Some Reavers.

Things.

God the CSA are a shower of shit.... 3rd month in a row, they have not taken a payment..

How do you find out when local schools go back after the summer holidays? I want to go bowling.

The local council's website ought to know.

EDIT: Which reminds me of a rant: see how easy Oxfordshire makes giving out URLs:

http://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/wps/porta ... m/connect/
occ/Internet/Council+services/Education+and+learning/Schools/Term+dates+and+holidays

Do you knock them over on the pavement?

Truncate that URL please

Apologies.

That's one of their shorter ones - annoys me immensely.

I think that was the point he was trying to make.

Didn't realise the forum wouldn't wrap it!

The board should truncate it automatically as long as you just paste the URL and don't use the [url] tags manually, I think.

I never realised you were that young.

Make sure you allow for this and don't spend the money as they'll have no qualms at all about suddenly realising they've not been taking your money and hitting you with a bill for the full amount they've not taken. My manager recently got stung with a bill for three grand when he discovered his old employer hadn't been paying the CSA as they were supposed to, even though they had made the deductions from his salary. And the CSA were quite insistent that they wanted him to pay up immediately, they certainly weren't even slightly interested in waiting until he'd cleared up why his old employer hadn't made the payments and what they'd done with the money.

I'm very, very glad that things are good enough between myself and the ex that I don't have to use them.

I ring up the day after the direct debit was supposed to be taken (22nd of each month) and pay on my credit card. So not getting any arrears... If I was a twat, i would leave it in my bank and not chase them and let them sort it out, but then the ex would not get the money..

Gnnnnh!!

I know we've done this before, but:

FUCK HALIFAX TV ADS, ESPECIALLY THE ONE WHERE TWO DIPPY BIRDS GET SERVED COFFEE BY SOME DRIP OF A BLOKE, ONLY FOR ONE OF THESE 'DJs' TO 'ACCIDENTALLY' SPILL ONE ALL OVER THE MIXING DESK, FEIGNING 'SURPRISE' IN THE MOST INEPT FASHION IMAGINABLE. EVERY EVERY SINGLE FUCKING ADVERT BREAK BEYOND SATURATION POINT, SAPPING THE VERY LIFE FORCE FROM MY BEING, WHILST TRYING TO WATCH 'THE SEVEN AGES OF BRITAIN'. FUCK RIGHT OFF, YOU CUNTS! YOUR ADVERTS MAKE ME WANT TO VOMIT COPIOUSLY AND TAKE A CRASH COURSE IN BLOWING UP BANKS AT THE SAME TIME. IF THE HALIFAX WAS THE LAST BANK ON EARTH, I'D INVEST IN COPPER BARS AND CHICKENS AS CURRENCY RATHER THAN USE YOUR SERVICES, AS A DIRECT RESULT OF SAID ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN. IF YOU'VE GOT SPARE CASH TO SPUNK AWAY ON YOUR UTTERLY MORIBUND, ABSURD, IRRITATING BEYOND WORDS AND USELESS LONG RUNNING ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS, KINDLY START REPAYING THE BILLIONS AND BILLIONS YOU OWE THE UK TAXPAYERS PLSE. I'M ACTUALLY WISHING THEY BROUGHT BACK 'HOWARD'.



.... and calm.
Most cathartic, thanks for listening.

I actually thought the same thing last night... shocking but true.

During the summer holidays it is £7.50 per person, per game. During term time it is £6 to rent a lane for two hours with as much free tea coffee and biscuits as you can consume. Also it is quieter and not full of kids that take all of the 8lb bowling balls.

I shall check the council site, which will be an entertaining exercise in staying sane.

Tea and biscuits! That's not how you do bowling!

I genuinely cannot remember when I last watched a TV advert. Must be more than six months ago.

Oh, wait, I did watch a few when I was in the US last, but then I find watching foreign adverts quite interesting anyway.

I'm still trying to tune into Halifax radio. Is it DAB?

You should watch BBC instead.

I don't have adverts. Or DAB.

I do bank with Halifax. Is there something I should be concerned about?

True, but I missed the Seven Ages of Britain when it was on, so am trying to catch up on Yesterday channel I think it was. They're all the same though, these minor channels - wall to wall advert breaks, seems to me. Unwatchable IMO.

Halifax itself is probably fine mate, just joking around. Someone should really tell them that their adverts are total turkeys, though.

