UK RAIL FARES

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Michael Macmahon

I read a letter in Metro yesterday that was so good I want to quote from it. It was from Julian Self of Buckinghamshire.

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So the Association of Train Operating Companies reckons it will always offer “a range of fares to suit every pocket”, does it?

Given it (rail) is already massively subsidised by the public purse at a far higher level than the old, state-owned British Rail ever was, and that it has`raised fares above inflation ever since privatisation in the mid-1990s, I rather fancy I know whose pockets these fares are designed to suit. It certainly isn’t those who depend on trains to get them to their places of work.

It seems rail companies and successive governments have done their very best to reduce train overcrowding in peak hours … by making the entire rail experience as unpleasant and uncomfortable as possible.

… At a time when all public services are struggling to provide more for less, it seems these railwaymen (and I use the term in the same spirit as highwaymen) are intent on providing less for more.

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Good man yourself, Julian Self. The overcrowding I can vouch for, as I am at present experiencing it a daily basis between Bristol, where I live, and Newport, where I am working for the next couple of weeks.

… and another thing: in case you don’t believe J. Self’s assertion that the subsidy is higher now than before rail was privatised in the UK, I have read the same claim in “The Economist”, a magazine whose grasp of facts I tend to trust.

FREE EBOOK FOR YOUR “BUDGET XMAS” IDEAS

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Michael Macmahon

Would you like to win a free copy of my e-book “Back to the Black: how to become debt-free and stay that way”? I’m giving away five copies for the best “budget Xmas” ideas I receive between now and 20 December.

The reason is simple: getting out of debt is one thing but of course you probably won’t stay out if you carry on spending money at the same rate as before. Cutting costs is not easy, but generating more income is harder, especially in today’s climate. So we all need to share ideas on saving money.

Santa reports peer pressure still strong despite recession

Managing costs is, of course, especially difficult at Christmas, with all the pressure from advertisers, and even harder if you have small children.

Right now, wearing my actor’s hat, I am spending ten days as Santa in a budget store in Wales. When I ask the children (who are, without exception, delightful): “what’s the best thing about Christmas for you?” the answer in 95% of cases is, predictably enough, “lots of presents”.

Peppa Pig

By the way, if you are interested in toy branding, Peppa Pig is the name I hear most often while wearing the Santa hat. The name comes up unprompted, although I try to avoid getting into discussion of specific gifts. I don’t want to provide yet more cost pressures for the mums and dads who are generally standing nearby.

The popularity of Peppa Pig is good news for the BBC, as they no doubt make lots of money from the merchandising of this TV show. I’ve heard that Toys R Us has 84 Peppa Pig products; that’s a juggernaut for any parent on a limited budget to resist.

Ideas win books

My book has a final chapter called “Keep up the good work”, which is all about ideas for staying out of debt, once those debts have been cleared. Most of the ideas in that chapter are about saving money but I’m always on the lookout for new ideas. So the five best “Budget Xmas” ideas, suggesting how you plan to have a great Christmas without spending a fortune, will receive a free copy of the book in .pdf format. The ideas will also be featured in the book’s second edition.

Please e-mail ideas to me (michael.43@blueyonder.co.uk), or you can post them on this blog as comments, whichever you prefer. Entries requested by 20 December, please.

Want to know more?

My book “Back to the Black: how to become debt-free and stay that way” is available on the Smashwords site. To sample (first 20% free) or to buy at only $3.99, go to http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/22886

OCCUPATIONAL PENSIONS IN BANKRUPTCY

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Michael Macmahon

In my book “Back to the Black: how to become debt-free and stay that way”, I tell the story of my own brush with bankruptcy in 1999. At that time, my then accountant recommended that I should file for voluntary bankruptcy.

Why I didn’t go bankrupt

In the event, I did not take the bankruptcy route, for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons was that I had some occupational pensions (of the “money purchase” type, not final salary) accumulated over the years. If I had become bankrupt those pensions might well have been vulnerable.

How the law has changed to the benefit of debtors

However, the law has changed: pensions are now to a great extent protected in a bankruptcy.

According to HM Government’s Insolvency Service, any private pension fund you have built up cannot generally be claimed as an “asset” if the bankruptcy petition was presented on or after 29 May 2000, as long as the scheme was approved by HM Revenue & Customs.

