Nice to do something new, and my first workplace pension presentation to the support staff at a north London school goes well. As one of 143 IFA volunteers for TPAS http://www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/ I deliver the PowerPoint presentation and take questions afterwards. Feedback forms show an increased understanding of pensions but several express dissatisfaction with their own pension situation. Workplace seminars are available free to employers (contact Paul Hays) and are delivered either by TPAS staff or IFAs. Starting over 20 years ago as a charity TPAS is now a QuaNGO funded by the Pension Protection Levy http://www.pensionprotectionfund.org.uk/levy/Pages/PensionProtectionLevy.aspx
For the uninitiated, Quasi Non-Governmental Organisations are funded by governments but act independently and there are a lot of them in the UK http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jul/07/public-finance-regulators
Staying with pension & investment protection, I get a phone call from a lady who invested in Arch Cru and whose Google search turns up my previous blog http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/2010/02/because-it-does-what-it-says-on-the-tin/ Her IFA has retired, the firm is apparently no longer in business and she wants to make a claim. What did my colleagues and other IFAs hear about Arch Cru to make them avoid putting their clients’ money there? Am unable to help here and can only point out that all professions have their grapevines and if someone is behaving strangely, word tends to get around. Her discussions with the Financial Ombudsman Service http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/ get nowhere, so if the claim is not covered by the respective firm’s PI insurance, then it will end up at Financial Services Compensation Scheme about which I have written more than once http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/2009/11/interesting-times-how-to-spend-14bn-in-a-weekend/ One thing my contacts do tell me is that the worst news on Arch Cru is yet to come.
A talk to a wholly fee-based IFA brings an amusing story. Submitting the latest FSA return detailing volumes and types of business results in a phone call from the regulator asking “Why so few products?” No life insurance, ISAs or pensions have been sold, only 7 life insurance bonds? Answer: being fee-based, they are not really interested in products, just in getting paid for their time giving advice. The bonds concerned with their unique tax advantages are the best thing for a few of their clients in a few of the situations. To be fair, the clients here are quite well off and can self-insure where protection might otherwise be appropriate, but the regulator is happy.
On my birthday, a kind wife gets me back on two wheels with a new racing bike and the chance to get fit but not before being initially defeated by the gear change mechanism. This is now incorporated in the brake levers on the drop style handle bars. Saddle is awfully narrow but using the gears to change down on hills to keep the same cadence makes things easier and my technique reemerges from my brain and aching limbs. Cycling in London is not for faint-hearted as one appears to be invisible to many car drivers, even when wearing a bright yellow crash helmet.
A friend recommends The Art of Possibility by Rosamund & Benjamin Zander http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Possibility-Practices-Leadership-Relationship/dp/0142001104 which gives a fresh approach compared to other coaching and motivational books. Some of the musical anecdotes are over my head, but the bit on mission statements is funny “We want to be the preeminent supplier of the most innovative technology in in office design in America” but small voice is saying, “What about me? Why? or What for?” Worth a read.
New habits die hard and my seventh Foreign Legion book March or Bust by A R Cooper http://www.amazon.co.uk/March-Bust-Adventures-Foreign-Legion/dp/0709131658/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272110710&sr=8-1 is hard to put down. Joining at 15 1/2 (interesting how men and women lie about their age for different reasons) he gets his Croix de Guerre in the Dardanelles in WW1 before his 16th birthday. Much of his spare time is spent in the archives where he turns up mot de Cambron (sic) http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/miscellaneous/ccambronne.html from Gen Cambronne’s allegedly one word reply Merde! to a surrender offer at Waterloo. This link suggests differently but can take its place with other one word replies to similar offers. Most recent is “Nuts!” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AnthonyMcAuliffe by Gen. McAuliffe in the Battle of the Bulge in WW2 and even shorter, the Spartans answer to a letter from Phillip II, Alexander the Great’s father, “If” when he was about to invade their homeland of Laconia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta
Training is fairly simple compared to later books and after being shown how to pack his kit and load a rifle, off they go. Daily rations include a good supply of red wine. His paquetage or haversack is too much for his young frame at first so his comrades carry it for him in turns. The recoil of the first rifle shot sends him sprawling. Short time later he is captured by Berbers and hands and feet are tied. Torturing prisoners is left to the females and usually involves eyes being gouged out, stomach being cut open and filled with stones, not to mention genitals being cut off and shoved in the mouth. Only way to escape is if they think you are mad, as they believe that doing their usual to a demented person will affect them. Fortunately, Cooper knows a few words of Arabic and they start to wonder as he puts on a demented show. Eventually his hands and feet are released to allow him to pray, which he does loudly in contrast to his captors and after more antics, he is able to escape.
Like all the authors so far, Cooper spends some time in prison. After deserting and getting recaptured, he is sent to French Guiana at that time a feared penal posting although nowadays, legionnaires’ duties are guarding the French Space Centre http://www.esa.int/esaMI/LaunchersEuropes_Spaceport/index.html Tattooing is common there and transgressions mean that the sentence sometimes has to be started again. The misfits include an astronomer who can’t help looking at the stars on night marches resulting in more trouble.
Common sight for Cooper is tobacco pouches made from human skin – usually male but occasionally female. The freshly cut pouch to be used, is covered in salt and left to dry in the sun resulting eventually in a fine leather! Final touch is to have the supposed name of the donor tattooed on. The penal camp has a sadistic sergeant by the name of Himerstein who likes using a whip. Years later, after delivering a talk on the French Foreign Legion to the Special Forces Club in London, an RAF Wing Commander asks if Cooper knew the name? Turns out the guy was a SS guard in Buchenwald.