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By  David Craig, on November 21st, 2013  I’m rushed for time today and so thought about doing a piece on how obese sex tourists (often weighing 200kg or more as in the pictures above) do boom boom with girls in the Land of Sm*iles often weighing around 45kg.
But following complaints from readers about my “descent into smut” when I did a piece on Gogo Bar girls, I’ll spare you the grisly anatomical details.
Instead, I’ll write about the Pattaya Flying Club.
Just up the road from the beach resort where I’m staying, is the world famous Pattaya. Expats talk about something they call the “Pattaya Flying Club”. These are the Falang (white foreigners) who go to meet their Maker after jumping (or being pushed) off a balcony – preferably sixth floor or above to get the best results. There seem to be 4 main types of members.
1. Party party, whoops I’m broke – some men come here and are completely intoxicated by the sun and the party atmosphere. They spend their days (and nights) in bars surrounded by admiring locals who laugh at all their jokes and make them feel important and appreciated for the first time in their sad, loveless lives. Often they overstay their visas enjoying the wonderful food, cheap alcohol and unlimited quantities of s*x. But one day they wake up from their hangover, in bed with several girls (or boys depending on their preference) broke and in trouble. Ashamed to go back and face their families and friends, they walk out onto their balcony and wheeeeee – they join the Pattaya Flying Club.
2. I run a successful bar in Th**land – Many Falang come here during high season, see the bars teeming with tourists and think – “hey, this is the good life”. So they buy a bar, spend their life savings doing it up and wait for the money to come pouring in as they spend their days eating, drinking and having s*x. But then the rainy season arrives, there are no tourists and they watch day after day as their money pours out. Finally, bankrupt, unable to find a sucker to buy their pathetic little bar from them, they too are ashamed to go back to their families and friends to admit their failure and so out onto the balcony they go and wheeeee – members of the Pattaya Flying Club
3. But she (he) said she loved me – Then we have those who have settled down with a local girl (or buy depending on their tastes), have lavished money on their partner and then find out their partner is seeing other men. Often this is hardly surprising when the Falang is 50 or 60 years old and their girlfriend (or boyfriend) is about 20 and wants some fun in their lives. In despair, some of these men head out to the balcony and join the Club
4. I was happily married – Quite a few Falang are so entranced with the lifestyle in the Land of Sm*les that they marry a local girl (perhaps not knowing that she is already married to a local man). Foreigners cannot buy land or houses here (they can buy some condos) and so often have to put their properties in the name of their local partner. Once they are firmly married and the wife has full title to their property and their assets should they happen to die, some of these Falang (even though they may only own a one-story house) manage to find themselves in a condo (6th floor and above) where they apparently decide (usually with a little help from their wife’s local husband or friends or family) to also take a lifetime membership of the Pattaya Flying Club. Naturally the police here are most understanding and class all such cases as “suicide”.
I have loads of pictures of members of the Pattaya Fling Club, but will spare you these in the interests of decency.
Whoops – I’ve just realised, my condo is on the sixth floor. If I ever join the Pattaya Flying Club, please note this is not out of choice.
By David Craig, on November 20th, 2013 Yesterday the Torygraph’s chief political correspondent was wetting his expensive designer knickers over the fact that the laughable Ed Miliband looks set to win the 2015 General Election. “How was it possible,” moaned the journalist, “that millions of people could vote for a party which had wrecked the British economy and been totally discredited?”
In the comments section, hundreds of Torygraph readers took the time to explain why Cameron couldn’t win the last election and certainly won’t win the next one. One reader made some interesting philosophical comments about why Western democracies which bribed voters with their own money will always be bound to fail and go bankrupt:
Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747-1813), ‘A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship’.
Alexis de Tocqueville observed: ‘The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.’
The above explains why, it is the people who are ‘rational’ by voting for those who offer them the most. The opposition (Labour) will offer the most and voters will be bribed by their own greed, with their own money, which will be paid back later, by less and less services, more and more confiscations (taxes), and by poorer standards of living for their own children whom they gladly sold for short term gain
But most vented their outrage at how little Cameron had achieved and how he lost the opportunity to save Britain from its own self-destruction:
“It’s really quite simple, Cameron has absolutely nothing in common with voters outside of London. He had a golden opportunity to finish Labour once and for all. Immigration, Europe and Law and Order have been the biggest issues for the electorate over the last 30 years and in opposition he said the right things( cast iron guarantee anybody) but he has failed miserably. He needs to kick out all illegals, say no to Europe on the entry of the Romanians and Turks and start and repatriate powers and be tough on crime…in other words the decisions that take guts and bravery, forcing through gay marriage, committing to foreign aid and a referendum on Scotland was weak and pathetic.
