lovely to have a meet, and especially one instigated by them. They’re meeting a lot of relevant parties for feedback on the ease & experience of switching providers, and the problems people are having.

MSE Archna, who works on gas & elec with me, and I saw it as an opportunity to raise the points we constantly see through e-mails and in the forum as well as to explain some of the problems we have when trying to help people via the cheap gas and electricity guide.

Of course, I also started a special forum thread to ask what MoneySavers wanted to say too. So I thought you’d be interested in what we said.

The Big points

• Direct Debit problems.

  Many people’s Direct Debits are too high, or too low. So they’re either paying too much or having to fork out for occasional big bills. As Direct Debit is 10% cheaper than other payment methods this is something we want to encourage, yet there are many issues.

  The biggest is the fact you don’t have a right to get it altered. My suggestion was a customer rights charter which includes “your direct debit should be reasonable and proportionate to the likely charge, and if it isn’t the company on request should amend it within a set time period.”

  This is the biggest issue we see, yet interestingly they said it was something they rarely hear about.

• Independent Gas Transporter Problems.

  Some people have homes which were new builds and aren’t supplied by Transco, meaning the energy provider has to pay two companies to supply energy to them. Thus when they switch, even though it says they’ll save, they’re soon told they’ll need to pay more because of this.

  As most people have no clue they’re supplied by IGTs, some form of clear system is needed to give people legitimate switching expectations.

• Prepayment meters costing more.

  This is a true injustice as far as I’m concerned. Many of the poorest in society have no choice but to be on a prepayment meter, and yet in doing so they’re also the ones who pay more. This simply doesn’t seem right.

  Plus there are some people who use prepay meters, then get big bills. The reason is their meters haven’t been upgraded, so are stuck on old tariffs. According to energy companies’ logic they put “50p in but get 70p worth of energy” and hence they have to make it up later.

  Yet for me this is just wrong. There is currently a big push to update all meters, yet I think in the meantime the energy companies should take the hit, if they haven’t updated it.

• Switching sites inconsistency.

  I never go too public on the fact that try three switching sites, even using kilowatt hours, and you can sometimes get different answers. This is very damaging for their credibility and puts some people who’ve checked off switching. For me the regulator needs to clear up why this is happening.

  On a secondary note, as evidenced since the meeting, it’s also a problem that suppliers will sometimes ‘demand tariffs come off switching sites’ but still sell them direct. In the last few days both Scottish Power and Eon have done this. Surely when this happens, it negates the whole point of having switching sites?

  If you’re wondering why I don’t go large on these issues publicly, it’s simply because switching sites are the best way to compare and switch (unless you’re willing to spend hours on a spreadsheet yourself), and to diminish their reputation for these small issues would leave people not switching at all, yet stuck on horrible tariffs. So I choose the least worst route.

So those were the biggies, here are some of the others:

Provider Practices.

• Selling cheaper Direct Debits as a cheaper product. Door-to-door sales people offering to cut direct debits from £50 to £40 – this doesn’t mean you’re on a cheaper rate, just means they’ve cut the Direct Debit – so it isn’t cheaper at all.
• General confusion when it comes to billing. Tier structures and ‘sculptured’ tariffs are now so complex it’s a nightmare for people to understand the bills.
• Dropping discounts in the last month of a tariff. Some people are given discounts for signing up, but when they say they’re switching to another provider, these discounts are withdrawn. This is effectively just a penalty for switching.

LPG/Oil

• Who do you go to? This is not regulated by Ofgem, and we see lots of complaints about it. We’ve asked for help to find out who’s in charge of regulating it.

Comparison sites.

• Transparency of prices and what is being compared on comparisons. When prices go up are you comparing the old tariff or the new tariff?
• Some kind of structured to process to ensure comparisons are being updated efficiently. Eg a notice from Ofgem with price changes and a deadline for being updated.
• Ofgem should help push the message that the comparison sites are available by the phone. As it’s often the older generation who have less web access who are most at risk of fuel poverty.
• All products should be included, such as Staywarm, which isn’t on the vast majority of sites.

