* One of the heart-warming things about being a parent is when your offspring inherit some of your traits (the good ones that is!) and my brood seem to have inherited the travel genes from their parents.
I am the proud father of 3 daughters and the middle one got married in March. Originally, the plan was to have a lavish wedding, two week honeymoon, go back to work and then move house. But in February, they decided to have a more modest wedding and use the rest of the money for a world trip. I saw them off from Gatwick and off they flew to Nicaragua.
Since then they have been gradually travelling southwards and are now in Brasil having just finished a 3 day trek in the Amazon jungle. This involved making a shelter rather like Ray Mears, touching hairy spiders and burning tree bark to deter the mosquitoes. Their guide carried a first aid kit with venom in case they got bitten by one of the many poisonous snakes that live in the jungle.
On a later river trip, my daughter caught 4 piranhas.
If you know anyone thinking about marriage, honeymoons etc, this is certainly one to remember and might give them a few original ideas.
Come to think of it, a trip like this would make an interesting second honeymoon too. I hope you find it interesting reading – you will have to scroll down for the start of the Amazon bit http://www.goodfellowstravels.blogspot.com/

* Imagine business life without a contract…..At a Missing Link meeting on Monday www.misslink.co.uk I meet a guy that runs a successful IT support company that does not have a written contract with its clients. They trust him enough apparently to give them office keys allowing them access to their offices 24/7. They invoice their clients for work done every month and the clients are happy to pay.
The MD http://www.thefinalstep.co.uk/ said that this way of working has worked very well for 19 years, so why change it?
Any views from the legal eagles here??

* A colleague refers me to a neighbour of his who needs a mortgage after his divorce.
It turns out he is really into motorbikes and I mention that I used to have a Jawa 350 twin but have always fancied owning a BMW “boxer” twin. We then have a lovely conversation about these machines and it turns out that there are three types of “boxer” twin: twin-shock airheads, mono-shock airheads and oilheads.
He mentions an immaculate 1981 R650 for sale at £2,000 – tempting.
Part of his “pension” will be his collection of 40 motorbikes – pity they could not be included formally in a Self-invested Personal Pensions Scheme (SIPPS) see my earlier blog http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/?p=6.
It turns out there are now “Bike Safe” courses run by the Police for old bikers like me who want to get back on two wheels http://www.bikesafe-london.co.uk/riderscomments.html

* We have an in-house magazine as a way of improving internal office communication and previously, I did a 60 second interview style article http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/?p=37 We have added a local restaurant review and this month it is my turn so I select Shish at 313 -319 Old Street which draws its inspiration from the different cultures along the Silk Road. There are two other branches in Willesden Green and Bayswater.

The decor is modernist, very simple in neutral colours and the place mats show a map of the Silk Road. The menu is slightly exotic as one would expect and after deliberating between Afghan Pumpkin, Spinach Borek and Tabbouleh I settle for the Pumpkin. My colleague chooses Red Pepper and Feta. To avoid going hungry I order another starter – Crispy Duck spring rolls. These all arrive quite quickly and are very tasty. I especially like the duck spring rolls which come with a mustard-coloured sauce. The red pepper and feta is adequate but in retrospect, I wish I had tried the spinach.
For the main course, my colleague has the Mediterranean Chicken on rice while I have Lamb Kofta on cous cous. The meats are tasty but the quantity of cous cous in relation to the meat leaves me thirsty and some sauce would be nice here.
The sweets are the best thing and the chocolate mousse with orange sauce is gorgoeus and my halva ice cream with baclava is very good too.
The macchiato coffee is very well done with three little coffee beans in the foam as a trimming – a nice little touch there.
Only two little things are amiss. The pitta bread served with the starters is cold. If this had been warm, the starters would have tasted much better and the waitress tried to bring the main courses while we were still eating our starters.
Shish do some good lunch time deals, Mezze & Shish £6.95 for example, as well as Summer Picnic Hampers.
Will I go there again – a definite yes! http://www.shish.com

It really is a bit quiet and this period is sometimes called the silly season

* The Clerkenwell Business Network holds a lunchtime event at The Rookery Hotel in Clerkenwell http://www.rookeryhotel.com/home.cfm and we are given a tour. It is amazing how buildings can be recycled – the previous use was as a bacon-curing factory! There I meet a lady who works for Preventicum www.preventicum.co.uk who offer a full body check up including 3D MRI scan and other things without having to be referred by a GP – it must be a hypochondriac’s dream.