How one man given such a wonderful opportunity to put things right has totally f*cked up and made labour electable again beggars belief….but then again do any of these millionaire political class career politicians really care about Britain?”
Having read through quite a few comments, I’ll try to summaries Cameron’s “achievements”
By David Craig, on November 19th, 2013 As we approach the May 2014 EU elections, we will be drowned with misinformation from the ConLibLab Party and their cheerleaders in the media.
Cameron will blether on about his wonderful “renegotiation” and how he’ll get a “deal that’s good for Britain”. This is rubbish. The EU does not negotiate. It does not respect agreements and it does not respect democracy. It is only interested in increasing its own power. When Blair gave away a huge chunk of Britain’s rebate in return for supposed changes to the Common Agricultural Policy, the EU took our money then refused to live up to its side of the deal. And on the few occasions a few countries have been allowed to vote on EU issues, if the vote doesn’t go the way the EU wants, it just makes people vote again. And if that doesn’t give the right answer, it just does what it wants anyway.
Clegg will witter on about “3 million British jobs will be lost if we leave the EU”. Like most of what schoolboy Clegg says, this is a lie. If we left the EU, European countries would continue to trade with us. Firstly, they cannot impose special tariffs and import restrictions on British goods as that would be breaking WTO rules. Secondly, EU countries sell much more to us than we sell to them. If the EU bureaucrats tried to punish Britain by starting a trade war, millions of jobs would be lost – mainly in EU countries. So, within 24 hours of leaving the EU, we would have trade deals in place with most countries and the Brussels bureaucrats would be left fuming impotently in their rage that a country had the temerity to call their bluff and leave their corrupt, wasteful great EU superstate.
Miliband will probably claim that it’s better for Britain to be “in Europe influencing EU policy”. This is also rubbish. Britain has just one vote among 28 (soon to be 30 or more) countries. The countries taking more out of the EU than they put in massively outnumber the countries that contribute more than they receive. Therefore there will always be a majority for more spending, more central control, more bureaucracy, less democracy. Britain is powerless to stop this.
We have a very clear choice in May 2014:
Do we want Britain to remain an independent country with control of its own borders, police, military, trade, agriculture, fisheries, social security, healthcare and laws?
Or do we agree to becoming a minor region of a 500-million-people EU superstate where we will serve two purposes for our unelected EU masters. We will be a cash cow to be mercilessly milked to pay for the venal, wasteful Brussels bureaucracy and the overspending, corrupt, failed Club Med and Eastern European countries. And we will be a dumping ground for all the benefits-scrounging garbage from across the EU who see they can have an easy life in the UK at British taxpayers’ expense.
We have already given control of our agriculture, fisheries, trade and borders to the EU – with catastrophic consequences. And a country that no longer controls its own borders is not a country any more.
So, please see through the smoke and mirrors that will come from our self-serving establishment. Our choice is clear – do we want Britain as an independent country, or Britain as a administrative region of a huge corrupt, wasteful superstate ruled by unelected Kommissars? That’s what we we’ll be voting on in May 2014. Please make the right decision. And please influence those you know to make the right decision too.
By David Craig, on November 18th, 2013 I’ve written before about the many benefits Britain’s 300,000-strong Somali community have brought to our country – religious intolerance, FGM, oppression of women, terrorism and murder and a massive drain on our country’s resources. With only about 35% of Somali men and less than 10% of Somali women in work, I believe that Britain’s Somalis are costing us over £6bn a year in housing, education, healthcare and benefits. In fact, Britain’s Somalis make so much money in benefits that they can easily afford to send around £500m a year of our money back to their extended families in the blighted hell-hole Somalia.