Stop encouraging people to ‘switch’ at any time.

• The regulator tends to have a compare and switch message. Yet sometimes (like now) you can’t do this, as the playing field isn’t level and by comparing and switching you’ll just be moving to a provider whose price will jump up and could be more expensive.

Comment and discuss.

Following on from yesterday’s TV is frustrating blog, this morning on GMTV I was much happier with my performance. Yet I can’t believe what just happened.

The One O’Clock news

I rarely do BBC TV, as I tend to be seen as a face of ITV and Five. So it was a surprise to be invited today to talk about gas prices. Amidst the chat, here’s the scene (as best I remember, it was very quick):

ML: Two weeks ago I said cap and there were THREE caps left.
Action: Holding up three fingers.

ML: Then earlier this week there were only TWO.
Action: Holding up two fingers.

ML: Now there’s just ONE and it could go any minute.
Action: I started to put one finger down, then realized that left just my middle finger stuck up with the front of my hand facing the camera. So in a flash (I hope) I changed it to my index finger…

I’ve already had texts from friends who noticed…. Ooops. Still you never know I might make it on “It shouldn’t happen to a Money Saving Expert”

Comment and Discuss

PS Thanks for the pictures folks….

A quick thanks, ut hmm, to those in the Forum discussion above who went to the BBC news site linked to the video and downloaded screengrabs! Though it did give me the opportunity to see I really did get my finger all the way up… luckily only briefly.

I’m feeling annoyed with myself after my GMTV slot this morning. Having done energy capping yesterday in a way I was really proud of, there was so much interest they wanted me on again. I had three minutes, as many people were confused, and sadly I think I probably hindered rather than helped.

Part of the problem was there were, understandably, lots of emails from viewers who were confused over a complex subject. Yet some were so confused that in a way, trying to untangle them made it more confusing for others. The other part was just me being pants – in three minutes, when it goes wrong, it’s very difficult to rescue.

I’d been shown one question before where a person said capping had increased their bill from £60 to £120 a month. Now this simply isn’t possible; there’s no cap out there that’d come close to doubling your costs. This is almost certainly a case of an increase in Direct Debit costs, not the cost of the energy itself. As such it opens up a bag full of issues which aren’t relevant to trying to get the ‘last chance to cap, you have to do it this morning’ message out there – which I’m really passionate about at the moment.

So the producer agreed to switch to a different question that helped explain things better. Yet I got in the studio and, as can happen on live TV, no one had managed to tell Ben, who then asked it me. Inside my heart dropped as to try and explain it was a nightmare, and even more frustrating due to the time constraints on a complex subject. From then on, it was on my mind, and having had only four hours sleep last night due to trying to get it all sorted, and a bit of insomnia, it was like swimming upstream. The last thing I said to Ben and Kate as I left, was I was worried I’d come across as aggressive.

The frustrating thing is you’re always only as good as your last spot on air, so even now, a few hours later, I’m mulling it over. I know some of the message came across, but still it’s left a nasty taste in my mouth… and I’m not back on GMTV until next week.

Comment and Discuss

I was interviewed by a newspaper today about combating inflation and keeping your big bills cheap. She asked about home phone bills and I decided it wasn’t a priority - certainly not a top five issue.

Yet when I first started as Money Saving Expert in 2000, home phone bills were one of the big ‘uns. My suspicion is, and I don’t know as I wasn’t paying the bill, in the 1980s the phone bill was similar to the gas bill. Now many people pay under £200/year for phone but over £1,000 a year for energy.

Home phones have truly been deflationary (see Cheap Home Phones) with the prices dropping in real terms. Just take international call costs, whereas once you’d pay £1/min to call anywhere, now it’s 1p a minute or free (see Cheap International calls).

My suspicion is if it wasn’t for home broadband, many would’ve dropped their home phones completely, in exchange for the more convenient, but much more expensive mobiles.

Comment and Discuss.

My friend Rufus (not a real name to protect anonymity) who’s a broadcaster, was talking about his pension scheme the other day. It promises that for every pound contributed it will match it up to a maximum 5% of his salary.

