Tag Archives: uk

The World Is Running Out Of Money – But Who Do We Owe It To?

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The World Is Running Out Of MoneyAll you hear about in the news these days is how much the major countries of the world are in debt.

The USA is in deep debt.  The UK just went £1 Trillion into debt.  Most of Europe is in deep debt, Italy and Greece in particular, and the whole Eurozone financial crisis is putting the economic recovery plans of not only the UK but the USA at risk too.

In mid January the credit rating for France was dropped, which added yet another factor, threatening the Eurozone bailout plan.

It just seems to be a never ending downhill spiral, and yet if you step back and think about it, this is just crazy.

The once wealthiest countries in the world are deep in debt.  They are also trying to help the poorer countries in Europe who are in even worse debt, which is dragging them down further in turn.

What I would like to know though is who is all this debt owed to?  If the USA and UK owe vast sums of money and most of Europe too, then who is the creditor?

It can’t be the Russians, because they are deep in their own debt crisis.  Maybe it’s the Chinese and a master plan to control the world.

Actually a lot of the US debt is in Treasury Securities, which are funded by wealthy investors, as well as corporations, retirement funds and governments around the world.  Surprisingly enough, about 25% of the national debt in the USA is held by foreign governments, the largest being Japan, then China, the UK and then the major oil producing nations.

In the UK, about 40% of the national debt is owed to insurance companies and pension funds, and a whopping 35% to foreign investors,and then next in line comes the Bank Of England.

Another big question comes to mind, “Who are these foreign investors who have such a big stake in the UK?”.

Is it Middle Eastern individuals, companies or governments? Is it private investors like Bill Gates? Is it the Russian Mafia maybe?

The interesting thing is that no amount of Googling seems to throw up any documents with information on how this is made up.

It’s a little worrying don’t you think, that all of our countries are fast going downhill financially, and a siezable chunk of the debt is owed to foreigners.  So what happens if there is ever a “crunch day” when the debt is called on?  Could our countries then come under the thumb of foreign powers?  It would probably make a good fiction story, but I hope it never comes true…

Sources:

The Bond Market Explained

UK National Debt

Who Owns The US National Debt


How to Confuse an American Visiting the UK

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Many Americans who arrive in the UK for the first time can find things very confusing, not the least of which is the language difference.

While Americans speak English (after a fashion), it’s not only the spelling of many words that is different between American English and British English, it’s the use of words and phrases that will very often completely confuse the visitor.

This is the tale that recounts some of the problems that a naïve American visitor to the UK might experience. I hope you enjoy it.

Read the full article: How to Confuse an American Visiting the UK


Winter Hits The UK Hard

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Debbie and I returned home at the weekend from our Christmas trip to Florida to see my daughters, and I consider us to be very lucky, since the northern part of the UK  had already been hit by sub-zero temperatures and record amounts of snow.

It didn’t take long however for Old Man Winter to move south, and by Tuesday we had snow in the south of England.  Fortunately going to work on Tuesday morning it wasn’t as cold as expected, so I didn’t need to scrape the ice off the windows of the car, just use the regular wiper to clean the windows.

Tuesday night we were threatened to have up to a foot of snow, but when I left work it was just light drizzle, and I made it all the way home in almost record time.  It wasn’t half an hour later however when we saw heavy snow falling, but fortunately we only got just over an inch, far less than the forecast said.  

Wednesday morning I set off for work early, expecting to have to have a major scraping job on my hands, and also to have to wade through deep snow, but it was already melting a bit, the car windows were not frozen, so I just had to brush the snow off the car, and got into work 30 minutes earlier than usual.

When I got to work I found that several people who live a bit further out of town and where the snow was falling earlier, had been forced to abandon their cars as they couldn’t get home.  One of them left work at 5pm and didn’t make it home until 11pm, and this is less than ten miles from where I live.  I guess I ought to be grateful that I live where I do.

We had a bit more snow during the day and it was threatening more for the evening, so I decided to leave for home ten minutes early to beat the traffic, and had a good journey home, that is until I almost got home. 

We live halfway up a steep hill, and I managed to take the turning off the main road onto our access road ok, drove the two hundred yards or so along there ok, then made the sharp left turn to go up the hill, and didn’t get too far.  The road was covered in snow and ice, and was too steep for the car to get enough grip to drive more than 20 or 30 yards up the road.   Frustratingly, this was only 20 yards short of where I needed to be to back off the road and down the alley at the back of the house to where I park.  

Well I tried and tried, reversed down the hill and around the corner, tried again, but the car wasn’t going to make it, so I parked at the side of the road and walked the last 1/4 mile home.   I then got changed, put my boots on, grabbed the bucket of salt/grit that we saved from the week before Christmas when we had the last freeze, picked up a garden shovel, and headed back to the car.   I spent a while shovelling snow and ice away from around the wheels, cleared ten feet behind the car and about 20 feet in front, sprinkled the grit down, and tried to get up the hill.   It took me 2 or 3 attempts, including a second round of shoveling having reversed down the hill a few feet, but finally I slithered up the hill and was then able to reverse into the alley.  Phew!