But this cost of £6bn a year doesn’t take account of the social disruption caused by Britain’s Somalis – the underachievement of Somali children in our schools which is disrupting the education of children who actually want to learn something, the blocking of our healthcare system so that British people who have worked and paid tax all their lives cannot get medical care, the vast amount of social housing that has been given to Somalis leaving British workers in expensive rented accommodation, the extraordinarily high level of criminality among Somali youth which is tying up police and court resources and the fact that to thank us for our generosity to them, Britain’s Somalis hate us and have been the most active group launching terrorist attacks against our country.
But the problems that Britain’s wonderful Somali community are causing us, may soon seem like small beer compared to the joys that lie in store for us when the Roma invasion really gets going. We already have (according to Government statistics) over 200,000 Roma in Britain. So, the real figure is probably double that. The Government won’t tell us what the unemployment rate amongst the Roma is. But I would suspect that less than 10% of Roma men and less than 5% of Roma women actually do any legal paid work. We can reasonably reliably assume that the Roma are already costing us as much as our parasitical Somalis – so about £6bn a year. At least another 500,000 (and possibly more) Roma will to flood into Britain once they gain full rights to these benefits after 1 January 2014
- Attendance Allowance
- Child Benefit
- Council Tax Benefit
- Disability Living Allowance
- Guardian’s Allowance
- Housing Benefit
- Income Support
- Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
- Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit
- Carer’s allowance
- Reduced Earnings Allowance
- Severe Disablement Allowance
- Statutory Sick Pay
- State Pension
Then we can expect the direct cost of Roma to hit say £12bn a year.
As one Roma village leader said, “The only thing that will be left here is the donkey”.
Then there is the social disruption – anti-social behaviour, disruption to the NHS, disruption with our social services, disruption in our schools (when the Roma children can be bothered to turn up), high levels of criminality (especially burglary), destruction of neighbourhoods and so on. The situation is already so bad in Sheffield that David Blunkett has predicted race riots.
And there’s absolutely nothing we can do about this impending disaster for our country because it’s Portuguese ex-communist Barosso who decides who can come to Britain, not the British Government. I think we should give up the Armistice Day ceremonies – after all, today’s greedy, self-serving, spineless politicians have given away the freedoms for which so many hundreds of thousands fought and died
By David Craig, on November 17th, 2013 Following various brushes with Elizabeth Filkin, the (I believe) honest, dedicated Ms Filkin was forced from her job to be replaced by a much more malleable establishment time-server. Meanwhile the “Right Honourable” Keith Vaz who is (I believe) a lying, greedy, self-serving, expenses-fiddling, home-flipping scumbag was allowed to continue leeching millions in taxpayers’ money for many more fruitful (for him) years.
Suspension from House of Commons
In 2002, Vaz was suspended from the House of Commonsfor one month after a Committee on Standards and Privileges inquiry found that he had made false allegations against Eileen Eggington, a former policewoman. The committee concluded that “Mr Vaz recklessly made a damaging allegation against Miss Eggington to the Commissioner, which was not true, and which could have intimidated Miss Eggington or undermined her credibility”.
Nadhmi Auchie
In 2001, it was revealed that Vaz had assisted Anglo-Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi in his attempts to avoid extradition to France. Opposition MPs called for an investigation into what one dubbed “Hinduja Mark II” Anglo-Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi was wanted for questioning by French police for his alleged role in the notorious Elf Aquitaine fraud scandal which led to the arrest of a former French Foreign Minister. The warrant issued by French authorities in July 2000 Auchi of “complicity in the misuse of company assets and receiving embezzled company assets“. It also covered Auchi’s associate Nasir Abid and stated that, if found guilty of the alleged offences, both men could face 109 years in jail.
Vaz was a director of the British arm of Auchi’s corporation, General Mediterranean Holdings,
Home Affairs Select Committee
Vaz was elected Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, replacing John Denham, on 26 July 2007. He was unusually nominated to the Committee by the Government, rather than by the quasi-independent Committee of Selection which, under the Standing Orders of the House, nominates members to select committees. The Leader of the House argued that this was because there was not sufficient time to go through the usual procedure before the impending summer recess. The Chairman of the Committee of Selection told the House that the Committee had been ready to meet earlier that week, but had been advised by the Government that there was no business for it to transact. As Chair of this important committee, My Vaz regularly lectures all and sundry about the importance of probity in public life. You couldn’t make it up!