* I visit one of my relatives and somehow Pension Credits pops up in the conversation – she has been assessed for this wonderful scheme and awarded 7p a week. The Nanny State can be very mean sometimes.

* By way of contrast, at my BRE Bond Street meeting http://www.brebondstreet.co.uk/script/site/default.asp a lady from an American law firm http://www.usvisalawgroup.com that specialises in US Immigration matters points out that Investor temporary visas only require US$100,000 whereas here it is more – £200,000 of capital being required and sometimes £750,000 capital. A great loss to the UK and a huge boon to the US economy.

* When will the chickens are come home to roost with the Government’s manipulation of Inflation figures?? Inflation down when energy prices are rocketing? A survey by Alliance Trust http://www.alliancetrusts.com/pdfs/research_centre/inflation_and_age_06_06.pdf points out that inflation is higher for elderly people. While consumer goods such as computers have decreased in price and kept the index low, these are rarely bought by the elderly who spend a higher portion of their limited income on keeping warm. The effective rate of inflation for them is about 3.7% p.a.. Does this feature in the deliberations of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, I wonder?

* Wall Street analysts and fund managers say that share prices will fall in the next six months. This sort of thing is often a self-fulfilling prophecy but the wonderful thing about markets is how they sometimes prove the pundits wrong – we shall see.

* See my previous blog below about my hair-raising visit to Walberswick.

A previous blog http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/?p=48 mentioned I would be off to Walberswick so my daughters and I set off early on Sunday. As we got onto the M25, the heavens opened and the rain got really heavy. We settled in the middle lane just behind a nice red Chevrolet Corvette at a comfortable speed when all hell broke loose. The Corvette moved left and suddenly went sideways and smacked into the centre wall. It bounced off this and came back across to the left raising a huge amount of spray which completely hid it for a while. When this cleared, I saw smoke coming from the front and it came to a halt on the hard shoulder. I drew up behind and one of my daughters got out and opened the left-hand door which was the driver’s side. He was groaning a bit and both air bags had gone off. I told him to get out of the car and his wife was trying to get out on the left hand side too. I went round and opened her door and suggested she get out that side as it was easier, which she did.
There was no fire but I did tell the driver to turn off the ignition. Two or three other cars stopped too.

My daughter contacted 999 and I ended up speaking to a Scottish lady who asked me, Did I require a fire engine? No. Did I require an ambulance? No. Did I require the Police? No. Since I did not require any emergency services she politely suggested we call Directory Enquiries for a tow truck. Fortunately the Corvette driver was a member of the AA so he called them himself.

It was still raining so I suggested that we wait in our car. They had been on the way to Norwich to look at a 1959 Cadillac. My youngest daughter dutifully put up the warning triangle a distance from our car and we then had a pleasant chat for 45 minutes until the tow truck arrived. The cause of the accident appeared to be aquaplaning although the tread on the Corvette tyres looked new. As the driver put it, he just “lost it” when he went through a puddle.
The tow truck took them away – a little shaken but not hurt. Thank heaven for the centre barrier, the front-wheel drive and ABS brakes on my Audi.

**********

Walberswick turned out to be 30 minutes drive from my folks in Leiston and we arrived at 1 PM which is when the website said Registration was due to start. Parking cost £2 and was easy and it turned out we were an hour early but the registration desks opened a few minutes after we parked. We came fully equipped with buckets, bait and string but all this stuff is on sale there too.
The areas where you fish from are divided into different colours and we chose the Black area where the queue was shortest. Having registered and having our numbers written on our hands in black felt-tip pen to prove it (total cost £3.50 including a programme) we went to the Bell Inn which served Adnam’s beer. The other pub in Walberswick is the Anchor, two minutes walk further away.

Regular announcements over the tannoy made sure we got to our section on the bank in time but it was quite crowded. Hooks and nets are strictly forbidden and everyone was tying their bits of bacon, filleted fish bodies, fishheads and so on to their lines. Everyone who had been fishing before 2 p.m. had to empty their buckets and a large bang started us off on the competition proper.

