Toadfish in the UK/Europe

[beagle]

... oh no they cried, he's been abducted by Capn Blair, Lord President of Eurasia, saviour of the Middle East and winner of the Mrs Joyful prize for raffia work. He must have slipped in via a wormhole from the maximum security twilight home for ex-politicians thread. What do we do now?

Celebrate? said a chorus of voices with London accents...

[Griffin NoName]

........but they weren't just any old Londoners. They were Cockneys. And when they said Celebrate of course they really meant Eliminate.

Yes !  They must find the perpertrator of The terrible Incident of The Dog Falling through the Wormhole At Night. Beagle deserved no less.

And when they found the scoundral they would set his feet in concrete and do other turrible things to his......

[Griffin NoName]

Parliament is about to recess for its annual summer of idleness. Notice on door, back in September.

I'm never sure if this means politics continue, or not.

Why does Parliament follow school holidays?

If they do, why doesn't the rest of the workforce?

[beagle]

I'm never sure if this means politics continue, or not.

Did Millivolt's Grauniadarticle/speech/non-provision-of-enthusiastic-GB-support answer this question to your satisfaction?

[Griffin NoName]

short answer NO

long answer Who IS this gordon brown? After all it is quite easy to fake a scottish accent

[beagle]

He's the living embodiment of "Be careful what you wish for".

[Griffin NoName]

Simple - give up wishing. In fact bring in legislation banning wishing.

[beagle]

I think stamping out hope may already be in the autumn legislation schedule.

[beagle]

Shock Plans to Close the North!

Two/thirds chance of Griffin,Bart or me ending up with Goat.

[Griffin NoName]

I am so confused. Won't we all be moving north to grow grapes with Global Warming?

I have a better idea altogether. Convert us all to nomads.

[Griffin NoName]

I have a puzzle puzzling me.

Panorama did this stuff on the financial crisis and they had this man and he bought a house with a mortgage and they messed around filming him saying he never new the repayments could go up, and Panorma seemed to be presenting that as proof how awful everything is.

My puzzle is this. When a mortgage is sold, the purchaser has to be warned that the repayments can go up, or down for that matter (if a fixed term, then that at the end of the fixed term). It is a straightforward part of the FSA regulations.

In fact, it is one of those regulations that drive me nuts as every time I talk to my brother in law who is a financial advisor he warns me, even if we are talking about getting a chinese take away - it seems to become some kind of mantra for anyone working in financial sectors.

So if, as Panorma implies, strongly, there are vast numbers of people who do not know mortgage repayments (unfixed) go up and down, which is pretty basic piece of knowledge in any case, this in turn implies the FSA have not bothered to police this, or have not bothered to do anything about it if they knew.

Why?

Who are the FSA accountable to?

Why do I feel like an idiot ?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Do you Britons have to sign a 40 cm high pile of papers the day you get a mortgage? Have you ever heard about misrepresentation at the time of a sale? Of anything?

Obviously that doesn't take into account the people that knowingly got into a mortgage they couldn't afford with the intention to flip the property and make a quick profit.

[Griffin NoName]

Do you Britons have to sign a 40 cm high pile of papers the day you get a mortgage? Have you ever heard about misrepresentation at the time of a sale? Of anything?

Yes actually.

Misrepresentation at the time of sale is precisely covered for finance.

It's slightly murkier for anything. But regulations exist within trading standards. Too complex to go into, and most people ARE unaware of their rights. But I'm not

Oh, and be in no doubt. It does not stop at signing papers. We are forced to endure (and often pay for) a twenty minute lecture on our rights and their wrongs and our wrongs and their rights when trying to get through by phone to various types of businesses too. Yesterday afternoon, I hit one that actually announced how long the pre-amble would be (lengthy) and before they launched into it, said .... but do not worry, you will not have to press any buttons afterwards. In fact I had to llisten to my rights twice, as I got cut off at the end the first time.

Does this help you understand my puzzles?  remember we form orderly queues

[beagle]

I should form one for the escape pods if I were you. Just been watching a load of grandstanding U.S. politicians on the box playing to the audience back home rather than sorting out the crisis.

Step 1  Put out the fire.
Step 2  Worry about finding the arsonists.

Still they're ahead of GB, who's on another planet worrying about supplying cheap laptops to schoolkids.  What's really scary is only Paulson and Bush (of all people) seem to have a sense of urgency. Perhaps the Chinese have already threatened to pull the plug.

[Griffin NoName]

GB has upped his free gift with every vote offer. He is now giving drugs to cancer patients free.

The announcement sounds great, and I know people who will actually benefit from it, but it's still the old old trick of appearing to give a lot when actually just whittling away at the edges to seem to be doing something.

Anyone being treated for cancer already gets all drugs in hospital free and the max. they have to pay, per year, for drugs obtained via prescription from the high street chemist is the fee for one year's pre-payment certificate NOT the cost of each prescription for each drug (ie. it's capped) (as do non-cancer patients) - and so the only advantage is if you are being treated with "cancer" drugs at home*. Of course, many people don't know about pre-payments. And of course, why pay at all. etc. 

WOW. This is a biggy. An incentive to get (the right sort of) cancer. Thanks Gordy.

** For example, it won't apply to anyone like me who is not actually taking anti-cancer meds because "there are no meds for it once the initial we-only-chuck-chemo-at-it-and-there-is-nothing-else so you won't know if you still have it lurking until you die of something else."