Monthly Archives: February 2010

My growing suspicion that I get handed the bulk of the nerdy exciting tasks at MSE towers was further bolstered today as Martin’s asked me to cogitate on The AA’s new style of repayment hierarchy on its relaunched credit card. Before you all nod off, a quick intro. Though they sound dull as ditchwater, repayment hierarchies control exactly...

I learnt an important lesson in karma yesterday – never forgo a potential charity donation or the consequences could be dire. Instead of buying my daily fix of a Yorkie bar from our charity chocolate box at work I got it from the local petrol station while buying my lunch (see the Charity Giving guide). When I...

As the economic crisis has eased, we’ve seen a resurgence of longer balance transfer deals (read full MSE News story), and very slowly rising savings rates. So it got me thinking, what other products or T&Cs from the pre-credit crunch era would I love to see get a second coming. NO FEE balance transfers A couple of...

I have a fairly long commute into work, and was standing at the platform last night thinking about ways I’ve tried to make the journey less painful on me and my pocket. First things first, and due to the near-anonymity here, I can come clean – I was a train-spotter in a former life. This was in...

Now I must apologise for the fact the team blog is likely to be littered with marathon related entries in the next few months. With six of us running the Virgin marathon this year a proportion of the office has gone running crazy (see MSE Darren’s MSE runs the marathon blog). Poor MSE Alana had to endure...

My name is Dan, and I support Aston Villa. There, I’ve said it! In truth, following the arrival of Martin O’Neill (A.K.A The Messiah) as manager three years ago, uttering the above statement has shrunk into a much milder form of social embarrassment, and revolutionised afternoons spent watching 11 men in claret & blue kick around a...

MSE Towers has six staff members attempting this year’s Virgin London Marathon, myself included and it’s both exciting and terrifying. Having spent most of my adult life stood on cold fields kicking an inflated bladder around, running is something I’ve only recently become interested in. To my name, I’ve done a 10K, the southern Hell Run and...

It’s not often you read a positive comment piece about UK banks but I’m going to be different. I’m not going to praise their sometimes rotten charges, nor am I going to praise some of their reckless lending decisions over recent years which have helped cause the largest financial crisis of most of our lifetimes. I’m going...

Car Insurance renewal time is quite an exciting time – for me, anyway; I love the game-playing and competition. With a quite large blokey car (1.8l Ford Mondeo), I feel there’s always room for manoeuvre on insurance premiums. After determining what my job description is (by using the Car Insurance Job Picker), I go full-steam ahead into...