The weather was lovely and sunny by this time and we all settled down to slowly drawing in the lines and then casting them out again. There was piped music over the tannoy – a curious mixture of easy listening and rock and roll. The lighthouse and church tower at Southwold were visible about a mile way. The tide was on the ebb and the river level dropped noticeably during our time on the riverbank. Some people near us moved away so we had more space but between the three of us, our catch was zero.
The end of the 90 minutes competition time was marked with a trumpet voluntary and all lines were pulled out of the water. Those who had caught something waited in a long line and the crabs were weighed in little nets so as not to harm them.
All entrants received a small pot of Shippam’s Crab Paste so we did not go away empty handed.
718 people registered for the event and this year the money raised goes to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and Marie Curie Cancer Care. http://www.walberswick.ws/crabbing/2006/index.php It also shows that having fun with children does have have to involve the internet and other electronic stuff. Getting muddy was part of the fun but next time I will wait to register in a longer queue, for a better patch to fish from.

Besides making excellent traditional beer, Adnam’s Brewery which is based at Southwold is very much into local conservation and hold regular beach clean-ups – http://www.beerfromthecoast.co.uk/beach_clean It would make an interesting day out.

* The Woolwich wade back into the 10 year Fixed mortgage market with a product having an interest rate of 4.98% p.a. which seems to be the cheapest 10 year Fixed available currently.

* A leading insurer introduces an annuity conveyancing service for pensions which will save our admin people a lot of time. I hope their systems can cope.

*A review of “Pension Simplification” points out there there are now nearly 600 pages of legislation – almost double what was there before plus 1,500 pages of technical guidance which is 4 times as many pages as was envisaged 2 years ago when the process started. The Romans apparently invented “divide and rule” – the current regime seem to have invented “change and rule”.

* The new G.P’s pension scheme will have contributions of 20 per cent a year – 14 per cent from the Employers and 6 per cent from the Doctors as Employee contributions. How many people contribute 20 per cent of their earnings to pay for their life in old age?

* Manage to forget about finance for a few hours at a colleague’s birthday party held at a former Conran restaurant which is now a Cuban Salsa bar in Wardour Street http://www.floriditalondon.com/ A selection of Cuban cigars is available in the restaurant but there is an even bigger selection in the bar next door so I treat myself to a San Cristobal. There seem to be lots of hen parties there so there is no shortage of ladies to dance with. The small dance floor is so crowded so all I can do is very basic steps. I leave at 2 a.m. which is not late by Latin standards and Wardour Street is still heaving. Too tired for tango Sunday afternoon.

An Interesting Week in the financial surgery

* I am increasingly baffled by the continued strength of the house market. The percentage of first-time buyers is much lower than before and I wonder who is going to buy these houses in a few years time when today’s first-time buyers move? Evidence of this is in a front page article in The Daily Telegraph 3rd August 2006 where the average deposit given by parents is £18,000 and larger than the deposit provided by the child concerned http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/08/03/nparents03.xml

* The Bank of England follows the worldwide upward trend in interest rates and raises Bank rate by a quarter per cent to 4.75% p.a. Interesting contrast to the start of the year when the gossip was that interest rates would be lower at the end of this year – see my earlier blog http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/?p=12 In my mortgage sourcing system there are currently about 58,000 products admittedly with some double counting since there are practically identical semi-exclusive products offered by lenders via several packagers.
As interest rates rise, the number of products tends to fall as products (especially fixed) are withdrawn. When interest rates fall the number of mortgage products tends to increase.

* I attend an interesting investment seminar hosted by a very large American fund manager where they point out the advantages of seminar selling. They have a range of portfolios from Cautious to Adventurous and offer a capital guarantee in case of the bond holder’s death or at a specified level of income, which costs 0.5% a year. Ought to be of interest to trustees and solicitors.

* I have a very interesting meeting with the owner of a Care Agency which provides mainly live-in carers. He points out that the cost of adapting a home and paying for a carer to come in, is about the same as the cost of care in a home. It also avoids the trauma of selling and moving and any conversion costs for example, can be paid for by equity release. I would imagine that the risk of MRSA would be less in one’s own home too. Watch this Space!

* Since I seem to be the only member of my family who has not been there, I finally arrange to go to the British Open Crabbing Championship at Walberswick in Suffolk, Sunday next 13th August http://www.walberswick.ws/crabbing/ Should be a nice day out and this annual event is very popular with families too.