Also in said advert, there's nothing plugged into the mixing desk.

I quite fancy the blonde though.

LOL. They probably do have it piped in their branches...

I think I saw a "Howard" one once. It was a badly animated dancing Howard. It was quite horrific.

No they're complete money grabbing twats. That's why I'm in the process of switching over to Santander.

And to think that the charges applied to my account helped to pay for those ads!

Pet hate: Triggered.

None of the banks owe the UK taxpayer a penny. They all owe the treasury a lot of money (well, not so much where the treasury has an equity stake, unless they sell up). Once you've given the Chancellor your money, it's not yours any more. You're not going to get paid anything by the banks, people.

Bah, I do wish people wouldn't tag pictures of young Master Kern on sinister Facebook. I'm trying repress my childhood, and this isn't helping at all.

It's still money that should be being spent on public services, of course.

Oh, of course it is. But it's not taxpayer's money - they've already handed it over. It's the treasury's money.

Quite, mate.

It's also money (or more accurately, debt) that we, the UK taxpayer (in fact, all British people) are liable for - we're the ones who will be feeling the full force of the nasty, very real effects that this unprecented public debt is going to have. Craster is doing his usual sermantics dance in his well established 'apologist for the banks' role here, but I reckon most here know the score.

My 'pet hate' is how no-one had the balls to let the fuckers go to the wall, just like any other bankrupt business - the prudent/solvent ones would've remained in place. I believe that the money we and the US have pumped into the collective black hole labelled 'bank bailout' could've paid off every single mortgage in the UK and US combined? Sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

Annoying, yes, but I'd pork blondie (in my fantasy existence, obviously. IRL Mrs WH would have no truck with such a thing)

The 'ISA, ISA baby' version has no redeeming qualities at all.

What was the other company that did a lot of in-branch scenes with sickeningly helpful staff interviewing customers?

Bollocks. The banks still have a massive debt to repay, I just get annoyed by this bizarre wild-eyed idea that when they do, people are going to be able to walk into their local high-street RBS branch and pick up their share.

Considering the UK alone:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 33830.html - £850bn bailout.

http://www.cml.org.uk/cml/media/press/2694 - £140bn leant to mortgage borrowers during 2009.

http://www.creditaction.org.uk/debt-statistics.html - UK consumer debt stood at £1,457bn at the end of June 2010. £1,239bn of this was loans secured on property.

So the bailout costs are about 2/3rds of the country's total mortgage debt if we (unproven) figures above. I lack the time to find US figures right now.

natwest.

I suspect they really, really don't.

I don't understand 90% of that, but insurance cover and guarantees (which account for more than half of the total) aren't actually 'spent', are they?

And also if they had done so, they would not only have wiped out the savings of anyone who had more than the amount guaranteed under the FSCS, they would have had to pay out of the treasury every bit of everyone's savings that was covered under the FSCS.

Grim... - the guarantees are balance sheet liabilities, so pretty much as good as "spent" from an accounting opint of view.

Also - Craster is makign a big straw man there. I'm not aware that anyone has come anywhere near saying that taxpayers are owed money by the banks in a literal sense. What people mean is that the banks should be using the space that the bailouts and QE gave them to (a) build up capital reserves and (b) lend more fucking money to UK businesses. That was the deal that the government made pretty clear - what was not the purpose of all that was the bankers giving themselves big fuck off bonuses again. Not least as any financial success was far more due to the government inervention than any of the financial wizards at the banks.

Aye, that's them. Dog, I want to give them all such a slapping.

How much are the shares that got bought worth? I'm guessing we'll get a decent chunk of that cash back eventually.

Whoah, let's be clear. My quoted pet hate is the term 'paying back the taxpayer'. I'm not saying Cavey or anyone else thinks that's the case, I'm saying that the term (which is used everywhere) is deeply misleading.

The government will, yes, but they're looking to dump the shares ASAP - they're currently worth marginally more than when we bought them, and UK Gov. could make a lot more by holding on to them for a year or two.

What you're suggesting essentially cancels borrowing Cavey. Since our economy entirely runs on borrowing (and then only barely, by the sounds of it), this sounds like a rather drastic suggestion even to me

It's only misleading if people are mislead by it. Find me a person who thinks the bank owes him or her personally any money, and I'll give you however much they think the bank owes them.

See?

Banking apologist!!!