Business Week Online

50 reasons not to buy an iPhone

2009-05-18T01:48:00.001-07:00

The much-anticipated Apple iphone goes on sale in the UK on November 9. No doubt there will be hordes of Apple fans queuing outside Carphone Warehouse and outlets of O2 mobile – the smug operator which secured the contract to become the only supplier in Britain.

But does the new phone deliver or is it all just a load of hype? And will it retain its gloss for the duration of an expensive 18-month contract. Frankly, I don’t think so, but here are 50 other things you should consider before parting with your cash:

1. The handset is expensive. It’s even got Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, chuckling over it like an over excited schoolboy. Unlike some of the other top phones out there, you can’t get the iPhone for free even if you pay the top tariff price of £55 a month. You have to pay an up-front fee of £269. Over 18-months, that adds up to a whopping £1,259.

2. Compare these prices with say T-mobile’s Flext 35 Web n Walk max tariff. For £32.50 a month, you get 450 free calls and 900 texts a month as well as “unlimited” internet surfing. You also get the feature rich Nokia N95 handset for free – costing you a total of £610.98 over 18 months. Don’t just take my word for it. Check out the analysis here by the technology website Cnet.

3. If you’re still determined to get an iPhone, you could of course try innovative ways to raise the money like begging on the street like this guy.

4. But once you have the money, you may end up having to queue like this.

5. When you do get it, you may find the phone's specification to be worse than the phone you replaced it with. Instead of allowing customers to use the latest mobile internet infrastructure which traditional operators have paid billions to establish, the Apple iPhone uses a slow mobile data service called EDGE. The phone works on a 2.5-generation network rather than the current 3.5-generation, making it at least four times slower than your current handset. Perhaps they don’t want the iPhone to be too perfect in case it becomes a religious cult and displaces traditional religious figures.

6. Apple would argue that it does offer free wi-fi internet access in over 7,500 hotspots around Britain, but if you live outside of urban centres, this isn’t going to be any good for you. Rob Mead of Tech.co.uk, says that Edge has only 30 per cent coverage in the UK.

7. The battery life is a bit rubbish part 1. One of the reasons Apple gives for the slower internet speed is to increase the battery life. But if the American experience is anything to go by, most handsets conk out after five hours of talk time, so be prepared to carry around a charger with you. There are however some tips on making your iPhone last.

8. The battery life is a bit rubbish part 2. When the iPhone’s battery dies, you have to send it back to Apple to get a new one (for a fee). It will be the only mainstream phone in Britain to not allow you to change batteries yourself. Here’s a consumer alert posted on YouTube about the issue.

9. The battery life is a bit rubbish part 3. Sending your iPod away for a few days is bad enough, as most of us can probably manage without music for a short time. Being without a mobile for days (or weeks) could be more of a problem. Luckily there are some techies out there who are happy to show you how to replace the iPhone battery yourself.

10. Many will see 3.5 inch display as the crowning glory of the iPhone – the interface oozes quality – but despite what Apple disparagingly called "small plastic keyboards" on other mobiles, they're far more likely to work reliably than a touch-screen. Some have decided the iPhone is not designed for women or for those who’ve grown up texting using their thumbs. Business users are also going to be disappointed as emails may not be so easily typed out.

11. Talking about texting, you may want to consider how big your hands are. If you've got small hands, your iPhone will look really big and we can’t have that can we?

12. But you have to give it to Apple for creating a seemingly scratchproof display. If you’re brave enough, try bashing it around.

13. The rather pathetic two megapixel camera is a disappointment. Phones such as the Nokia N95 already boast five megapixel cameras so a comparison, might leave iPhone customers wondering what they’ve spent their money on.

14. OK, camera phones are never going to beat a digital SLR, but most “standard” handsets now have at least three megapixel cameraphones as this guy Reiter explains in his blog.

15. The Bluetooth service is limited. Though the iPhone comes with the latest version of Bluetooth it can currently only connect with Apple headsets. This means you cannot easily transfer files, music or pictures that you may have on your PC. However, the iPhone headphones do double up as crack pipes which could be useful to some out there. I’m sure this is a temporary glitch, and Apple will sort it out – but having paid out over £250 quid, you don’t want to be dealing with a glitch.

16. Only 8GB storage: Ok, ok, it's the biggest storage capacity of any phone on the market, probably, but 8GB (about 2,000 songs) is still pretty limited when you compare it to the likes of the ipod which can boast 40GB or more. There are also rumours that before the end of the year, Nokia and other handset manufactures will increase the storage capacity of some of their top handsets anyway.

17. The launch of Vodafone’s MusicStation earlier this month is a direct challenge to itunes. It probably has only a fraction of the number of songs as itunes, but at least it’s an alternative.

18. Windows mobile users are used to downloading and installing the applications they want to add, just as with a “real computer.” Not so with the iPhone. Apple probably did this so its operating system is more stable, but people who shell out this much money for a phone expect it to be a fully-fledged hand-held computer too. Luckily, there are ways to pimp out your iPhone with Apple approved software.

19. You’re stuck with 02. Not that I have anything against the Spanish owned firm, but I would have appreciated some choice. Mind you, the Sunday Times In Gear team managed to download software from the internet allowing them to “unlock” the phone so it could be used on other networks such as Vodafone, and if they can do it….

20. Not that I encourage anyone to go down this route, but here’s an online guide anyway.

21. Apple will probably block you from doing this, and moves have already been made to bar potential hackers.

22. Also, if you do unlock the phone, your warranty will be void, and apple might be able to lock your hacked handset with future updates.

23. If you’d rather not hack into it, there are phones that can rival Apple’s latest offering. This review on Tech.co.uk provides some alternatives to the iPhone. Here is a straight comparison between the iPhone and the Nokia N95, which is perhaps the main alternative.

24. There are of course many innovative ways to use the iPhone, although I’m not sure if your manufacturer’s guarantee would cover you for any of these uses.

25. Other ideas seem more impressive and may actually work.

26. Fears that fraudsters are trying to target iPhone enthusiasts with fakes are not unfounded, so don’t be fooled. Here’s an iPhone fake from China.

27. Taking about all things “i”, some imitations are not so great. Not sure if I’m more disturbed by the phone here or the scarily accurate depiction of overexcited Apple geeks.

28. Mobile devices are generally getting smaller but not these new smart phones. You probably can’t flaw the slick Apple handset in terms of design, but it is rather large and bulky. Imagine going on a night out with that bulging out from your pockets…..actually, maybe not a bad thing after all.

