16 May 2013 18:00
Whichever form my daily constitutional takes (it’s either an hour’s walk or a similar length swim), it’s always immensely satisfying to escape my desk and the associated office paraphernalia. Emails, phone calls and meetings have their place – some...
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08 May 2013 13:22
Apart from immigration, Britain’s membership of the EU / EEC / Common Market remains the most contentious matter regularly debated amongst workmates, or in the pub, on the train, or anywhere else people can carve out a few minutes to chat.Moreover, amongst...
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30 April 2013 10:39
‘Cash is king’. There’s no getting away from it, particularly when times are as tough as they are at the moment.It’s a sad fact that most small businesses fail because they have not kept a close eye on their cash flow and chased money owed to them. What...
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20 April 2013 17:53
The demolition work started last October, but it was only this week that contractors knocking down Keynsham town hall discovered what several newspapers referred to as a ‘time capsule’ buried deep beneath the crumbling civic centre. Given Keynsham’s...
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12 April 2013 17:19
According to a commentary in one of Fleet Street’s remaining highbrow broadsheets on Wednesday, last week’s report by the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards was “a sloppy piece of work”. Talking specifically about Sir James Crosby, soon to...
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05 April 2013 09:45
In my blog of 23 March, immediately following the Budget, I suggested that the immediate beneficiaries of the Chancellor’s largesse would be Britain’s housebuilders and indeed, their share prices raced up as the bare bones of initiatives such as Help...
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27 March 2013 19:10
Well, who would have thought it? Fifty years ago, the Beeching Report into our national rail service – it was actually called “The Reshaping of British Railways”, resulted in the decimation of many regional and rural lines. More than 2,000 train stations...
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22 March 2013 17:46
While Britain’s industrial revolution created a vast urban sprawl of brick-built terraces and the inter-war years witnessed enormous ‘ribbon’ housing developments which produced city suburbs, the nation’s last great housing shortage was caused by the...
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09 March 2013 14:43
‘To downsize’ is a verb (and a process) one usually associates with those in late middle age – folks for whom climbing the stairs or maintaining the garden has become a problem or simply too big a chore. For most elderly people, downsizing is an understandable...
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05 March 2013 09:01
One of the most disheartening things I’ve ever had to do is organise the sale of someone else’s house when they were in deteriorating health and too infirm to cope and were duly forced to spend their remaining days in a residential home. Arranging the...
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25 February 2013 17:36
As the pound plummets and foreign exchange dealing is actively promoted as an alternative method of investment, the manner in which I opened my first spread betting account bears repeating here.In fact, I didn’t open the account, a friend did it for me.It...
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19 February 2013 12:20
Who was the last (or current) British MP you felt you could really trust? A person who stuck to their guns and beliefs irrespective of the findings of low-sample opinion polls or the unnecessary verbal aggression displayed by some television interviewers?...
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08 February 2013 18:19
I’ve maintained for some years now that George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm should be required reading for every schoolchild. Moreover, before anyone enters politics, even at the lowliest parish council level, they should be made to quote great swathes...
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01 February 2013 10:29
Many moons ago, on leave in the UK while working overseas, I decided to take my first tentative steps to becoming a property owner.Returning home for a relatively short spell, one always accepted the mad dash nature of catching up with friends and family...
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22 January 2013 15:25
The after effects of heavy snowfall have presented many people with an unexpected opportunity to remain indoors, the treacherous conditions prompting them to take a couple of days off work.But the novelty value soon wears off. Unable to venture outdoors...
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