What to do

If you are considering bankruptcy, first read Chapters 8, 9 and 10 of my book, in order to review the pros and cons of the alternative routes “back to the black”. Chapter 9 deals with bankruptcy and IVAs (Individual Voluntary Arrangements) . Then, if you still plan to consider bankruptcy, take professional advice: either from one of the non-profit advice services (for example Citizens Advice, Consumer Credit Counselling Service or National Debtline) or from an insolvency practitioner. There is a checklist in Chapter 9 of my book about how to go about selecting the right insolvency practitioner for your particular situation.

Want to know more?

HM Government’s Insolvency Service’s publications can be found at http://www.insolvency.gov.uk/guidanceleaflets/guides.htm

PAYDAY LOANS: RECENT MEDIA COVERAGE

Posted on November 29, 2010 by Michael Macmahon

Lots of stuff about payday loans in the media just recently. I’ve mentioned on my Twitter feed that the subject was featured in “Broadcasting House”, one of my very favourite programmes on BBC Radio 4, yesterday morning.

I thought that in several ways the programme presented a balanced view. Rather than simply saying “these loans are terrible and should be banned because of their outrageously high interest rates”, at least one interviewee said that the amount paid (and it’s generally small, as it’s generally on smallish loans) could well be less than what the bank would charge you for going into (unauthorized) overdraft.

A fair point and another reason why people would be tempted. I’d previously said in my last post (at the back end of last week) that these kinds of loans could be considered in emergency, provided you also put a plan in place which ensures that you repaid the loan at the next payday .

High interest charge … or a bank charge? Maybe both

However, there is a comprehensive article on this by Matthew Wall in ‘Moneywise’ magazine (November 2010). The article points out something else, which adds a further danger to what’s already known about these kinds of loans.

He says: “Lenders usually take your debit card details as part of the application process so they can take out the full repayment come payday. They’ll do this whether you have the money in your account or not, potentially pushing you into overdraft and triggering bank charges if you don’t.

In this situation it’s a double whammy; you’ve paid the payday loan company’s interest rate (which is well known to be very high) but then you are stung with the bank charge anyway.

Matthew Wall goes on:

If you can’t repay the full amount you can ask to defer the loan, but they’ll usually insist you at least pay the borrowing charges.

There may also be a deferral fee or a charge incurred for arranging the new loan. So it’s not hard to see how cash-strapped borrowers can quickly become submerged in debt.”

Want to know more?

1. To see the whole of Matthew Wall’s article, go to: http://www.moneywise.co.uk/cards-loans/personal-loans/article/2010/11/03/beware-offers-easy-credit

2. My book “Back to the Black: how to become debt-free and stay that way” is available on the Smashwords site. To sample (first 20% free) or to buy at only $3.99, go to http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/22886

PAYDAY LOANS: FRIENDS IN NEED OR WOLVES IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING?

Posted on November 27, 2010 by Michael Macmahon

Earlier this year, during an interview on Heart FM, I was asked about payday loans: would I advise anyone who was especially cash-strapped (for example as a result of Christmas), to take out one of these loans? This is a tricky matter: anyone considering any such loan must have exhausted all other possibilities.

Payday loans, usually for sums up to £1,000 ($1,500), are known to carry very high interest rates. Those rates could be affordable if it’s the only game in town AND if the loan really is repaid quickly, i.e. on payday, but if it’s rolled over then the problem starts. However, they are marketed as being instantly available, which of course is very attractive when things are tight.

Advantages

So the attractions are:

• Instant availability, even if you have a poor credit record
• Lack of bureaucracy, with a simple application method
• The fact that it’s cash: a cheque is less useful if you have to pay it in to a bank account with a maxed-out overdraft, though of course cheque / cash converter shops have foreseen that problem.
• The fact that it’s local, with a collector who probably lives near you.

If there is no alternative, and if the sum borrowed is repaid at the next payday, then paying that interest (high rate but small sum) is better than having to default on the mortgage or a credit card bill.

Disadvantages

The problem arises, of course, if the sum isn’t paid quickly. Then, of course, it will become more and more difficult to repay, because of that very high interest rate. I could publish a table showing how the sum owing would build up at those very high interest rates: but that would be very depressing for you and for me.

Should you do it?

