With the postie bringing my bank statement I went through the accounts this morning – money could be better.
Interestingly I noticed that despite having paid off a large chunk of the mortgage back in February, my monthly mortgage repayments haven’t altered. I phoned Nationwide and spoke to Paul (who was quite helpful). Apparently the building society are in the throes of writing to me since another endowment matured yesterday, which has complicated matters somewhat. I then spoke with Joe at Aviva who told me how much the endowment came out at. Another quick call back to Nationwide, and I found myself bitterly reflecting on a conversation with my financial advisor (father in law) that we had back in late 1985.
Back in the mid 1980s, endowment mortgages were the way forward. They really were money for old rope. Rather than paying off your mortgage like any decent respectable person would, you gave your cash to some financial whizz-kid who did all sorts of financial shenanigans. And then after twenty five years your mortgage would be paid off, and you’d have a not inconsiderable load of cash given to you as well.
It’s perhaps ironic that rather than having the six thousand pounds hand out that we were led to expect we’d get, we’ve actually got a bill for (slightly more than) that amount.
And then to add insult to injury Tracy phoned from “Trust Inheritance” offering to write me a will. For sixty five pounds (!) I asked her how her sixty five quid will would be any different to one I would write myself (for free). She said hers would be legally binding. I asked why one I would write myself would not be. She seemed hesitant, and (in much the same way one might guess the date of the Battle of Poitiers) she asked me if the answer was because hers would be written by a solicitor?
I told her that she wasn’t inspiring me with confidence in her company. She started crying, so I hung up.
Mind you, I suppose I’d better consider re-writing my will. At the moment the will states that given my demise “My Boy TM ” and “Daddies Little Angel TM ” will be passed into the care of a vicar I’ve not seen for ten years. And I can’t see those two being overly keen on that. Come to think of it, I doubt the vicar would relish the idea either.
And so to work. With the complete failure of all my PC games other than Zuma and Spider Solitaire I popped into PC World. After all, they were really helpful last week. Today they had a new assistant there: he looked like he was there on work experience, he was so young. I asked if they still did games like “Worms” and “Lemmings”. He looked at me blankly. He had never heard of “Worms” or “Lemmings”.
What do these kids do on computers these days?
Fortunately I’ve found a silly website where I can play “Lemmings” on-line. The graphics are probably on a par with the graphics when I first played “Lemmings” all those years ago, but it will keep me out of mischief until a better game comes along.
No comments:
Post a Comment