29. Perhaps this guy, who’s trying to sell his old Motorola brick phone will remind you why we want smaller and more compact.

30. After all, you wouldn’t want it to be as small as this ipod micro.

31. Having spent all your Christmas and birthday money on the new device, you probably don’t want to drop it intro a blender…

32. There have been many tests on the iPhone, but have you ever wondered what would happen if you froze it? Okay, we haven’t exactly had very cold winters recently, but say you travel somewhere like the Arctic, what would happen then? Thankfully, these circumstances have been thought of as well.

33. Celebs with iPhones 1: Stephen Fry loves everything Apple ever make, but he doesn't love the iPhone and what does that tell you?

34. Celebs with iPhones 2: Mike Tyson has one.

35. Celebs with iPhones 3: Paris Hilton has one.

36. Celebs with iPhones 4: George Bush has one.

37. The iPhone won't work as a modem for your laptop.

38. They're very dangerous to use on a treadmill – this looks serious….

39. The iPhone doesn't look as good as the mockups did before the actual launch.

40. You can get all the same whizziness from an iPod Touch for about £249, and stick with your cheap phone for calls.

41. It encourages some to start producing music videos like this – let this be a warning to you all.

42. Even worse, the iPhone encourages otherwise sensible technology journalists to sing, and that definitely is not a good thing.

43. The price of the iPhone dropped in the US just three months after launch so all of you who have pre-ordered your phone, may find you’ve paid over the odds in January. Some have even threatened to sue Apple.

44. Have you ever wondered what your iPhone would sound like if it spoke back to you? No, nor have I, but here’s what he may sound like.

45. If you’re amongst the first to buy the iPhone in this country when it launches next month, careful who you show it to because this may happen.

46. Some of you may not even get to sample the iPhone numerous functions because the device fails. This guy is obviously disappointed, but his eyes suggest the flaw may not have been just with his handset.

47. If something goes wrong with your iPhone, you'll be sent an Official iPhone Tool, otherwise known as a paperclip.

48. Why is it that smashing the iPhone seems to be one of the main pastimes of users?. Judging by the kinds of videos posted by iPhone owners, smashing the device seems to be a common pastime – makes you think what it is that motivates them.

49. Here’s another one - not that I get any sense of satisfaction from seeing the iPhone smashed.

50. Finally, even those who are convinced by the iPhone, you may still find yourself accepting it only reluctantly like this guy. Ask yourself, does he really sound happy?

List compiled by Ali Hussain.

The Thrifty 50

2009-05-18T01:48:00.000-07:00

From couch sufing to dumping your TV, get rich quick with our ultimate guide to penny pinching...

Entertainment

1. Dump your television – and therefore your license fee – and watch online. Laptops play DVDs and the BBC now puts up episodes of shows such as The Mighty Boosh on its website for a few days after it’s shown on terrestrial.

2. If you missed buying tickets for a then sold-out gig, swerve the ticket touts and check out the website Scarlet Mist. Fans sell on unwanted tickets at cost price rather than putting them on eBay to make a profit. The site does not charge but encourages buyers to make a small donation to charity instead with the money they have saved.

3. Buy Nintendo DS and other games at a second-hand games shop. Saving, accounting for one game per month: £200-plus a year. Even if you buy them new at a supermarket, you'll still save up to £10 per game.

4. For film buffs, the Orange 2 for 1 Wednesday cinema tickets are a must. However, according to Martin Lewis, of MoneySavingExpert.com, you don’t need to be on an Orange contract to take advantage. Simply buy an Orange SIM card. Also, take your own drinks and snacks. Cinemas do not encourage this but they have yet to employ stop and search tactics so it’s a good way to reduce costs.

5. Join your local library, not only can you borrow books for free, often it will have music and films to rent at a reduced rate to the local video store or online supplier.

6. Broaden the way you socialise. Instead of going for the obvious, and potentially pricey, entertainment check out your local council’s website to find out what events it’s organising. Also museums and art galleries often organise free events and talks that can be a lot more fun than you think and a way to meet new people.

Beauty & Fitness

7. It sounds like a bathroom disaster waiting to happen but making your own beauty treatments can actually work and be a lot more fun. First, make sure the ingredients needed for the treatments work out cheaper than shop bought products. Good examples are using coffee sediment as a body scrub and milk as a cleanser – the model Marie Helvin swears by it. The Spa Index website has plenty of recipes.

8. Get free cosmetics. Ayton Online Research recruits volunteers to trial new ranges before they hit the shops. The products have already been declared safe, and are not tested on animals; the companies just want consumer feedback before launch.

9. Make lipstick go further by using a lip brush - not only does it last longer because you apply thinner and more even layers, but also you can get right down to the bottom of the lipstick containers.

10. Don’t throw away nail varnish just because it’s got a bit clotted, simply immerse the bottle up to its neck in a cup full of nearly boiling water for a few minutes, this will make the varnish runny again. And nail varnish is very handy if you get a run in your tights. If the run has not reached the knee yet, then paint over the very top of it and that will stop it ripping any further.

11. People tend to throw away bottles and tubes of expensive products because they think they can’t squeeze any more out. However, if you cut open the bottom with a clean Stanley knife there’s normally enough left for a few more applications.

12. Instead of buying chapsticks, the lanolin normally used for cracked nipples is a good substitute and costs £9.95 for a 56-gram tube. Put it on at night before going to bed and wake up with lovely smooth lips, but you can also decant small amounts into re-usable, travel size containers for use instead of lip balm.

13. Get over your vanity and stop using contact lenses. Wearing glasses saves money on solutions for permanent lenses, but also prevents big bills for disposable ones – a year’s supply of lenses can cost up to £300. Get in one month’s supply of disposable lenses for those special occasions when you don’t want to wear specs.

14. Chuck the gym subscription and get outdoors by joining the Ramblers, or volunteering for environmental projects.

Clothing

15. Before throwing away what at first appear to be worn or broken shoes, take them to a cobblers and see if they can be rescued. A good quality pair of leather shoes can often be re-soled for under £10.

16. Don’t buy clothes that can only be dry cleaned, check the label before you purchase as it’s a waste of money buying a £50 dress that will cost £8 each time it needs cleaning. Also, check that the clothes you are sending to the dry cleaners really do need that service.

17. Get a free wardrobe by organising clothes swap parties, or if you do not fancy the idea of hosting a party go online to the website What’s Mine is Yours. There’s a good mix of vintage items, designer and high street brands that the owner is bored of, as well as plenty of accessories.