Parliamentary expenses
In terms of expenses, Keith Vaz is usually in the top 10% of MPs by the amounts he claims and after the Telegraph revlations, Vaz was forced to make several repayments
BCCI “fraud” by Deloittes and Keith Vaz’s “involvement”
I briefly came across the charming Mr Vaz in 2005. After my book RIP-OFF was published, I was contacted by someone claiming to be a senior forensic accountant at Deloittes. His story was that working on a team of hundreds managed by “Sir” Fred Goodwin, he had helped Deloittes defraud the creditors of the BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International) of possibly up to £100m. The BCCI was based in both Luxembourg and London. When the Luxembourg authorities saw what Deloittes were up to, they took legal action against Deloittes and Deloittes settled out of court handing back many millions. At the same time, two British MPs, one of whom I believe was Keith Vaz, enjoyed a luxury, all-expenses-paid trip out to the Middle East to see what Deloittes were up to. Although the Luxembourg authorities apparently caught Goodwin and Deloittes with their hands firmly in the till, these two British MPs apparently saw nothing wrong at all and no action was taken against Deloittes in Britain.
You have to remember that the BCCI preyed mainly on British Asian businesspeople, many of whom were Mr Vaz’s constituents. I contacted Vaz’s office and explained that I had access to documents proving what Deloittes had been up to. In spite of several calls to his office, he never made any attempt to get back to me to look at the evidence that Deloittes had allegedly defrauded many of his constituents and supporters.
Yup, perhaps Keith Vaz deserves our much-coveted Trougher of the Year trophy
By David Craig, on November 16th, 2013 I’ve been so busy finishing off my next book, I haven’t had time to do any more candidates for my Trougher of the Year Trophy.
Previously I’ve done Baroness “The Pig” Ashton www.snouts-in-the-trough.com/archives/6685 and the BBC’s Mark Thompson www.snouts-in-the-trough.com/archives/6652
So. I’ll start that again – today Keith Vaz
Keith Vaz was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Leicester East in 1987 and has held the seat for a lucrative (for him) 26 years. In that time, with his salary, generous expenses, unbelievable pension and other bits and pieces he has probably cost British taxpayers somewhere around £9,100,000. But is he worth this huge amount of our money?
The delightful Keith “Vazeline” Vaz got his nickname for his uncanny ability to slip almost unharmed through the many scandals in which he has allegedly been involved. There have been so many unfortunate incidents, that I’ll have to dedicate two days to the wily Mr Vaz and even then I can only touch on a few of them.
Rushdie affair
Shortly after being elected in 1989, Vaz led a march of thousands of Muslims in Leicester calling for Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses to be banned. According to Rushdie’s autobiography Joseph Anton, as quoted by Douglas Murray in The Spectator, Vaz had earlier promised his support against the fatwa: “Vaz said, in that phone conversation, that what had happened was ‘appalling, absolutely appalling’, and promised his ‘full support’. A few weeks later he was one of the main speakers at a demonstration against The Satanic Verses attended by over three thousand Muslims, and described that event as ‘one of the great days in the history of Islam and Great Britain’.”
Leicester IRA attack
In February 1990, after a bombing attack by the IRA against a British Army recruiting centre in Leicester, Vaz publicly suggested that the Army had stored explosives on the premises
Filkin inquiry
In February 2000, the Parliamentary standards watchdog Elizabeth Filkin (probably one of the few honest people ever to have held that position) began an investigation after allegations that Vaz had accepted several thousand pounds from a solicitor, Sarosh Zaiwalla, which he had failed to declare. The allegations were denied by both Vaz and Zaiwalla. He was censured for a single allegation – that he had failed to register two payments worth £4,500 in total from solicitor Sarosh Zaiwalla. Elizabeth Filkin accused Vaz of blocking her investigation into eighteen of the allegations.
Hinduja affair
In January 2001, immigration minister Barbara Roche revealed in a written Commons reply that Vaz, along with Honest Peter Mandelson and other MPs, had contacted the Home Office about the Hinduja brothers. She said that Vaz had made inquiries about when a decision on their application for citizenship could be expected.