In the radio interview I said that if anyone was in a situation where they saw no alternative solution, then they should take the loan, provided they immediately got help from one of the debt advice charities, for example the CAB (Citizens Advice), or CCCS (Consumer Credit Counselling Services), or National Debtline, or one of the many local “not-for-profit” debt advisory services, and put together a plan. Step one of that plan must be to repay the payday loan as a first priority.

I still stand by that advice.

Those interest rates, by the way

In order to check my facts after that interview, I found a website that lists the top 5 payday loan providers (the “top 5” ranking is by “rough estimate of lender’s approval rates”). I found the APRs of these lenders varied from over 990% to over 2300%. Eye-watering stuff, if you can’t repay quickly.

For extra info see the MoneySavingExpert website, for example this post:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/loans/2010/01/loan-sharks-leaving-victims-in-debt-all-year . That article talked about interest rates (APR) “up to 1500%”. As you can see above, I found some rates to be even higher.

Credit Unions: an alternative

Credit unions are an alternative and much cheaper source of short-term finance that people in this situation could look at: an alternative, in fact, to high-street lenders as well as to payday loans.

The local one here in Bristol, for example, is at http://www.bristolcreditunion.org/; they offer loans from £100 to £7,500 ($150 to $11,250). Their website says: “By law credit unions cannot charge any more than 2% per month on the reducing balance of a loan. This represents a maximum interest rate of 26.8% APR (Annual Percentage Rate), and that is the most you will ever pay on your loan.”

Worth checking out? 26.8% sounds better than those payday loans.

Taking advice

If you are in debt, and whether or not you are considering a payday loan, I always bang on about the need to get help as soon as possible. That should preferably come from an independent, impartial (i.e. not-for-profit) advice service such as the local CAB (that’s the Citizens Advice Bureau, for the benefit of any readers of this blog who are not in the UK) or CCCS (Consumer Credit Counselling Service) or National Debtline. Then you need to formulate a plan with the help of that advice, and inform the creditors that is what you’re doing and ask them to freeze interest while that’s happening.

Many creditors will agree to that, but if you don’t ask you don’t get. Many debtors spend too long in denial and they don’t communicate with their creditors, which makes the situation worse. I know: I was one of those.

In fact my book’s subtitle could even be “Learn from my mistakes”.

Christmas is coming!

At the top of this post I mentioned Christmas. This is a good time to say that one way of avoiding payday loans is to cut down spending. Don’t cut down on the fun but do cut down on the presents!

As I say in my book: “Christmas is not an emergency.” (it comes every year)

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“Back to the Black: how to become debt-free and stay that way”, is now available as a multi-format eBook at Smashwords to sample (view or download the first 20% free) or to buy at only $3.99. Go to: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/22886

Website: www.back-to-the-black.com

Blog: http://backtotheblackblog.wordpress.com

DEBT COLLECTION: OFFICIAL GUIDELINES IGNORED

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Michael Macmahon

An interesting article by Jenny Little (“Moneywise”, Nov 2010) reminds me of a problem that can cause great misery for personal debtors. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has a ruling that prohibits harassment of debtors. Moreover the OFT clarifies what constitutes harassment by publishing guidelines; however, many lenders ignore them.

According to the article, in some cases lenders have even claimed to be unaware of the guidelines, though it’s the OFT that issues those same lenders with their consumer credit licences.

To see the article, go to: http://www.moneywise.co.uk/cards-loans/credit-cards/article/2010/10/25/credit-card-demons-revealed

Little says that “growing numbers of people struggling with credit card payments complain of creditors bullying them with menacing letters, doorstep visits and threats of court action or repossession.

“In public, credit card and debt collection firms pay lip service to official guidelines protecting consumers, but staff are given financial incentives to recover debt, provoking the sort of harassment that makes millions of debtors’ lives a misery.”

Official guidelines

OFT guidelines require lenders to negotiate with third parties, e.g. debt management companies, and say that debt collectors must give advance notice of visits. Debtors can also request not to be contacted at work.

Debt collection firms pretending to be bailiffs, or falsely threatening criminal proceedings, also risk being fined or having their credit licence revoked.