18. When it comes to trainers, if your feet are size five or below check the children’s section of sportswear shops. Often they have the same designs, but VAT free, making them cheaper. For the smaller framed, children’s sections are also good for basics including plain t-shirts, socks and tights.

Food

19. Learn how to cook in bulk, therefore cutting out expensive ready meals. A Thai chicken curry with at least four servings can cost as little as £5 to make. Freeze the other three servings for later use. The same goes for stews, chillies and pasta sauces, all cheap to make in bulk quantities that can then be frozen in individual portions.

20. The obvious one, but worth repeating, is to bring your own sandwiches to work. Even a plain cheese sandwich from a supermarket can cost £1.50, for 50p more you can make a week’s worth.

21. Don’t be afraid of the money off shelf in supermarkets - buy fresh food, meat or fish near it's expiry date at a reduced price, then freeze it.

22. For basic food items, such as tinned tomatoes, kidney beans, rice, pasta etc, buy non-branded. There’s very little in the taste when mixed into a curry or chilli.

23. Watch out for Buy One Get One Free deals on non-perishable goods like toothpaste, toilet rolls and stock up as much as you can, budget permitting. This is especially cost effective for the average family who will get through many of these items in one month.

24. Get a teapot! When making a round of tea instead of putting a tea bag into each cup put two in a pot and let it brew for five minutes. The tea will be just as strong as if you had used one bag per cup.

25. Grow your own food. You don’t need an allotment to grow a few staple vegetables and herbs, just enough outside space to house some reasonably sized planters.

26. If you do buy fresh herbs and find it hard to get through a whole bunch, instead of throwing what’s left away make frozen stock cubes. Finely chop the herbs, put them in an ice cube tray and cover with oil. Put the tray in the freezer. When frozen, pop out the cubes and place them in a freezer bag for easier storage. Next time you need herbs for soups; pastas, etc. add a cube to your recipe and warm.

27. Last night’s meal can make a great tomorrow’s lunch by using the left over vegetables as ingredients. The Frugal Cook and Teri’s Kitchen both provide some excellent recipes.

28. Shoppers are often dismissive of money off coupons, but even if they wipe just £2 off the weekly shop, over a few months you will have saved enough to pay a bill.

29. Make the effort to find a green grocers or market to buy fruit and vegetables from rather than supermarkets - it can be up to 50 per cent cheaper and it doesn’t come in loads of unnecessary packaging.

30. Using pans with lids reduces cooking time, therefore reduces energy consumption. Also, turn the gas/electricity off ten minutes before you normally would, the heat from the stovetop will finish off cooking the food.

31. Instead of buying special freezer bags – simply re-use the plastic bags that bread or fruit come in. The same goes for Tupperware – just wash out the plastic pots that formerly housed soup, yogurt etc.

Transport & holidays

32. The most economical, and environmentally friendly, form of transport is a bike. But, if you can’t or are unwilling to give up your car then learn the basics about engines, so you don’t waste money taking it to the garage to have sparkplugs changed. Also, keep the tyres in good condition as this helps reduce fuel consumption.

33. When taking your car for an MOT use a local council test centre rather than a private garage. The council centres do not offer repairs and therefore have no vested interest in failing your motor. Contact your local council for details of your nearest centre.

34. If you use public transport to travel to work check if you’re employer runs a season ticket loan scheme. Often you can borrow the lump sum needed for a season ticket, with repayments coming out of your salary with no interest charged.

35. Making your own sandwiches and flasks of hot drinks for train journeys is the best way to save money when travelling, but should you forget or not have time then the next best thing is to apply for a Bite card which gives a 20 per cent discount on food bought at stations.

36. Be a bit more adventurous with your holidays and save money at the same time. Instead of booking a hotel, sign up to a hospitality exchange websites, such as CouchSurfing.com and HospitalityClub.org, that allow members to offer a few nights accommodation on a spare bed or sofa. All users have a profile page stating what they can offer and when, with information on themselves and comments – de facto references – from other members.

37. See if upgrading your bank account can help cancel out the cost of travel insurance. Many of the big banks encourage customers to upgrade, at a small charge, by offering incentives such as free holiday and mobile phone insurance, as well as discounts on theatre and gig tickets. For example, Royal Bank of Scotland’s Royalties Gold account costs £12 per month but included is free annual travel insurance for customers and their partners, mobile phone insurance, ticket discounts, holiday and flight discounts and id theft cover.

General Expenses

38. Get cashback on your internet purchases through the website Quidco. It gives between 5 and 20 per cent back on every transaction you make through its site, and if you’re making big purchases like car insurance, it does add up.

39. Check whether it’s cheaper to buy medicine over the counter rather than putting in a prescription. Many commonly prescribed medications, including painkillers, allergy tablets and dermatology creams, are also available over the counter without prescription. Often it's much cheaper just to buy them this way, rather than paying the £6.85 flat prescription charge.

40. Cut down on the number of magazines you buy by organising a magazine share with work colleagues. Everyone agrees to buy one favourite title each month, and when finished with brought in for others to read. This also works with books.

41. Get a piggy bank for all your 1, 2 and 5p pieces. If ever you get any in your change, when you empty out your pockets automatically put the shrapnel in there. Amazing how quickly they add up and many supermarkets have change machines that will swap the coins for notes for a small charge.

42. Re-gifting is a good way to pass on an unwanted present and save cash. Next time you’re given a gift that is not to your taste, simply smile, say thank you and store it in a cupboard. It may seem mean, but it’s better to hand the item to someone else (obviously not in the same friendship group or family) then leave it gathering dust.

43. Trade your skills. Need a bit of plastering done but don’t want to pay out large amounts of cash? Well find out if there’s a plasterer who needs your skills and swap jobs. The website Team Up Here is a good way to network.

44. The idea of swapping skills is a good one to apply to weddings. Instead of asking for presents, ask friends and family to contribute their time or talent by helping to organise elements of the wedding. For example, instead of ordering expensive table decorations and party favourites, get friends to assemble them. Are any of your friends in a band, or can DJ? Then get them to be the entertainment. It can even be as simple as asking people to bring a cake with them so that you don’t have to provide desert.

45. Use common sense when using a credit card – would it be cheaper to pay for the item with cash? Credit cards can be useful for big purchases that you can’t afford to pay for in one go, but do you really need to put a £20 pair of shoes on a card? By putting many smallish items on a card, soon it amounts to a big bill for which you are then charged interest.