On 29 January, the government confirmed that the Hinduja Foundation had held a reception for Vaz in September 1999 to celebrate his appointment as the first Asian Minister in recent times. The party was not listed by Vaz in House of Commons register of Members’ Interests and John Redwood, then head of the Conservative Parliamentary Campaigns Unit, questioned Vaz’s judgement in accepting the hospitality. In March, Vaz was ordered to co-operate fully with a new inquiry launched into his financial affairs by Elizabeth Filkin. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, Vaz’s superior, also urged him to answer fully allegations about his links with the Hinduja brothers.
Vaz met Filkin on 20 March to discuss a complaint that the Hinduja Foundation had given £1,200 to Mapesbury Communications, a company run by his wife, in return for helping to organise a Hinduja-sponsored reception at the House of Commons. Vaz had previously denied receiving money from the Hindujas, but insisted that he made no personal gain from the transaction in question.
In June 2001, Vaz said that he had made representations during the Hinduja brothers‘ applications for British citizenship while a backbench MP. On 11 June 2001, Vaz was officially dismissed from his post as Europe Minister, to be replaced by Peter Hain. The Prime Minister’s office said that Vaz had written to Tony Blair stating his wish to stand down for health reasons.
In December 2001, Elizabeth Filkin cleared Vaz of failing to register payments to his wife’s law firm by the Hinduja brothers, but said that he had colluded with his wife to conceal the payments. Filkin’s report criticised him for his secrecy, saying, “It is clear to me there has been deliberate collusion over many months between Mr Vaz and his wife to conceal this fact and to prevent me from obtaining accurate information about his possible financial relationship with the Hinduja family”.
It’s believed by some people that Vaz’s influence led to Elizabeth Filkin losing her job and being replaced by someone much more compliant while the delectable Keith went on to higher better things.
Tomorrow – much more about Keith “Vazeline” Vaz.
By David Craig, on November 14th, 2013 Something extraordinary is happening in the fantasy world of the Warmists. As temperatures have stabilised (and even started to fall) for the last 15 years while CO2 emissions have rocketed, completely discrediting the theory that CO2 can be responsible for warming, the Warmists have become every more shrill in their insistence that humans are responsible for global warming (which incidentally isn’t actually happening).
In the First Assessment Report (1990) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the experts concluded that human activity was probably not responsible for variations in climate, “The observed (20th century) temperature increase could be largely due to natural variability”.
In the Second Assessment Report (1996), the writers concluded that there was no evidence that humans were causing warming, “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases, No study to date has positively all or part (of the climate change observed to (man-made causes).
That really should have been the end of the Global Warming panic. But by then the IPCC had been hijacked by environmental activists and one of the lead authors of the Second Assessment Report “helpfully” removed the paragraphs saying that there was no proof humans were responsible for warming and instead concluded, “The balance of the evidence suggests a discernible human influence on climate” And that entirely false claim was a key element of the “Summary for Policymakers” that went to the politicians that are now destroying our economies and jobs with their pointless green taxes.
This change led to the angry resignation of several of the authors of the original text. But by then the activists didn’t care – tens of millions in grants were pouring in and the politicians were jumping on the Global Warming bandwagon.
In the Third Assessment Report (2001) two years after the earth’s climate stopped warming, the lies got even bigger. “There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities”
And incredibly, in the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report (2007), after 8 years of no observed warming while the amount of CO2 being emitted continued to shoot up, the “experts” closed their eyes to what was really happening and insisted, “Most of the observed increase in globally-averaged temperature is very likely (=90% probable) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations”.
You almost couldn’t make it up.
And, by the way, in spite of the warnings from the figure-fiddling, data-manipulating liars lucratively riding on the Global Warming gravy train, this isn’t actually happening:
By David Craig, on November 14th, 2013 I understand that today’s post will not be relevant for most readers. But if you know anyone retiring within the next 10 years, maybe you could warn them about the annuity rip-off. And if you know anyone who has retired and bought an annuity within the last 10 years, they’ve probably been cheated and so you could help them complain and get thousands in compensation. So, please be patient and bear with me even though today’s subject be not be useful to you.