Yet for three years Rufus hasn’t been putting money in. I was shocked; this is free money, he’s got a good job and can easily afford to contribute and quite simply not taking it up is throwing cash away.

The size of the waste…

• Rufus’ Earnings: £45,000
• Tax Situation: As a higher rate taxpayer, since pension contributions are paid before tax, for every £1 he pays in, he only loses 60p from his pay packet (80p if he’d been a basic rate taxpayer).
• Company Situation: For contributions up to £2,250 a year, it is matched.
• Overall: Therefore for every £100 he contributes he gets £333 into his pension (if he’d been a basic rate taxpayer it would’ve been £250). Put another way, to invest £4,500 a year he would only need to contribute £1,500, or £125 a month. A staggering rate.

Why he hadn’t contributed…

The answer, when it came, was as expected - his reason for not contributing was because “pensions don’t do well do they, I’m worried about what happened to equitable life and losing my cash.” We have a real problem with the perception of pensions in the UK, most people consider pensions to be risky. They’re not, pensions are completely safe.

At the risk of repeating my old one word caused the pension crisis blog (which goes into much more detail) we have a national misunderstanding disease when it comes to pensions. Let me make it plain for most standard pensions (not counting final salary ones, which are slightly different)…

A pension’s NOT a product. It a tax-wrapper, in the same way as an ISA is. It lets you save for retirement from pre-tax income. It’s not risky in any way.

So where does the risk come from?

The risk comes from what you decide to put in your pension. In the same way as you can have a simple savings type cash ISA or a shares investment one. You can choose what to put in your pension, including a rough equivalent to savings.

So people’s pensions haven’t performed badly, but the investment many people put in them has. The lesson from all this is, if you can afford it, do take up your pension, but be careful what you choose to invest in.

Comment and discuss

I know I’ve a privileged lifestyle; I have a good career, go on the telly and earn well, yet today I travelled to privilege’s far side…. in truth not even the other 1% but probably the other 0.01%.

I’ve just come back from a day at the Cartier Polo on a scorching 80 degree plus day. It’s a quite gobsmacking event; in the middle of a large park field in Windsor, there are scores of corporate tents and, though I didn’t go in large daytime China White ‘nightclub’. My agent is involved with organising it, so the MSF and I were invited to the centrepiece, a full sit-down lunch at the Cartier tent with Anton Mosimann catering.

A plush toilet and chandaliers in a field

It’s difficult to contemplate when you’re in there that you’re in the middle of a field. It’s a huge white marquee, with fluffy chandaliers hanging from the top, entrance gateways, a separate linked indoor luxury toilet tent including large basin area, aftershaves and other assorted goodies.

There are more models than you’d find in an airfix collector’s attic and the place is swarming with the beautiful, the rich, the ‘well’ bred and the famous.

They said ‘Gucci’ or ‘Ben de Lisi’, the MSF said ‘River Island’

You walk in to a bank of paparazzi waiting to take photos, some for the social pages, some for the fashion ones; thankfully neither are particularly interested in me, so I step aside, as the MSF is asked to pose alone for the fashion ones. The best bit of that is that when they ask “who made your outfit”, others were saying Gucci, Ben de Lisi and some obscure names I’ve not heard of, while the MSF simply said “River Island”.

It was a great day I have to say, more so as both the MSF and I decided not to drink due to the heat and so got to people watch and enjoy the events with a clear head.

Michael Buerk and the Dolce and Gabana Model

My favourite bit was near the end; we were on a table with a group of other journalist types and all trying to work out who the man with the industrially chiseled jaw and his stunning seventeen foot six girlfriend were, as as the paps kept coming in to photo them. At that point Michael Buerk sat down, and I explained the problem and said to him “Michael we need an intreprid journalist to find out who they are…”

The rest of us were embarrassed chickens, yet with war reporting and presenting major news bulletins, it wasn’t exactly a challenge for him. So he walked over, and with a debonair style, simply asked them, then had a chat. He reported back that the bloke was the Dolce and Gabbana underwear model with the six pack (thankfully not on show) from all the posters and the girl was also a catwalk model.