Home

46. When it comes to energy bills, you can save a surprising amount by insulating your loft, using energy saving lightbulbs and putting down draught excluders. Look at the Energy Saving Trust's website.

47. Before buying a new sofa or bed frame, check out the second-hand options. There’s the free cycle website but also seek out charity shops that sell furniture and salvage yards for building materials.

48. Think about where you’re renting. These days many homeowners are looking to rent a spare room to help with the mortgage and it can work out cheaper than going through an agency. Also, consider the different types of accommodation on offer. Going for the popular Victorian conversion will mean you pay a premium price. However, if you are more flexible, renting a room on a canal boat, in a former council property or accommodation above a shop, can help reduce costs.

49. If you do have a spare room, want some spare cash but don’t want a lodger under your feet then take a look at the Monday to Friday renting agency. The agency specialises in matching homeowners with lodgers who only need a bed during the week.

50. Save money on computer software by going through the OpenOffice website rather than purchasing Microsoft’s version. Open Office is a free, professional open-source downloadable office suite of programs, including writer, calc, impress, draw and base, which are the equivalents of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Paint and Access. And it is all compatible with documents written and drawn up with the main Microsoft Office programs.

Ten shares that went from hero to zero

2009-05-18T01:45:00.001-07:00

After bringing you the shares that could have made you a millionaire, Times Money takes a look at some stocks that did the exact opposite.

These are the companies that destroyed wealth at a fantastic rate: the heroes that went to zero.

1. Maxwell Communication Corporation.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s this company, formerly known as BPCC, was one of the world's largest media groups. But the sudden and mysterious death of Robert Maxwell, its founder and chairman, who was found floating near his yacht in November 1991, triggered an examination of the company's finances, which were found to be in a disastrous state. It turned out that the company was insolvent and did not have enough money to repay its creditors, let alone shareholders.

The fall and rise of Robert Maxwell, 1983

2. Polly Peck.

Asil Nadir, a flamboyant Turkish Cypriot entrepreneur, took a controlling stake in the former textile company in 1980. Over the next 10 years he built up a conglomerate that was worth £1.7 billion at its peak, with a hand in everything from fruit and vegetables to electronics.
The alarm bells started ringing in 1990 after the Serious Fraud Office mounted a raid on one of Nadir's companies. The share price collapsed and dealing in Polly Peck shares was suspended in September 1990 and the Polly Peck Group was placed in administration in 1991. Asil Nadir left the UK while still facing charges of theft and false accounting and took refuge in Northern Cyprus.

Tempus: Polly Peck, February 1985

3. Marconi

Formerly known as GEC when it was a pillar of British industry, Marconi moved sharply away from the "safe and steady" route it had taken under the late Lord Weinstock and started to involve itself in more speculative technology investments as the dot.com bubble gathered pace in the late 1990s.

In September 2001 Lord Simpson, Marconi's chief executive, revealed that the company had lost hundreds of millions of pounds in the space of a few months. Marconi shares, worth more than £12 at one point, lost 99 per cent of their previous value, leaving investors virtually penniless.

Obituary: Marconi, master of wireless development, 1937

4. British & Commonwealth

This former stock market star, which encompassed everything from shipping to financial services, was brought down by an unwise acquisition.

In 1988 B&C bought Atlantic Computers, only to find, a year later, that it was leaking money at an alarming rate. Despite writing off more than £550m and putting Atlantic into receivership in 1990, B&C was not able to save itself and threw in the sponge a few months later.

First AGM of the British & Commonwealth Shipping Company Limited, 1956

5. Coloroll

Another casualty of the early 1990s, Coloroll, the furnishings business, had been a beneficiary of the consumer boom of the eighties, but, like B&C, came unstuck partly through an unwise purchase. In this case it was the acquisition of John Crowther, a textile business, in 1988.

The purchase proved costly and this, together with the onset of the recession and the collapse in the housing market at the end of the 1980s, led to Coloroll calling in the receiver in 1990. By a strange coincidence both Coloroll's chairman, John Ashcroft, and B&C's chief executive, John Gunn, had won the Guardian Young Businessman of the Year award.

Flowery future for wallpaper, 1981

6. Enron

The collapse of this US energy giant sent shock waves through America. In just 15 years the company had grown to become the seventh-largest in the US and Kenneth Lay, the companyâ€™s chairman, was a personal friend of President Bush. When it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2001 it triggered a major re-examination of the creative accounting techniques which had enabled it to exaggerate its profits and disguise its debts.

7. Boo.com

A classic victim of the bursting of the dot.com bubble, Boo.com was originally set up to sell fashion clothing over the internet. However after burning up vast amounts of cash and suffering big problems with its website, Boo.com was placed in receivership in May 2000.

8. Northern Rock

This former building society floated as a public company back in 1997. For some years its aggressive business model pleased investors. However, its heavy reliance on funding from the money markets, rather than retail savers, led to a spectacular collapse last year when the credit crunch started to bite.

Its share price plunged from a high of more than Â£12 to just 90p this February, before trading in the shares was suspended after the Government took the company into temporary private ownership. It is not certain how much money, if any, shareholders will receive in compensation.

Save safe with Northern Rock, 1980

9. Jarvis

The company is involved in building and maintenance work for the rail networks but its profits have been hit hard by cost overruns. Over the past ten years the value of its shares has fallen by 99.8 per cent.

10. Millwall Holdings

"No one likes us - we don't care" is the favoured chant of Millwall supporters, but it might equally be applied to the shares of the football club. The club was floated as a public company back in 1989, with many supporters showing their loyalty by buying a few shares. However their loyalty has not been rewarded. Over the past 10 years the club's shares have fallen in value by 98 per cent.

Millwall level with 30-year-old record, 1966

The 10 most bungled robberies ever

2009-05-18T01:44:00.003-07:00

Earlier this year Money Central bought you the 10 most infamous heists. But what about the less successful attempts at robbery? From a pregnant woman in rubber gloves to cousins robbing their family’s post office, there have been many unlikely – and unsuccessful – criminals. Here are Times Money’s top 10 bungled robberies from around the world.

1. “Macclesfield’s dumbest”

England 2008: Mark Ridgeway – a man branded as one of "Macclesfield’s dumbest" burglars by a local police officer – has been the infamous perpetrator of two bungled robberies.

Last year Ridgeway broke into a campsite in Adlington, Lancashire, where his accomplice scribbled his name on the wall for all to see. On that occasion, he was caught by police fleeing while wearing a stolen T-shirt.

