Be Excellent To Each Other

...on WoS.

I have been meaning to ask about this. I'd like to hear more about the time you set up disco-gear in a minibus.

The SuperVengaBus already has a sweet head unit and a bass bin in the back (why not, with all that room?), so we used a combination of a big chunky inverter and existing 12V amplifiers to plug in all our disco speakers for a long trip to a gig near Hunstanton (the one which Anneka Rice was at, if I've mentioned that maybe before perhaps).

We turned it on, it all worked well. We turned it up, and the combination of WALL OF SOUND and the Christmas tree of warning lights on the dashboard made us think that maybe it wasn't the best idea in the world.

NOOB QUESTION: would the heavy draw of all that kit run the battery down, even with the engine running?

Yes. The alternator only charges at a certain rate (it varies wildly depending on the vehicle).

That's why in campers and RVs you should have a leisure battery.

Hence the warning lights, I guess?

Actually, probably not.
Electronics on modern (ie 1995 and onward) cars can behave really oddly if the voltage suddenly drops.

Computers in general are not fans of inconsistent power.

“The sovereignty of Parliament is a fundamental principle of the UK constitution. Whilst Parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... CMP=twt_gu

Reals not feels
Reals not feels
Reals not feels
Reals not feels
Reals not feels
Reals not feels
Reals not feels
Reals not feels
Reals not feels

And more seriously, UK inflation is creeping up because of food and (predominantly) petrol being more expensive. So far it's very small, though.

Thanks to our "broken housing market", there's a lot of people mortgaged to the absolute hilt. I wonder how far inflation can rise before triggering significant numbers of repossessions.

There was an article in Grdauird about car finances being lossibly tne next consumer bomb to go off.

I don't think we've seen the last of food price increases yet.

Just read the transcript of Mr Blair's speech (Speccie link).

Agree with much of it, and it's a shame that too many people will look at the messenger rather than the message. Will probably review it again later.

. Ouch.

Tony Blair telling people to 'rise up' against Brexit when one million people rose up against the Iraq War and made no difference is just too much for me to take.

Very surprised he bothered with this, last thing I read on him was that he was backing out of a return to politics as he felt the fact he was so unpopular would hinder anything he tried to do.

Looks time some time away has thickened his skin

...

It's counter-productive though, as asfish has said. He is deeply unpopular with much of the country. He is the last person we need standing up for the Remain side.

Can't blame him for looking for a fresh challenge after achieving his goal of peace in the middle east.

Other than Ken Clarke, are there any other senior politicians making newsworthy speeches on this?

I didn't expect Mrs May to go full throttle on a complete, hard, burn the bridges exit: the result really suggested to me that something akin to being in the EEA and getting navy passports was about all that was politically possible but then I underestimated both the drive in the Tory party for a complete extrication and the utter uselessness of the opposition.

Can people still get in that situation? I have maybe 60% equity in my house, I called my lender and asked them to run through a scenario where I borrowed more money. I would also be providing the same amount of money myself to buy a house at what we think is our maximum price range.

This time my wife is not in the calculation as she no longer works, but the multiplier is higher foe one person.

They not only knocked me back but said that the computer told them to lend me 20K less than I have outstanding already! The extra borrowing would have seen a lower monthly payment than I've had for the last 6 years prior to moving to a cheaper deal in December.

The women said it was because I have 3 dependants (one of them doesn't arrive until April) and that I had told them I spend £400 on child care.

Plenty of 3-5 year fixed terms around at very low interest. Add a few percent to base rates, and people exiting those deals find their monthly repayments going up by significant chunks.

Also I got pre-approval recently for about 4.8x my base salary at 90% LTV.

Who was that with? My lender (Leeds) said the 4.8 was what they were using and that should have given me what I wanted and more.

Guess I could just go to another bank and omit have the outgoings I mentioned to my current lender

Just guessing really but won't there be an index where the risk is lower as the salary goes up or something. i.e. you probably wouldn't get that if you were earning £20K a year.

Virgin. It was just a speculative thing I filled out on a whim.

My base salary is only around 2/3rds of my current compensation, so that's probably why it was so high.

