and I thought that my accounts were in trouble!

Whilst people are going on about the Yeading v Newcastle and the Man Utd v Exeter, I’ll be looking forward to the Oldham v Man City game.

This game should be a good old local derby, and hopefully one of the 4 TV slots will go to this game, as the chances of me getting tickets (and being bothered to travel there) will be slim.

With yesterdays demo in Wales, and today’s piece on the BBC about how Leeds Met and the University of Bradford might not charge full fees, I though I would post about something that happened around 3 years ago.

Whilst at Warwick University, in 2000, we had a EMG motion on Top-Up Fees, and it was almost my amendment that caused the sit-in in Senate House (SWSS got theirs in first by about 1 second).
After this, the Vice Chancellor agreed to appear in a debate with the President of the Union, one of the Economics lecturers and some other people.
Now the key fact that I remember from this debate, was that Warwick University was only £25 per student short in their funding.

Now clearly in the last 4 years, this can’t have raised to £3000, yet Warwick in it’s effort to seem to be one of the top universities, is refusing to lower the price.

It’s good to see that the variability that the Top-Up fees bill introduced, will be completely ignored, something that I was predicting 4 years ago.

Whilst the news of Apple overcharging is old, it’s good to see that the OFT is asking the European Commission to rule on the matter.

Apple claim that they should be able to sell to different European countries, because they can charge a different amount in the US, but I’m sure that the UK, Germany and France are in the Single Market.

Having spent the last few days tweaking the LDYS Forums, adding sub forums (which meant hours of staring at a screen doing cut, paste, cut paste), and also a festive touch, I’ve added one to my blog.

I’ve also changed the <blockquote> tag.

By changing the style to this

blockquote

{

 margin: 0;

 padding: 0 10px 0 35px;

 background: url(https://blog.artesea.co.uk/images/quote.gif) no-repeat left top;

 color: #ba8247;

 min-height: 24px;

}

I now get the nice quote mark on the left hand side.

Now if only style sheets would let me have a second image in the bottom right corner.

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 (%) 1500

Number 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.