The following year, he used a crowbar to break into his mother’s house. But according to the Macclesfield Express: “The brazen burglar paused to steal food and prepare himself a buttie before fleeing with more than £150 cash... leaving incriminating fingerprints everywhere.” Ridgeway later pleaded guilty to the charge of burglary of a dwelling.

2. Bread rolls

Australia 2008: A man and woman in Melbourne were sent to jail earlier this year for the attempted robbery of the Cuckoo restaurant at Olinda - appropriately carried out last April Fool's Day.

Benjamin Jorgensen, 38, stole a bag he thought contained $30,000, but in fact contained only bread rolls. During the hold-up he shot his accomplice, 36-year-old Donna Hayes, in the buttock.

Both pleaded guilty to armed robbery. Victorian County Court Judge Williams told the hearing the robbery was a complete fiasco and the two were a pair of fools.

3. Goodfella wannabes

USA 1992: A mechanic and a security guard from New York decided to rob their local convenience store after being inspired by Goodfellas, the gangster film (pictured above). However, the owner of the store instantly recognised the men, who brandished a BB gun and made off with just $75 before making their getaway in a car belonging to one of the men’s sister. Police waited for the men at their home, where they were arrested after their red Volare drove up containing the $75 loot.

"It wasn't the detective work of the century," acknowledged Detective Kenneth Meyer of the Eighth Precinct.

4. Rubber gloves

USA 2008: Last month a 20-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of robbing Titusville Credit Union. A woman disguised with a baseball cap, rubber gloves and sunglasses went into the union and attempted a robbery – but police soon caught up with her and she was arrested.

Incredibly, witnesses said that the woman was heavily pregnant and had left a toddler in the car while she allegedly committed the crime.

5. Electric shock

China 2006: The robbery of a power supply office in the Jiangsu Province went horribly wrong for two criminals after one of them decided to urinate on a mains switch on his way out, causing burns and electric shock. A duty officer at the office called police, who took the injured man to hospital and the other into custody.

6. Asda stick up

England 2008: Ryan Eddison, 21, was described in court as a "low level criminal who was completely out of his league" after trying to hold up a security van containing £75,000 at an Asda store in Rawtenstall, Lancashire.

In full view of shoppers, the security van driver was able to set off the emergency alarm, which lead to the Eddison and his accomplice fleeing in their stolen getaway car. The vehicle was then torched and abandoned – but the fire went out, leaving the men’s fingerprints in tact. Eddison was sentenced to four years in prison.

7. Keeping it in the family

Scotland 2008: Two cousins who robbed a post office owned by their family were described as “comic” by prosecuters in court. "To rob one's relative's post office in broad daylight in front of numerous witnesses in a small town like Tranent where everyone knew or recognised him almost beggars belief," Simon Collins told the High Court in Edinburgh.

The men had pounced on the post office’s security guard one morning, as he was delivering £20,000 of Sterling and Euro banknotes to the shop. But they did not realise a nearby resident had spotted them donning their balaclavas and had alerted police. The pair were later caught and jailed for a total of seven and a half years.

8. Black wig

USA 2008: At least the perpetrator of this failed robbery attempted to disguise himself. Huy Trong Luong, 39, of Jersey City, donned a black wig, sunglasses, a black Dolce & Golbana hat, women's make-up and a black jacket for a series of bank robberies – seven of which were successful.

He was eventually caught after a bungled attempt to rob a bank in Chatham, when police pulled over his getaway minivan to discover the offending disguise on the backseat.

9. “Hand the muny over”

Scotland 2006: A man who robbed a Glasgow bookmakers with a plastic bottle in a rolled-up newspaper committed a "a particularly ill-thought out" offence, his defending lawyer admitted in court.

Jason Kelly targeted the bookies in an area where he was well known. After handing over a note to the cashier with the words "Hand the muny over. Theel be no trouble," he walked away with £450 before being caught moments later in a nearby street, with the money in his pocket.

10. Drug loot

US 2008: A Californian couple rang the police to report that they had been robbed at gunpoint in their own home. When the police asked what was stolen the pair listed 65 marijuana plants, nearly three kilos of the drug itself and a shotgun. Unsurprisingly, the couple, who had three outstanding warrants, were arrested.

The 50 weirdest terms of financial jargon – and what they actually mean

2009-05-18T01:44:00.002-07:00

Flummoxed by front-end loading? Bamboozled by bridging? Don’t know if your cap is split or your asset orphaned?

Here is Times Money’s alternative guide, for anyone who blushes at the mention of cum-dividends, or thinks churning is something that only happens to dairy products.

1. AER – Annual Equivalent Rate refers to the actual rate of interest you will receive on savings and current accounts after a year. It is different to the gross rate because the AER takes into account how frequently the interest is applied. Daily is better than monthly, because of the effects of compounding. It is useful to know, because most accounts have a bonus rate for a few months, which is later replaced by more bog-standard rewards.

2. Amortisation – It sounds like something to do with death, and in fact, it is. It is to do with the depreciation of intangible assets, or alternatively, the process by which the decrease in value of an asset is calculated, ie. The intangible bit is important. Tangible assets, like Volvos, depreciate. Intangible assets, like a patent or brand, amortise.

3. Annuity – Not something that young people need to worry about, but anyone approaching or already in retirement definitely needs to care about these, because they will have to buy one. Annuities are Government-enforced income plans that you must buy with your pension to provide you with an income. They are enforced because people over a certain age cannot be trusted not to squander their retirement pots in one go, on things like round the world cruises or expensive drumkits. The Government doesn’t want this to happen because it would then be forced to pay out more state pension money.

4. APR – like AER, only it means the amount of interest you will pay on mortgages, loans and credit cards. You want a nice a low one. Mortgage lenders will quote a headline interest rate which lasts for a set time period, then a (usually much higher) APR, which is what you would pay if you stayed on that mortgage for the full term. If you thought that only dullards did not know what an APR was, note that 71 per cent of 16-18 year olds recently questioned thought that a high APR was a good attribute on a credit card. This does not necessarily disprove the point.

5. Bear – Not the grizzly kind. A way of describing the stock market or an attitude towards the economic outlook. Describing someone as bearish does not mean they are large and hairy, it means that they have a cautious and conservative outlook, and are more inclined to be pessimistic. A bear market is characterised by falling share prices and poor returns. Bear times are bad times.