I don't know. I suspect it's more complex than that, though. I was soft credit checked for this so there was a lot of my data going into that calculation.

That is the case. Mortgages are on affordability now so the 'old' key metrics of 3x salary aren't particularly relevant either at lower or higher incomes.

That said you're looking at a 3 hour interview now to remortgage with the same provider. Research on this is putting me off my own plan to extend my current mortgage later this year. Getting this one that comes to renewal was hard enough to explain in the "easy" days.

I never quite worked out what lending they do against bonus and shares etc

Always got the impressions that bonus carried more weight than shares though.

It's very opaque and varies considerably across lenders, is my impression, which was mostly gained from skimming internal mailing list threads about my colleagues going for mortgages. When I get serious about this I'll read those threads properly.

Is that "new"? My fixed rate ended in September last year and about a month before it was due to end my provider sent me a letter offering me another mortgage product that was on a fixed rate for 2 years, at a lower interest rate than I was on.

Taking them up on the offer was literally a case of saying "yup, cool" and signing the documents they sent me through the post.

New but likely only in terms of increased credit risk for the bank in question, such as increasing borrowing or decreasing term, or moving betwixt banks.

Same for me I went to a section of my providers website and it showed me all the products I could have. I choose one online, signed some documents which I was able to scan and email them. Then bingo another 10 years fixed.

We're 60% LTVing a 5 year fix on our new home (fingers crossed this one goes through, we had to withdraw from the last because an unmortgagable deed covenant ruined it after 5 months left us a couple of thousand out of pocket).

The loan is 'only' 3.6x combined salary but a 23 year term means a faintly staggering monthly payment.

I'm a bit worried, but it IS a lovely house.

I keep looking at houses. I'm itching to do another one (I know, I need to finish this one first...).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/20 ... tion-open/

"Oxford University might break with 700 years of tradition by establishing its first foreign campus in response to Brexit, The Telegraph can disclose. French officials met senior staff at Oxford last week and revealed new proposals that they hope would guarantee future European Union funding for a "satellite" base in Paris."

Christ.

Oxford only really became a popular place of learning after Henry II stopped English students going to Paris. Oh, the irony.

This is a heck of a vote of no confidence in the likelihood of future governments continuing such funding. But hey, control.

Well, actually, it is just prudent.

Talking in Estonia, David Davis said yesterday that we wouldn't reduce EU migration into the UK for "years and years" and that we will still need significant immigration of unskilled workers from the EU after Brexit.

So... no £350m per week for the NHS, the government has admitted our Parliament has always been sovereign, and now we're saying we won't reduce immigration either. Why are we doing this, again?

To reunite the Tory party. Which I'm sure we can all agree is a worthwhile goal.

No, that's why we had a referendum.

Blue passports and bananas. And something about the lack of a crown on a pint glass.

At least he's being honest, and if it suggests that Mrs May's talk of going down is only bluster that can only be an improvement on what we've heard so far. But really, it's not going to satisfy anyone.

If you've heard talk of a "€60bn divorce settlement" but don't understand it, this is a pretty good summary: http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2017/02 ... ve-minutes

That's a really clear and concise piece, thanks for that.



I was reading about this threat in the Grauniad yesterday. Regardless of how bad this will be for trade (and how those people who hate 'EU Red Tape' will enjoy customs forms - bad enough filling the small green ones out in the post office when sending crap to the US), sustained television pictures of prolonged disputes and the resultant traffic chaos would likely seriously damage whoever is in power at the time.

https://www.businesscornwall.co.uk/news ... ouncement/

EU funding to poor parts of Cornwall: £60m per year
UK offer to replace that funding post-Brexit: £18m over three years

Who would have thought that a government famous for grinding austerity measures might not maintain the current generous levels of EU subsidies?

183,000 people in Cornwall voted Brexit; 140,000 voted remain. So really, I'm struggling a bit.

As you say, this (or any) Tory government is completely, and ideologically opposed to subsidies; what other outcome to this vote and local mandate could have possibly been expected?

Reap what you sow etc.

So, the difference between EU funding and government funding is £54MM a year?