Best of all, to show that bravery has its reward, they then popped over to our table, and the man asked Michael if he would mind having a picture taken with his arm around his girlfriend who was a fan!

Comment and Discuss. Discuss this blog

I was on GM-TV this morning with Hamfatter, the band Peter Jones invested £75,000 in on last night’s Dragon’s Den, for a 30% share of their future earnings. It made me muse on the nature of the investment…

If this were a non-televised programme, would they have invested in a band? Bands’ sales are driven by publicity, and here’s a group getting 9 minutes of 6 million audience prime time exposure by the very act of pitching, plus ensuing publicity on GMTV’s This Morning. Apparently they’ll now also be ‘debuting their first single on Chris Moyles’ show’ (and they’ve even got me blogging on them!). So why not invest with this expensive publicity already given?

This publicity issue doesn’t just hit bands though, it works for many retailers. I know the owners of Degree Art who pitched on the first series of the Den. They didn’t get any money (they got an offer, but turned it down due to the high share of equity wanted), but they came out of it well; the ensuing publicity was really helpful.

So in many ways, the programme itself is self-fulfilling, and there is a creeping feeling that many companies now go on it just for the publicity. You often hear the Dragons ask “you don’t need the money, why are you here?” While the standard reply is “for your expertise”, perhaps underneath there’s occasions where the real answer is “for the prime time BBC2 exposure”.

Not that this is a problem. It’s great television, which is of course its prime purpose, plus it teaches people about entrepreneurship and businesses and I’m a big fan of that. So much so I put it in my Teen Cash Class guide, in the section about one of the core lessons to learn; that a companies job is to make money from us.

“If you didn’t think that handling your money well was about a battle between you and the companies, hopefully, by now, you’ve cottoned on.

Don’t take just my word for it though, if you’ve ever watched the TV programme Dragons’ Den, take that as further proof. They never ask “how much good will it do society”, their key question is “will it make me money” – that’s the first priority of any business. There’s a reason it’s not called Fluffy Bunnies’ Den.”

Comment and Discuss.

My lovely niece Kim, aged thirteen, was in Manchester’s Traffford centre with a couple of friends. She was approached by a girl handing out ‘win a makeover and photo session!’ type leaflets, which of course the three girls jumped at. They filled them in, and no surprise, moments later they emerged lucky winners.

The obvious catch…

My sister called me to tell me about this, and before she’d finished the sentence I knew what had happened. I’m sure you know the story of how these things work…

You win a makeover and photo session, yet not included in the prize are the pictures themselves, which cost a fortune, and of course you can’t take your own camera into the session.

She was rightfully disgusted they’d handed out the leaftlets to young girls, and now she had to diffuse a situation - being seen as ‘unfair’ because she wouldn’t pay for the photos. I did my best on the phone to help, explaining to Kim how the scheme worked and that it is just a legal con, with a pretense at being a contest, to flog costly photos.

Targeting Kids isn’t on.

My anger is less at the technique - people will try lots of ways to make money - but at the fact they gave them to young teens. We already live in a “must have” society; for companies to possibly deliberately take advantage that is one step too far.

If your kids shop near the Trafford centre, or any other mall doing something similar, warn them in advance to steer clear.

Comment and Discuss

Having been telling people to grab a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) for the last few years (see the Cheap Travel Insurance guide for why), I used my own for the first time the other weekend.

I’d been in Italy for a close friend’s wedding (congrats Babs and Mark), but sadly the cough and sore throat mentioned in my last blog had got worse not better, and became extremely painful. Not much fun, and as I had a speech to make, I didn’t want to let my friends down, so I ended up going to the local medical centre.

I was joined by Naz, a friend who had kindly volunteered to translate, as she speaks Italian. One of the first things the Doctor asked for was “medical insurance or the card.” Funnily enough Naz wasn’t sure what he meant, but I correctly assumed it was the EHIC.

Then not one but two doctors looked at my throat for a good fifteen minutes; not something I’m used to from my London GP centre. As I had the card, rather than a much higher fee, it only cost £7 for the appointment; a sum I won’t be troubling my travel insurer for.