6. Beta - Inexplicably, beta, in the finance world, measures the volatility of a share relative to other markets and is nothing to do with them being second rate, as Greek etymologists might assume. Something that has a beta of more than 1 is more volatile than other shares in the index, while something with a beta less than 1 is considered relatively stable. Risk-takers like betas. Buying a beta is the stock-market equivalent of magic mushrooms - you never know whether you will end up higher or lower.

7. Bonds Bonds is a restaurant in the heart of the City of London where top bankers meet, as well as a famous Australian underwear manufacturer. The term also refers to something altogether less exciting, a type of investment where the investor lends money to a company for a period of more than one year that is then repaid at a specified time, with interest. If it helps: Bonds are good, ie James Bond, but bills are bad, ie. Bill Clinton, an economics teacher once said. Bonds are not always good, however. They are safer than buying shares, but they do not have the potential to make you higher returns. They are for people who do not like surprises.

8. Bridging – A bridge is a structure spanning and providing passage over a gap or barrier, such as a river or roadway. It is also the upper bony ridge of the human nose. In finance however, bridging is a type of loan that provides short-term funding before long-term funding is secure. This could be particularly relevant if you are building your own house or setting up a business because this is what lenders are likely to offer if they don’t trust you completely, but think you might be on to something.

9. Bull - The opposite of bear. A bull market is strong, aggressive and opportunistic. Being bullish in the City is a good thing. It basically means optimistic about the outlook.

10. CAT – Short for catastrophe bond. These are issued by insurance companies to raise finance in the event of a catastrophe. Dead cats can also be bounced, according to stock market investors (see below).

11. Churning – Anchor butter does it to milk, but in finance, this refers to a fairly mercenary practice by stockbrokers and IFAs, whereby they buy and sell stocks for clients in large volumes frequently to make more money in commission. In business, a churn rate also refers to the attrition of customers. A high churn rate therefore means lots of new business coming in and going out, while a low one means customers stay put.

12. Compound Interest – There is no better illustration of the benefits of compound interest, which basically means earning interest on interest already paid, than here

13. Cum dividend – The word is latin for “with”, hence cum-dividend, benignly, relates to a share sale made close to the time that the dividend is due to be paid out that will still be eligible for the dividend. Nice if you can get it.

14. Dead cat bounce – Don't call the RSPCA, the bounce refers to a stock market phenomenon, where a temporary recovery in the market follows a long and pronounced period of decline. What this has to do with dead cats is unclear.

15. Endowment – If your mortgage broker says you are well-endowed, don’t slap him across the face straight away – he could be commenting on the performance of your mortgage investment vehicle. Endowments are investments that were originally sold alongside mortgages that are designed to grow in value by enough over the period to pay off the loan. They also provide some life insurance cover to the holder. However, endowments have a black mark against them, after a big misselling scandal left many homeowners without enough to pay off their mortgage.

16. Equity – another way of saying value, for instance, of a home or share. With homes, it relates to only that part which represents debt-free value. It also means impartial and fair, although these attributes do not necessarily apply.

17. Ex-dividend – Not a perk of divorce, a share sold ex-dividend means that the buyer is not entitled to any recent dividend payments on the share and has to wait until next time around. Thus, shares sold ex-dividend are often a bit cheaper than their cum-dividend cousins.

18. Front-end loading – In a lad’s mag, this could mean all sorts of things that have no place in a financial glossary. What it actually refers to, however, is the fee that advisers lump onto a mutual fund or insurance policy at the time they sell it to you, meaning you end up with a smaller investment at the beginning. Advisers argue it is the cost of their expertise, but the jury is very much out about whether loading is a good thing.

19. Future – Buying a future means entering into a contract to buy an asset at a certain time at its future selling price. It’s a bit of a gamble, since no one knows what that future price will be. Future traders would find one of these useful.

20. Gearing – It sounds like something Jeremy Clarkson might talk about, but it is actually just another word to describe borrowing. However with gearing, the borrowing is done expressly for the purpose of investing more. Investment trusts gear, for example.

21. Gilt – Gold-edging is not just an interior design feature. A gilt is also another word for a Government bond, also known as a risk-free bond, because when you are the Government and you owe people cash when their bonds mature, you can just print more.

22. Gross – Can describe slugs, eels and ugly people kissing. It also means amount received before tax is paid. For instance, your gross income will always be startlingly higher than your net income – by around 30 per cent in the UK according to one study. Much better to live in Dubai, where net income is only 5 per cent lower than gross, on average. Same applies to gross interest.

23. Hedging – Nothing to do with green leafy boundaries and everything to do with funds and betting. Hedging means taking two positions that will offset each other if prices change and so limiting financial risk. In Roulette, the ultimate hedge bet is putting your money on both red and black, however this is pointless and bound to lose half your money. Hedge fund managers are far more clever than that.

24. Illiquid – On the liquidity scale, think of cash as water and things like houses as rocks. Liquid assets are those which can be accessed easily to buy other things, Illiquid assets are harder to turn into ready money than things like cash and cheques.

25. Intestacy – A mistake Paul McCartney would definitely not have made. This means dying without a will, and is a big no-no for anyone with rich with a big family who do not get on. If you die intestate, then everything automatically goes to the next of kin, which can obviously cause major family rifts if the next of kin is a loathed step-mother or sibling.

26. Junk bond – These offer high interest but are high risk. The lyrics to this song should help you remember.

27. Leverage – A word that will provoke a wince from investment bankers right now, leveraging is the main reason that banks across the world are in so much trouble. It means borrowing to complete a transaction. Private equity houses do a lot of it when they buy out a company. The problem now is that since the credit crunch, no one trusts anyone to pay back the money they borrow. The general view is that too much leveraging has been going on and that banks are now at risk.

28. Liabilities – People running around with scissors, Britney Spears, and also debts. A liability is anything you owe to someone else. If you are in debt, the phrase “I have a few liabilities” sounds less controversial, if a bit silly.

29. LTV – If mortgage lenders owned their own Sky channel, this is what they would call it. It means loan-to-value, and is the maximum proportion of a property’s value that a lender is willing to lend on. High LTVs are for people who have not saved up much, and come with higher interest rates. Low LTVs come with much lower rates, but require big deposits of 30 per cent of the property’s value. A real headache for first-time buyers. It looks like mortgage TV is only one step away.

30. Margin – This is the difference between costs and revenue and basically means the amount of profit. Obviously, you want a nice big one, like him.