I then took my now empty bucket to the grit bin at the top of the road, hoping to refill it for the next time, but was dismayed to find that the bin was empty.  Not more or less empty though, I don’t think there was enough grit to even fill the palm of my hand.   Oh well…

More snow was forecast Wednesday night, but I woke up this morning to find that nothing had covered my footsteps of last night, however it was bitterly cold, and the snow out the back was crunchy underfoot.   The car windows took forever to scrape as the ice was really hard, and shovel in boot (trunk) I started my way down the alley to the road.

The road was still covered in snow and ice, and there was a car and a van close to the bottom of the slope, both obviously couldn’t make it up the hill the night before.   I turned into the road, then slowly worked my way down the hill, hoping not to slide into either vehicle (which were parked on opposite sides of the road), or to fail to stop and run into the line of trees at the bottom of the road.    I made it, then turned left into the access road, which was really slick and slippery.  At the end of the access road the road turns sharply right and goes downhill, then immediately onto a main road, with traffic that comes around a bend fast.  I decided to go really slowly down the last bit of the access road, because if not I could end up not stopping on what looked like a skating rink, and didn’t relish the idea of sliding into the main road and oncoming traffic.  Luckily the main road was clear, I slithered down the last section of the access road, put my foot down on the accelerator, and started up the main road.  Another sigh of relief…

The main road of course immediately goes up an even steeper hill than where we live, and this is one long haul of a hill too, up one side and then down the other.  Fortunately the road was clear enough, and the rest of the journey to work was uneventful, and also done in practically record time.

Although more snow is forecast and it’s still bitterly cold outside, the sky has been blue all day, and I am hoping that this will be enough for the snow on our road to melt enough for me to get up the hill and home ok.

I emailed the city this morning using their Actionline link to see if we could get more grit in our grit bin, and got a response to say that they would answer my inquire within three days.  Oh joy – maybe we can go shopping on Sunday!  Or maybe not as more snow is forecast for the weekend, and the freezing temperatures are set to continue for another week at least.

As for the two people who didn’t make it home on Tuesday night, neither of them made it into work yesterday or even today.  While the main roads are mostly clear, the side roads after the partial melt and the severe freeze last night have turned them into slick skating rinks, and it’s practically impossible for anyone to go anywhere.

This is so different to my experiences while living in Indiana, where the city had so many snow ploughs and salt trucks, plus a number of other people had pickup trucks with blades on the front to plough side streets and car parks for shopping centres and businesses.  In addition many people shoveled the snow from their own sidewalks or used snowblowers, yet here in England that rarely happens any more. 

Do you have a snow day story to tell?  If so, please leave a comment and let us know.


 

Reverse Culture Shock

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I have to admit that moving back to the UK after having lived in the USA for the last fifteen years is a bit of a reverse culture shock for me in many ways.   Fifteen years is long enough to get past most of the pangs of missing things from where you came and also to become well adjusted to where you moved to, however even after that length of time, there were still some words or customs I came across that were different in the USA that I wasn’t aware of before.

So having moved back to the UK and now having started back to work, albeit after almost three months of trying to find a job and spending much of my time at home, I am not back in the real world of living in England.

Working for a family owned company here is very different to working in Corporate America, where there are so many rules and regulations as to what you can and can’t do, and many of the traditions that might have been have long since gone.   Here for example, people in the department take it in turns to get tea/coffee for everyone, something that I haven’t seen in years.   The boss took us all down the pub for lunch on the first day, and it’s still acceptable to have a drink at lunchtime, whereas the mere mention of alcohol at work in the USA is a big “no no”.   Companies don’t necessarily have microwaves and water coolers here for the employees, in fact ours has neither, but there is a good supply of hot water to make a decent cup of tea as you would expect!

Driving to work is also very different to what it was in the USA, and for me it’s a step backwards.  No more driving 25 miles down the highway for me, or like in my last job 45 miles, which I could do in about 45 minutes.  Now it’s just over 8 miles to work, but it takes me between 40 minutes to an hour.   Only 1/4 mile of that is using a road that has 2 lanes each way, the rest is on just regular roads, and of course much of it is just one big traffic jam.

I guess this is just one of the downsides to living in the UK again, having to deal with the traffic, whereas in both Indiana and Florida where I was living in the USA, the traffic levels were much lighter.  Not only that, once I got out of the residential areas, the rest of the journey was on main highways with at least 2 lanes in each direction.  The traffic in the UK has always been terrible and it gets worse every year, but I am grateful at least that I am not working in London.  Most people working in London have to take public transport to get to work, and that just seems to get more unreliable every year too, so all in all I am pretty lucky to just have a 30 minute journey every day.