When we approach 65, unless we are one of the lucky few with a final-salary pension (less than 10% of private-sector workers and more than 95% of public-sector workers), the company holding our pension savings or our financial adviser will contact us suggesting that we use our pension savings to buy an annuity. The sales argument they will use will be something like “buying an annuity will give you the security of a fixed income for the rest of your life”. To back up their sales pitch, they’ll probably also claim that by buying an annuity, our pension savings will no longer be at risk if the stock market falls.
But buying an annuity at 65 is probably one of the worst financial decisions we could ever make. Here are a few reasons why:
1. Laughably low annuity rates – If you want an inflation-protected annuity for yourself (and maybe a partner) you’ll get about 3.5% (£3,500 for every £100,000 in your pension fund). For that 3.5%, you’re handing over all your money to the annuity company. So, if you die, they keep your money. But, if you open a 5-year deposit account with someone like the Skipton (I don’t recommend this as interest rates will rise within the next few years), you’ll get just over 3% and your money will still belong to you. So, if something happens to you, your money will go to your survivors. With annuity rates so low, you’re probably better to take 25% of your pension savings tax-free to live off and delay buying an annuity as the longer you wait, the higher annuity rate you’ll get.
2. Enhanced annuities – people with any of almost 1,000 medical conditions (https://www.pensionchoices.com/public/post/enhanced-annuity-list-of-qualifying-medical-conditions-and-illnesses-186.asp) are eligible for an “enhanced annuity”. Because of their medical condition, the annuity company expects them to die younger than the average retiree and so will pay them a higher income while they are still alive. Of the 400,000 people who buy an annuity each year, it’s estimated that around 240,000 should qualify for an enhanced annuity. Yet only about 80,000 people actually get one. So 160,000 annuity buyers a year are being cheated out of sometimes thousands of pounds a year because those selling them their annuity failed to check whether they qualified for an enhanced annuity. This is making annuity companies billions of pounds a year in what can only be described as fraudulently-obtained profits.
3. You might get ill after 65 – even if you are one of the 40% who doesn’t qualify for an enhanced annuity when you’re 65, it’s unfortunately rather likely that you will develop some medical condition between the ages of 65 and 75 (the latest you can buy an annuity). If you’ve already bought an annuity at 65 and then develop a medical condition entitling you to an enhanced annuity, then tough. The annuity company has got your money and they couldn’t care if your health changes. In fact, the shorter you live. the better for them. But if you’ve ignored the “buy an annuity at 65 to get financial security” sales pitch and waited a few years, you’re much more likely to qualify for a larger enhanced annuity. It’s estimated that by 75, over 80% of retired people would qualify for an enhanced annuity. Yet, as I explained above, only 20% of people actually get one.
Annuities are hugely profitable (for the annuity companies) aggressively sold/mis-sold to financially-vulnerable people leaving many victims thousands of pounds a year poorer than they should have been. Don’t let yourself or anyone you know be scammed by the “buy an annuity at 65” sales pitch.
By David Craig, on November 13th, 2013 (Due to the lack of enthusiasm in my posts about financial services lies, I’ll take a break from them and write about s*x instead. Apologies to my more sensitive readers)
I’m wintering in the Land of Sm*les where I’ve done some diving – you know aqualungs, the sea, fishes etc and the hope you don’t bump into any hungry sharks or grumpy jellyfish.
But there’s another kind of diving that seems extremely popular here. In the gogo bar where I sometimes go for a few beers and to watch the weekend’s football highlights, there are some interesting characters.
There’s one guy we call “Mr Muff”. He’s about 40, small, fat and virtually bald. His speciality is getting the girls to open their legs as wide as they can, he then carefully talks off his glasses and puts them into the cup holding his bill and whoosh – in he goes. I’ve been timing him and he seems to be able to do about 5 minutes of slurping and gobbling before coming up for air – his face beaming with delight perhaps a bit like Keith Vaz filling in his “totally justified” expenses.
Then there’s Mr A**e. When the girls shove their not-so-private parts into his face in the hope he’ll have a gobble and then buy them a ‘lady drink’ or give them a couple of quid, he gets them to turn over, go onto their knees and then he shoves his nose and tongue into a place where the sun doesn’t shine. One night I asked him why he did that (it not being something that would appeal to me). His reply, “because they all taste different”. Not being a great conversationalist, I didn’t really know what to say to that.