31. Mutual – Is a lovely word that conjures up all sorts of feelings of warmth and reciprocity, which is arguably why building societies, which are mutual, are apparently so well liked. A mutual company does not have shareholders. Instead, it shares out profits between its customers, or “members”. If you couldn't care less about mutual values, what you want is a demutualisation. This gives you a taste of what it must feel like to win the lottery, because you could get a nice big cash windfall.

32. NAV – Nothing to do with Satellite Navigation systems or these boys, a NAV is the Net Asset Value of a mutual fund share. This is calculated by subtracting a mutual fund’s liabilities from its assets.

33. Negative equity – Lots of people who took out mortgages for 100 per cent or more of the value of their properties are in danger of this, which translates as losing money on your house. During times when house prices are falling, more homeowners are at risk of this. So expect to hear lots about negative equity in coming months then, if this forecast comes true.

34. Net – simply means amount of money left after tax is paid. Usually looks pitiful when compared with your gross salary.

35. Nominal – means a value not adjusted to take account of inflation. Inflation is pretty high at the moment, and looks set to carry on rising, so nominal values should basically be ignored, as they might lead you to think that something is worth more than it actually is.

36. OEIC - pronounced OIK, like the word that tweedy men use to describe teenagers who play music on their iPods loudly in public. OEIC stands for an Open-ended investment company, which invests in other companies. It is open-ended because it can increase or decrease the amount of shares in issue at will.

37. Option – Unimaginatively titled, an option is a contract that gives a share buyer the right to buy or sell a stock at a given price until a specific date. Yet another way of making the stock market more interesting and lucrative. Do you ever get the feeling that city boys just make stuff up as they go along?

38. Orphan - The rather tragically-named orphan assets are so-called because they are the unclaimed pots of cash built up by with-profits funds, to which no-one is really entitled. What to do with these assets has become the subject of controversy. Can companies hold on to them to boost balance sheets or should they divide the spoils between policyholders and shareholders?

39. PEP – This stands for Personal Equity Plan. They are the O-levels of the tax efficient investment world - you can’t get them anymore – they were replaced by Isas in 1999, but some people still have them. Like Isas, they were designed as a tax-efficient way of investing in the stock market.

40. Preference – We all have them, but in finance, a preference is naturally more complicated than, say, favouring tea over coffee. A preference share is one which pays a fixed rate of interest. So, like insurance, it is only actually preferential in the bad times. They are lower risk than normal shares because if a company goes bust, then preference shareholders will be at the front of the queue for payouts. Good news, if you have preferential shares in Northern Rock, perhaps. But this rarely happens. On the downside, if a company does well, preference shareholders will not benefit as much as normal ones, who will receive bigger returns.

41. Price-earnings ratio – a company’s current share price compared to its earnings per share. That obviously still means nothing. So just remember that a high one means investors are expecting higher earnings growth in the future, whereas a low one is more pessimistic. Only compare the PE ratios of companies in the same industry.

42. Redemption – Hedonists and erring Christians seek it, and so do investors who want the money they put in bonds or shares back, thank you very much.

43. Scrip – It sounds cooler than it is. A way of paying something via a means other than money. Scrips are things like gift tokens, points and tickets that act as a subsititute for cash.

44. Sipp – SIPP stands for Self-Invested Personal Pension. In the pensions world, these are sexy. They are the Agent Provocateur lingerie of pensions, compared with other more Spanx-like products, such as stakeholders. This is because they are more flexible, as well as more expensive. They look prettier, because you can put things like your art collection in them. Pension advisers get very excited about these because they can make lots of money from selling them to you, but this doesn’t mean you should. Only those who think Agent Provacateur lingerie is a bargain need apply.

45. Split-cap – Can lead to pregnancy in another context, but investors are more likely to assume you are talking about a type of investment trust that splits capital growth from income. A full definition would take a while, but there is one here. A horrible misselling scandal in 2004 meant that they became as unpopular for a while, but there are reports that they are beginning to regain popularity.

46. Stagging – Where two male deer lock antlers? No. It describes the act of buying a share at its initial public offering price and selling it on immediately for a profit. It is also called flipping. Honestly, who invents these words?

47. Stagflation – The English language just keeps on giving. Stagflation describes an economic period of high inflation, low growth, rising unemployment and recession. The word comes from the marriage of stagnation and inflation, apparently. Expect to hear this word more often from taxi drivers and economists when debating whether the Bank of England should cut interest rates.

48. Serps – Not a sexually transmitted disease, SERPs was the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme set up provide a second pension income, on top of the basic state pension, for people who did not have occupational schemes. The system has now been replaced by the State Second Pension, or S2P, which is the Government’s way of making pension savings sound cool. Unfortunately however, it sounds too much like Y2K – the millennium computer bug that sparked fears of Armageddon, to ever go down well.

49. Underwriter – A company that stumps up the money behind insurance policies. These people have extraordinary power in society, because they can work out things like when you are likely to die.

50. Wind-up – It means something else to humourists, and Jeremy Beadle. In the world of money, it means when a company ceases activity with a view to shutting down altogether. It can also refer to a way of ending a pension scheme, or a relationship, if you want to dump someone: "I'd like to wind things up with you", should do the trick, or alternatively, do what this guy did. It's time to do that here too.

The 10 home improvements that add most value

2009-05-18T01:44:00.001-07:00

Are you thinking of building an extension or buying a new kitchen to help boost the value of your home? Well, you better think again. Research published this week suggests the vast majority of home improvements are now unlikely to add more value to your home than the cost of the upgrade in the first place. The study by Abbey, which questioned 100 estate agents, indicates that the only financially worthwhile home improvement is a lick of paint.

Here is the cost of 10 common home improvements and the value that they will add.

Type of home improvement	Average value added	Average cost of improvement	Net value added
Extension	£13,568	£33,800	-£23,232
New kitchen	£4,894	£18,700	-£13,806
Conservatory	£6,236	£20,000	-£13,764
Solar panels	£1,028	£12,500	-£11,472
Loft conversion	£13,038	£22,600	-£9,562
Garage	£7,971	£14,000	-£6,029
New bathroom	£2,892	£7,700	-£4,808
New windows	£3,092	£6,700	-£3,608
Landscape garden	£2,060	£2,500	-£440
Painting and decorating	£3,557	£1,330	+£2,227

The world's 10 wealthiest politicians

2009-05-18T01:42:00.001-07:00

If you have been sickened by media mentions of Lord Mandelson's £2.4 million townhouse and £1 million European Union pay-off, consider that his wealth is nothing compared to the fortunes of really wealthy politicians. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger's hundreds of millions do not make our list...