The guidelines in full:

Physical/psychological harassment: putting pressure on debtors or third parties is considered to be oppressive. Examples of unfair practices are as follows:

• contacting debtors at unreasonable times and at unreasonable intervals
• pressurising debtors to sell property, to raise funds by further borrowing or to extend their borrowing
• using more than one debt collection business at the same time resulting in repetitive and/or frequent contact by different parties
• not ensuring that an adequate history of the debt is passed on as appropriate resulting in repetitive and/or frequent contact by different parties
• not informing the debtor when their case has been passed on to a different debt collector
• pressurising debtors to pay in full, in unreasonably large instalments, or to increase payments when they are unable to do so
• making threatening statements or gestures or taking actions which suggest harm to debtors
• ignoring and/or disregarding claims that debts have been settled or are disputed and continuing to make unjustified demands for payment
• disclosing or threatening to disclose debt details to third parties unless legally entitled to do so
• acting in a way likely to be publicly embarrassing to the debtor either deliberately or through lack of care, for example, by not putting correspondence in a sealed envelope and putting it through a letterbox, thereby running the risk that it could be read by third parties.

Source: Office of Fair Trading, “Debt collection guidance: final guidance on unfair business practices.”

Lenders ignoring guidelines

But it seems the guidelines carry little weight with the lenders, according to Little. Heather Keates, chief executive of Community Money Advice, says: “Card firms are jittery and increasing interest rates. Creditors now go in hard from the outset.”

Citizens Advice (CAB) gives the example of one client’s recent experience. A 42-year-old single mother, she was struggling to keep up with a £7,000 credit card debt on her £589 take-home pay. She made the minimum payments but, when she defaulted, her bank began to phone her up to six times a day, even at work.
When the CAB intervened, the bank’s representative claimed to know nothing of the OFT guidelines and blamed the repeated calls on an automated system.

Automated dialling systems

Little has found that the use of automated dialling systems is commonplace and can result in customers receiving multiple calls every day. Some people resort to buying an extra pay-as-you-go mobile just to avoid harassment.

Alex MacDermott of Citizens Advice said: “It’s always better to talk to the card provider; otherwise your number will stay in the automated dialler, which will keep ringing. But the tone of some calls can be very threatening.”

Mention of telephone harassment and automated dialling reminds me of my own experience when I was in debt. That’s why I say: “try to avoid talking to creditors by phone. Don’t ignore them; respond to the messages … but in writing. Let all your incoming calls go to voicemail, if you are single-minded enough to do so.”

While some providers employ in-house debt collection, others ‘sell on’ debt to a third party. The Consumer Credit Act requires that they first issue a default notice to customers who have skipped payments to inform them which company has taken on the debt but in my experience this rarely happens.

The OFT has criticised debt collection agencies for “making frequent phone calls, threatening court action and not describing the process correctly”, and has also concluded that many default charges are unlawful. It says that £12 is the maximum that anyone should be penalised for missing a payment.
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What to do

As I say again and again in my book: get help, especially if you are being harassed. Apart from the three major national debt advice charities Citizens Advice (CAB), Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS) and National Debtline, there are also Community Money Advice and Debtors Anonymous, as well as Consumer Action Group, which is an online support network. All of these are easily located online. There are also local advice centres, too numerous to mention.

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“Back to the Black: how to become debt-free and stay that way” is now available to sample or buy, as a multi-format e-book, at: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/22886

HOW DO WE MEASURE GROWTH?

Posted on November 14, 2010 by Michael Macmahon

I loved the contribution by Caroline Lucas, our only Green MP, on “The Week in Westminster” (BBC Radio 4) yesterday (13.11) morning. I am not a supporter of her party, nor am I that well informed on the green agenda, but every time I hear her speak I am impressed. She talks a lot of sense; moreover in a courteous way, even when confronted with the leading questions beloved of interviewers, such as this one: “ … are you not coming to the conclusion that you alone can make no difference …?”

The Commons had been discussing economic growth; Ms Lucas wanted the debate to be wider but felt she was the only MP who believed we should look at the quality of growth. She went on to say: “How useful is GDP as a real measure of that growth? Are we better off?”

I agree totally. To take solely the relationship between GDP and jobs, I wrote in a blog post on 27 October, when a higher-than-predicted monthly GDP growth was in the news: “However … a growth in GDP does not necessarily – and quickly – improve the lot of the majority of people in this country, particularly those who are already in debt or who face losing their jobs as a result of the recently-announced spending cuts. Our economy is still rather dependent on relatively non-labour-intensive sectors, e.g. financial services, so today’s good news is “necessary but not sufficient”.

Can you measure happiness?