Then there’s the dead Japanese guy. At least, he must be well over 70 and with his cadaverous skull-like head looks like he died some years ago. But boy does he come alive when he gets into the bar. Especially so last night when he spotted a very beautiful young girl who looked part Japanese. As she was dancing, he rammed his head between her legs and got to work. When she finished her dance he desperately looked around for her but couldn’t find her. Perhaps she was trying to avoid him? Anyway, he went for a tour round the bar, found her, pulled her to his seat and shoved her hand down his trousers to make her pull on his probably rather wrinkly……I’ll stop there.
As they say, “there’s nowt so queer as folk”.
Talking of Mandelsonians, at a restaurant where I often eat (3 courses and a couple of ice-cold beers for a tenner), a group of German Mandelsonians (aged between 55 and 75) came in with their young (aged 18 to 20 years old) boyfriends. I know I’m old-fashioned, but when one of aged German Mandelsonians (certainly in his late 60s) started hugging and kissing his maybe 18-year-old male partner, it sort of put me off my otherwise excellent Chateaubriand steak with fresh green-pepper sauce.
As for the football – I saw Liverpool thrash a useless Fulham. Every time Fulham got the ball (which wasn’t often) instead of attacking Liverpool’s goal, they all rushed off towards their own goal like terrified turkeys in the week before Christmas. In their pathetic retreat, they were pursued by the marauding Liverpool team including Gerard and Suarez who seemed to have no problems scoring goal after goal after goal. All a bit sad if you’re foolish enough to waste your time supporting Fulham
By David Craig, on November 12th, 2013 Whose pension is it anyway?
The Government is virtually bankrupt. Even under supposed ‘austerity’, the useless Coalition is spending £120bn a year more than it takes in taxes. We already owe over £1.2trn and this will rise to £1.4trn by the 2015 election. We can never pay this money back. So, if you’re relying on the Government paying you a reasonable pension in return for all the NI you’ve paid – forget it. Anyway, the Government will need at least £30bn a year more next year to pay for the flood of almost 2 million Romanians and Bulgarians heading for Benefits Britain.
So, we’re all being encouraged to save up for our own pensions. But let me do a little simple maths. On older pension schemes (taken out before 2001) annual charges are at least 1.5% a year. Actually they’re a lot higher, usually over 2%, due to up to 18 hidden charges that most of us don’t know about. But let’s just assume people are paying a seemingly modest 1.75% a year.
If you’re saving for 40 years, then on your first year’s contribution, you’ll be paying 70% (40 years x 1.75%) to your pension fund manager. On your 2nd year’s contributions, you’ll be paying 68.25%. On your third year’s contributions – 66.5% and so on . So you might be tempted to wonder whose pension you are paying into – your own or that of your pension fund manager (click to see picture more clearly)
If you can bear a few more figures, let’s do some more maths. If you pay £5,000 a year (including your contribution, your employer’s contribution and your tax rebate) into a pension scheme for 40 years and the scheme achieves growth of 2% a year above inflation, by the time you retire you’ll have around £147,470, but you’ll have paid about £59,400 to your lucky pension fund manager.
Now let’s compare Britain’s rip-off pension industry with Denmark, Holland, Australia and many other countries. Annual charges on their pension schemes are in the region of 0.3% to 0.5%. According to my calculations, if you were paying 0.5%, then from your £5,000 a year for 40 years, you’d have about £275,000 for yourself and would have paid your pension fund manager just £25,500.
Thus, because of the extraordinary power of compounding interest over the years, the slightly lower charges of these other countries would have given you a pension pot about £127,530 larger than the same savings would have given you in rip-off Britain. Just that small difference in fees from Britain’s 1.75% to other countries’ 0.5% would have left you with over 86% (£275,000/£147,470) more in pension savings.
Are you being fleeced by Britain’s rip-off pensions industry? Yes you are!
(Tomorrow financial services lie No. 5 – “Saving in a SIPP (Self-Invested Personal Pension) is a low-cost way of saving for your retirement”. Then I’ll go back to political stuff as, to my disappointment, the number of people reading this site is collapsing as many former readers appear to have no interest at all in how they are being ripped off by the financial services industry. That will make financial industry insiders very happy indeed)
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