This book has a great start that makes you want to keep on reading. Unfortunately the book doesn’t keep up the pace of the beginning, but is still a good read. At least in this book Karin Slaughter doesn’t keep going on and on about the characters previous plot lines in earlier stories. Would recommend waiting until it came out in paperback, as it’s not worth paying the hardback price (although mine is signed, so that’s ok.)
7 out of 10
With talk about reforming the Consumer Credit Act, I thought I would highlight an issue with the APR, that was pointed out on News 24 last weekend.
Now say I lent you a tenner last week, and like a good friend you gave it back to me today, and brought a pint to repay the favour.
Now if we say that the pint costs £2.60 (and if you don’t believe me, you try drinking in Westminster!). The total cost of the “loan” is £12.60
Now using this calculator off Lambeth’s Trading Standards website, and playing about with the figures to get it to work. If you enter
Amount of Loan (£) 10
APR (%) 1500Number of weeks/months
(eg 300 for 25 yr mortgage; 36 for 3yrs) 1
It produces the result of
Total Amount Payable (£) 12.60
That’s right whilst the total interest paid is 26%, the APR is 1500%.
So next time you hear or read on in the local media about a 300% APR loan, don’t just assume that it’s an evil loan.
Please note, I can’t confirm these figures, and am only using what information was available to me on the web.
Two stories on the BBC Website about Mayor Ken Livingstone “Late-night Tube plan announced” and “Mayor’s New Year plans under fire”.
Now why Ken needs to wait until the end of 2006 to implement late night tubes I don’t know, and the fact that he’s holding a party, but not telling anyone about it is no longer surprising, from the man who has flopped the last 3 years New Years celebrations.
This weekend, Heather and me, went to Coventry/Warwick/Leamington Spa.
We booked a room at the Ansty Hall Hotel via LastMinute.com.
We then wandered around Warwick University, looking at all the new buildings, and then went into Coventry for the evening.
We had dinner at the Old Orleans in the SkyDome, and the chocolate brownie sundae for desert was so big, we couldn’t finish it.
With nothing on at the Odeon, we decided to try our luck at the Belgrade Theatre, where we got a two seater box for under £40 to see The Price. It was a wonderful performance, but the second act didn’t hold up to the first.
On the Saturday, we wandered around Leamington and Warwick looking at my old house and the shops I used to shop in, and then headed back home.
The current story running in all the press (BBC), is that John Reid will ban smoking in all workplaces except private clubs and pubs which don’t serve food.
Now whilst I don’t agree on the LDYS policy, as readers may have guessed (and here), at least their policy means workers at the greatest risk, will be more safe.
Labours plans mean that the most smoky and worst ventilated places will still allow smoking, whilst the companies that have invested in ventilation systems, but choose to serve lunch time food will be banned.
On Friday, Heather and I went for a short drive on the A1(M). Five hours later we ended up in Edinburgh!
We found ourselves a reasonably priced “hotel” and then went for a wander. After looking around some shops, we got something to eat and then headed off to Jongleurs. The comedy was good, just a shame the audience weren’t.
On Saturday we went to look at Holyrood, and to me it looks like it fell through the ugly tree and got the branches stuck to it.
We then wandered up the Royal Mile and stopped at a lovely chocolate shop called Plaisir du Chocolat for some chocolate overload. After filling up we headed on to the Castle, which was lovely, although a bit loud with the One o’Clock firing of the cannon.
We finally started to head home, with a quick stop in Newcastle for a curry at the Spice Cube.
Overall a lovely weekend.
Good to see Scotland taking the lead. Hopefully England will follow soon.
This has to be my book of the year. It was lovely from start to finish, and I enjoyed reading the some 800 pages.
After buying this book on a whim from Amazon, once I started, I found it hard to put down. The narration is great, and the whole book feels like it must be factually correct. I’m now certain that if I was to visit Newcastle, that remains of the Raven Kings lands would still be visible.
A Harry Potter for the older generation? Nope! A unique book which doesn’t go on and on about previous plot line, and over the top descriptions.
11 out of 10
Further to previous tweaks noted here and here, I’ve been playing about with the stylesheet for the HaloScan comments.
So it should now look more like the main blog.
If anyone wants me to have a look over their HaloScan comments stylesheet, and suggest ways to make it look more like their blog, then drop me a comment.
With the Lottery celebrating 10 years, I did a quick bit of research into the numbers that I play with every draw.
Now whilst I haven’t been playing the lottery for the whole 10 years (as that would have been illegal), when the mid-week draw came out, I started playing with my Mum’s numbers, as she didn’t want to, and when she stopped playing the Saturday draw, I did that too.
Since the start there have been 929 draws, that means that we’ve parted with £9,29, and we’ve won a prize 21 times, above the average of 1 in 54, but only a total of £210 in cash. Therefore over the last 10 years we are down £7,19.
Of those 21 wins some are memorable. 4 wins since January this year :), no wins for 15 months between August 98 and December 99, and the birthday win in 2002.
With the odds of getting four numbers being 1 in 1033, I should be seeing a prize bigger than £10 in the next year, and I wouldn’t mind if it was more than a few grand.