So Caroline Lucas asks, “are we better off?” Back in “the good old days”, i.e. before the credit crunch and the recession, there were several studies (including those quoted in Oliver James’ famous book “Britain on the Couch”) showing that British citizens’ self-perceived levels of happiness (or contentment or well-being, call it what you will) had not increased over the previous 50 years even though, by every financial measure, we were indeed all greatly “better off”.

OK, let’s leave aside this hard-to-measure or even impossible-to-measure quality of happiness, or maybe the spiritual wealth of the nation if you like. Are there other measures than GDP with which we could assess the economic wealth of the nation? I don’t know the answer but I’d love to hear your views.

UK plc as a company: turnover? profit? What else?

For example: years ago, when I was in the chemical industry, I remember an Irish customer of mine saying, as his annual financial results were published: “Turnover is vanity; profit is sanity.”

Isn’t the GDP of a country somewhat analogous to the turnover of a company, being the sum of its outputs? So what might be the equivalent of profit for “UK plc”? What measures of “added value” could we track?

Obviously our government is supposed to do more than deliver profit to shareholders, so how best can it – and we – measure how good a job it is doing? As Ms Lucas’s question implies, GDP is not the only measure.

“Answers on a postcard”. As they used to say, back in the day.

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For a link to Caroline Lucas’s interview on “The Week in Westminster”, go to: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vv0dv#p00c4mrs
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For information on “Back to the Black: how to become debt-free and stay that way”, go to www.back-to-the-black.com

UK PROPERTY STILL OVERPRICED

Posted on November 5, 2010 by Michael Macmahon

House prices up?

I read recently that domestic property prices in the UK increased by an average of 1.8% over the last month. That seemed surprising, given the economic situation but, according to a friend who is “in the know”, it isn’t a meaningful trend because the volume of sales is still small.

… or down?

However this rise followed “a big drop” the previous month, according to the Halifax. (I think it was 0.7%) Such a wide variation from month to month would seem to support the fact that these are not really meaningful trends. The less volatile three-month index showed a drop of 1.2% in the quarter.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11692255

First-time buyers still priced out

When last month’s drop was announced, a newsreader on BBC Radio 4 actually added: “however, first-time buyers are not taking advantage of the drop in prices”. Well, is that so surprising? Even if that month’s price drop had been a meaningful statistic, which it wasn’t, 0.7% is not much of a drop.

More importantly, UK property is still greatly overpriced. Who says so? The “Economist” magazine’s survey of international house price comparisons, taken in turn from official stats on price/rent ratios. According to the table the magazine published in late October, average UK property prices increased by 3% year-on-year; more importantly, property here is 32% overpriced.

To compare countries’ housing data over time, including price-to-rent ratios, see www.economist.com/houseprices

To view my guide to personal debt, “Back to the Black: how to become debt-free and stay that way”, go to www.back-to-the-black.com

UK PERSONAL DEBT TRENDS

Posted on November 2, 2010 by Michael Macmahon

My thanks to the charity Credit Action for their latest credit data.

Previously, on my blog …

The last time I blogged about this, I reported that the “write-off rate” on consumer lending by UK monetary financial institutions to individuals increased further in the second quarter 2010 to 7.4%. In that quarter, UK banks and building societies wrote off £3.47bn, most of which was credit card debt.
Secondly, Credit Action reported that average household debt in the UK was £8,590 (excluding mortgages). They went on to say that “this figure increases to £17,896 if the average is based on the number of households who actually have some form of unsecured loan.”

That second statement puzzles me; I don’t agree with the idea of giving a second average that includes only those who have debts. An average is an average, including the highs and the lows and everything in between. If we exclude those with the very lowest debts (i.e. zero), then we should also exclude all those with the very highest debts, i.e. all of the “outliers”.

By the way, if one included mortgage debt, then average household debt in the UK was then about £56,690.

The report concluded that total UK personal debt at the end of August 2010 stood at £1,428bn, a slight increase.

Now for the update

The latest Credit Action report, which I received last week, still gives the second-quarter figure for the write-off rate on consumer lending, i.e. 7.4%; presumably the third-quarter figure is not yet available.

Total lending in September 2010 rose by £0.4bn; secured lending increased by £0.1bn in the month; consumer credit lending increased but only by £0.3bn. (a step-change from pre-recession days: total lending in Jan 2008 grew by £8.4bn)

Total consumer credit lending to individuals at the end of September 2010 was £216bn. The annual growth rate of consumer credit increased 0.3% to 0.6%.