Comment and Discuss.

I’m writing this feeling slightly blurry. For the last two nights sadly I’ve not been able to sleep, and as anyone who’s suffered from insomnia knows, it’s self perpetuating as the worry about not sleeping drives you to stay awake. Sadly it’s come at a time of lots of work pressure; I’m filming a few different things this week and hear rumours about some big bank charges announcements to come. So if you’ve seen me on the telly or heard me on the radio this week, forgive me if I’m not particularly lucid at times.

Right now it’s 11am and I’m shattered, but of course to try and sleep now would be really counter productive as it would further disturb my sleep pattern and mean that tonight I’m even less likely to sleep. So right now it’s grit my teeth and get on with it time…

Comment and discuss

On Sunday the MSF and I were at lunch to celebrate a family birthday, and at the next table was a birthday party for a man who’d hit 90. They had a video camera and I heard one asking him “what would you say was the greatest invention of your lifetime?” I didn’t hear the answer, but I mused on this. While he missed the airplane, there’s been television, computing, the internet, penicillin… Which would you choose?

What about since 1972?

I was born in 1972, and frankly I can’t think of a major world changing invention since then. You could argue the internet wasn’t really invented until 1989 with Berners Lee and the worldwide web, but it’s generally accepted that in the late 1960s the first computers were networked together, so I discounted that.

Barring medical inventions, which help prolong life rather than change the world, I can’t think of that much. Even test tube babies have enabled children for childless couples, but that’s a change for individuals rather than something that’s changed the world we live in. When I put this to the group, all we could come up with was the Sat Nav, but I wouldn’t exactly call that a seismic invention.

It seems to me that the change in my life span has been far more about innovating existing inventions for modern life rather than beginning anything groundbreaking. Then again, perhaps it’s simply because we don’t yet realise which inventions will go on to change things substantially.

Still, I’m pretty sure we missed something obvious, so please do add your thoughts and suggestions to the discussion below.

Comment and Discuss

During an interview for a reporter today, I was trying to explain why calling everything “the credit crunch” was nonsense (see my credit crunch and other myths blog). In it I came up with a nice explanation of The Four Horsemen of the Financial Apocalypse (it’s only the size of their charger that varies):

• Economic Slowdown (Shetland pony). Just a Shetland pony size problem at the moment. It’s slowdown not recession, yet the lack of stability and worries over job security are having an impact.
• Inflation (Racing horse). A fair sized racing horse this. Things are starting to gallop quite fast, and sadly, if your money’s on the wrong horse you can lose quite a lot. Some people are feeling the real hit from prices of food, gas & elec, petrol and more.
• The Credit Crunch (Cart horse). A fair cart horse size here, especially in the mortgage market. Anyone who has to borrow more than 80% of their house’s value is really feeling it and deals are hard to come by. The unthinkable result for many is they’re moving to their lenders Standard Variable Rate and that’s the cheapest; they can’t get a better deal.
• House Prices (Mule). A bit of a hybrid mule this, as it’s part caused by the credit crunch. In many ways a house price correction was needed to sort out the overpriced property market; the problem is the speed and depth that we’ll face. The worst hit come in two categories. 1. Those who overborrowed on the back of property porn TV shows irresponsibly urging people to borrow to the max. 2. Those who spent their house value by spending on cards, then moving that to their remortgage, meaning they’re paying the debt off over a much longer period, thus ruining their loan to value ratio making cheaper mortgages more difficult.

Apocalypse is obviously too strong a word, yet for a few people the meltdown is happening. The real key at the moment is the pain of transition, which feels even worse as we’ve been used to boom times for so long.

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I’m sitting in the Radio 2 green-room, waiting to go on Vine (though the room isn’t green and Clive Anderson’s presenting). When you come up in the lift, instead of music, it has the station playing; yet I was rather surprised to note that in the toilet nearest the studio, Radio 2 is pumping out there too. Obviously a great boon to the presenters who need a quick ‘comfort break’, so when a song’s playing they know how long they’ve got left.

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