My next task, having moved house this weekend, is to sort out a food system for work.   In Florida I used to make myself oatmeal for breakfast in the office, and could bring in leftovers at any time to heat up in the microwave.  I also used to drink a lot of water, and kept bottles that I would fill up from the water cooler.  Now without either a water cooler or a microwave I am looking at alternative options, so will have to bring in my own water from home (since I object to paying an arm and a leg for bottled water), and will probably have cold cereal in the office, since there is a fridge that I can keep milk in.   We don’t have enough money for me to splash out on buying sandwiches etc more than once a week, and besides that, I prefer to know what I am eating, trying to eat healthy as much as I can.  Having lost more than 20lbs in weight over the last two years, I am determined to not put it all on again, as I feel so much better these days.

Well enough rambling for now… Please feel free to leave a comment…

Big Brother Eviction

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Last night Debbie and I went up to Elstree Studios north of London to see the Big Brother eviction.

I’m not such a big fan, but Debbie loves the show, and it turned out to be quite an interesting night.   But where to begin…

I guess the story begins 2 weeks ago, when Debbie’s daughter asked if we wanted to go to the eviction, as they had managed to get tickets.

Well we agreed, seeing as it would be something different, and two weeks ago off we set on a Friday evening, 4 of us in a Mini, to drive the 100 miles from where we live to the studios.

Well to cut a long story short (if that is ever possible for me), we got stuck in heavy traffic, made it there in time, but the tickets only allow you entry if there is room, and by the time we arrived they were full to capacity.   So, we ended up going to McDonald’s to grab a bite to eat, and then drove home.

Since we could not get in, the studios allowed us to get tickets that would guarantee us entry for last night’s eviction, provided we got there by 6:20pm.   And so we decided that we needed to leave earlier than before, not taking into consideration the fact that this weekend is August Bank Holiday weekend in the UK, the equivalent of Labor Day weekend in the USA, when the whole country are on the move for a long weekend away.

Well, we set off at 4pm, in Debbie’s daughter’s boyfriends new toy, a BMW, which was a nice comfy ride, hit the motorway, and it wasn’t too long of course before we hit the traffic.   First it was road works on the M3, which delayed us about 30 minutes, and then a 20 mile queue on the M25, which delayed us close to an hour.  By the time we got to the studios it was almost 7pm.    We joined the queue of people waiting to get in, and were relieved to find that we were not too late this time, however we were already close to the back of the queue.

Despite the fact that it’s close to the end of August, and supposed to be nice and warm, it was chilly and there was a cold wind blowing.  Add to that the dark clouds that came over and dumped heavy showers of rain on us for a good 20 minutes, and we were all cold and wet.   Debbie’s daughter did have a small umbrella, but it wasn’t enough for four of us, and not for that amount of rain either.

After about an hour and a half we got into the studios, and unfortunately the best spots to stand were already jammed, but we found a good place to stand close to the stage and below the platform and stairs where the house mates come out when they are evicted.

There were a number of cameras there, to get shots from different directions, and lots of people had banners to hold up, so we knew that chances are we wouldn’t appear on television, and watching the show this morning confirmed that.  Oh well… It might have been a claim to fame, but not the best in the world…

On a number of occasions the host of the show, Davina McCall came out and gave announcements for the show, and also interacted with the audience, and everyone was going crazy and having a good time.

Whether it was a combination of not having eaten or drunk anything for a few hours, the excitement, getting cold or what, Debbie started to come over faint, and the two of us headed out of the enclosure, more or less frog-marched through security, to the building where the studio is, so that the paramedics could make sure she was ok.    She got to sit down, and they gave her some water to drink, and as she was starting to feel better, in popped Davina, as we were right by the studio door.     She asked Debbie if she was feeling ok, then held her hand, and miraculously Debbie started to feel better, as the excitement came over her.

We went back to the guest enclosure, and it was then only 5 minutes until it was time for the eviction to be announced.   The two contestants who had been nominated were Siavash, an Iranian with long hippy hair who had somewhat stirred things up on the show, and Marcus (nicknamed the “Dark Horse”), who had sideburns that made him look like Mungo Jerry (remember them – In The Summertime?) and a long ponytail.  Marcus also probably has the filthiest mouth of any contestant ever on the show, with hardly a sentence coming out without an “F” or “S” word.  It wouldn’t work on television in the USA, there would be more bleeps than on the Osbournes.   But I have to admit he was a pretty funny contestant.

Well eviction time, and we were standing right under the gangway where the evictee would come out.  And… the evictee was… Marcus…   If you would like to see a video clip of the eviction CLICK HERE.  We were standing to the left of the staircase when the video starts, but it’s not possible to see us of course.  Oh well…

No sooner had Marcus come out, shaken a few hands, posed for pictures, than he was off to the studio, and everyone began to leave.   We stopped at McDonald’s to grab a bit to eat as we were all cold and starving, and then began the 100 mile trip home.  Being after 11pm by this time the traffic was pretty light, and we got home soon after 1am.

Of course with me suffering from what I call “Old Folks Disease”, I still woke up at 7am.  It’s not fair, really not fair at all.  I have always wanted to be able to sleep in, not been able to for years, and now I can, since I am jobless, I wake between 6-7 most mornings.   But this is another story, and I have many more to tell – if you will keep coming back.