Average household debt in the UK is ~ £8,562 (excluding mortgages). Again, they add, “this figure increases to £17,838 if the average is based on the number of households who actually have some form of unsecured loan.” Again, I find that second figure rather artificial.

Total average household debt in the UK (including mortgages) is approx £57,737; that’s an increase but only a very small one.

Your debt or the country’s debt?

If you thought that figure was highish, the report goes on to say that “if you add to this the March 2010 budget report figure for public sector net debt (PSND) expected in 2015-16 (excluding financial interventions) then this figure rises to £109,960 per household.” Sorry, but that is rather a jump of logic; the PSND is not my personal responsibility, although I would indeed be worried if I thought Mr Osborne would send the bailiffs round to ensure I cough up my share of the UK debt. Thus I feel this excellent report is slightly compromised by making the raw data appear worse through this addition.

And another thing … that last calculation is based not on current government borrowing but the projection for 2015-16; a lot can happen before then. “Things can only get better”, as the song says; at least I hope they will. Let’s hope, in particular, that the PSND in five years is lower than that prediction.

Back to the present

Finally, and if we deal solely in current and personal realities, total UK personal debt at the end of September 2010 stood at £1,455bn; as you can see, that’s a further slight increase. Based on their latest report, the people at Credit Action can still make the same statement that I quoted in my book “Back to the Black”. In their words: “Individuals owe more than what the whole country produces in a year.”
It is sincerely to be hoped that this worrying statement will be short-lived, and that GDP will continue to rise and personal indebtedness will start to fall.
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To find out more about my new book “Back to the Black: how to become debt-free and stay that way”, go to www.back-to-the-black.com

IS ECONOMICS A SCIENCE?

Posted on October 27, 2010 by Michael Macmahon

Last Sunday I was listening to “Broadcasting House” (aka “B.H.” to fans) on Radio 4; one of the highlights of my listening week.

First up, there appeared to be a wonderful opportunity to find out what two heavyweight economists thought of the current situation and of the government’s policies. They were Lord Desai and the current professor of the subject at Cambridge, whose name I’ve sadly forgotten and probably won’t get around to checking. Sadly, the discussion didn’t convince me that economics, famously called the dismal science, is really a science at all. Their responses to a simple question of what tests we should apply to the new measures to decide their possible efficacy were predictably obscure; at least they were to me. No matter how brilliant these men must be, their communication skills left much to be desired. You’d think the BBC could have wheeled out two better communicators. As there are now chairs for the public understanding of science, and as economics is a sort-of-science, there is a strong case for creating a post of Professor (at the University of Life, of course) for the Public Understanding of Economics. Neither of these two luminaries would have got my vote.

B.H. presenter Paddy O’Connell, however, does get my vote, as an interviewer able to mix gravitas and humour according to the weather conditions. (I’m not joking; he even interviewed people queuing for the grand re-opening of the pier at Weston-super-Mare, during a downpour) I particularly liked the way he chaired the segment where guest reviewers cover the Sunday papers. Sunday’s panel comprised Craig Brown, whom I found disappointing for such a well-known columnist; there was a novelist whose name has escaped me, and the find of the day, Emma Harrison, who runs a recruitment agency called A4E, specialising in helping long-term unemployed people back into work; a worthwhile purpose and seemingly a delightful person to boot.

While many other people on the show, including her fellow-panellists, seems too be recycling the gloom-and-doom aspects of the media’s response to the UK government’s cuts package, Emma Harrison was a lone voice proposing a more positive approach. As the person who clearly had the most experience of working with the people who potentially could be among the worst affected (if the cuts are indeed regressive – see an earlier post) it was encouraging to hear her say that the glass-half-empty approach that tends to be favoured by our media (bad news sells papers, dear boy) can be totally counterproductive. Well said Emma; she’s the only guest on the whole show whom I shall look up on Google.

Finally, a piece about corgis was narrated by Tom Conti. Maybe he needs the work these days but why choose a Scots actor, seemingly exaggerating his native accent, to read a not particularly funny (IMHO) monologue in the person of a dog that is famously Welsh. (This last item is from my “I think you’ll find …” Department of Pedantry). Maybe there was some comic subtlety about this that passed me by.

Finally, I heard a new definition: an optimist is someone who picks up the crossword with pen in hand.

Despite my gripes on this occasion, B.H. still rules for me.