1 Suleiman Kerimov - $17.5 billion

The far-right Russian senator from Dagestan struck it rich as a stakeholder in Gazprom, Russia's gas export company, and Sberbank, Eastern Europe's largest bank. Kerimov, 42, made news in 2006 when he was seriously injured after losing control of his Ferrari on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. His passenger, Playboy covergirl Tina Kandelaki, suffered minor injuries

2 Michael Bloomberg - $11.5 billion

The 66-year-old independent mayor of New York City made his billions from sales of stockmarket-tracking systems and later the Bloomberg newswire and related services after he was fired from Salomon Brothers, the investment bank, with a $10 million severance package in 1981. He has donated more than $1.4 billion to good causes and draws $1 a year for his work as mayor

3 Serge Dassault - $9.9 billion

The French aviation mogul is a member of Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party, a senator, and mayor of Corbeil-Essonnes in Paris. He inherited Groupe Dassault from his father Marcel, who was deported to Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944 for his refusal to collaborate with the Nazis. In 1998, Dassault Jr. was given a two-year suspended sentence for corruption in the Agusta scandal

4 Silvio Berlusconi - $9.4 billion

Italy's larger-than-life prime minister (pictured, above) is weathering the crunch well - reportedly purchasing a 30-room neo-classical villa on Lake Maggiore and doubling the size of his Villa San Martino outside Milan. The super-magnate, who owns much of the country's media and AC Milan football club, laid the foundations of his fortune as a property developer during the late 1960s

5 Aburizal Bakri - $9.2 billion

The chief welfare minister of Indonesia inherited control of the vast Bakrie Group from his father, a partisan of Suharto. He ran into controversy in 2006 when drilling by a Bakrie-controlled oil and gas outfit allegedly triggered a mudslide which displaced thousands. He has been branded the "national avatar of government by conflict of interest" in the Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus

6 Rinat Akhmetov - $7.3 billion

A member of parliament for Ukraine's opposition, Rinat Akhmetov is also his country's wealthiest tycoon, with a massive coal and steel empire. Last year he founded the Foundation for Effective Governance to support economic development in Ukraine, counting Shimon Peres, the Nobel Laureate, and Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist, among speakers at its launch

7 Andrei Molchanov - $4 billion

The 37-year-old construction baron is a member of Russia's upper house and the adopted son of Yury Molchanov, deputy governor of St Petersburg - himself a former university colleague of Vladimir Putin. In 2005, Molchanov Jr.'s company LSR Group controversially demolished a fine 18th century barracks in St Petersburg, after it was quietly de-listed by the city authorities

8 Gleb Fetisov - $3.9 billion

The third Russian senator on our list built his fortune trading commodities in the vast Alfa Group and remains a stakeholder in Altimo, Alfa's telcoms holding company. The latter is set for "aggressive" expansion in developing markets in Asia, such as Iran and Afghanistan. Holding a doctorate in economics from Moscow State University, Fetisov maintains a low media profile

9 Kostyantin Zhevago - $3.4 billion

A member of Ukraine's parliament and aide to prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the 34-year-old oligarch began his career as finance director of the bank Finance & Credit at 19. He has since acquired a control of the latter's holding company and plans to take the bank public by 2010. Last week, Zhevago was forced to sell 20 per cent of his mining venture Ferrexpo to clear a loan from JP Morgan

10 Saad Hariri - $3.3 billion

The son and political heir of assassinated Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri leads the Future Movement parliamentary majority in Beirut and heads Saudi Oger, the family's Riyadh-based construction, banking and telecoms empire. The graduate of Georgetown University in Washington DC lives amid ultra-tight security and is said to enjoy Cuban cigars and scuba diving

EXTRA: Three super-rich politicians who don't make the list...

Arnold Schwarzenegger - $200 million-plus

Hank Paulson - $700 million-plus

John Kerry - $230 million-plus

The 10 most decadent dictators

2009-05-18T01:42:00.000-07:00

A revolving gold statue, pink champagne and a "Pleasure Brigade" of nubile retainers all feature in Times Money's list of history's most decadent dictators. While their people suffered, these men - and sometimes their wives and children - agonised over how best to spend their ill-gotten gains...

1. Kim Jong-il, "Dear Leader" of North Korea since 1994. The son of the communist state's "Great Leader", Kim Jong-il has super-expensive tastes, with 17 palaces and collections of hundreds of cars and about 20,000 video tapes. On one state visit to Russia, he reportedly had live lobsters airlifted daily to his armoured private train. He is believed to spend around $650,000 a year on Hennessy VSOP cognac and maintains an entourage of young lovelies known as the "Pleasure Brigade"

2. Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippines, 1965 - 1986. The Second World War freedom-fighter turned kleptocrat secreted billions of dollars in overseas accounts. His wife Imelda, however, was the big spender, leaving 888 handbags and 1060 pairs of shoes in the Malacanang presidential palace when the family fled mob justice after Marcos was deposed. Her pricier purchases included the $51 million Crown Building and $61 million Herald Centre in New York and art by Michelangelo and Botticelli

3. Nicolae Ceausescu, President of Romania, 1967 - 1989. The "Genius of the Carpathians" was congratulated (by telegram) by Salvador Dali on his excesses, which included his use of a kingly sceptre. Despite an official salary of just $3,000, he found the cash for 15 palaces, a superb car collection, yachts, fine art and bespoke suits. Tens of thousands of homes were demolished to make space for his 1,100-room, 480-chandelier Palace of the Parliament in the capital, Bucharest

4. Saparmurat Niyazov, President of Turkmenistan, 1990 - 2006. The President for Life and "Turkmenbashi", or Father of all Turkmen, was at the centre of an awesome cult of personality. His vanity projects included a £6 million revolving gold-plated statue of himself in the country's capital, Ashgabat. He shifted around £3 billion to overseas accounts, renamed the month of January (after himself), banned beards and ordered that his musings be displayed alongside the Koran in mosques

5. Idi Amin, President of Uganda, 1971 - 1979. The "Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea", "Emperor of Uganda" and "King of Scotland" awarded himself the VC, or Victorious Cross, and CBE, or Conqueror of the British Empire. He also spent millions on a super-lavish lifestyle - maintaining a reported 30 mistresses as well as five wives and fathering at least 43 children. A typically mad-capped project was the creation of a personal bodyguard of bagpipe-playing 6ft 4in Scotsmen

6. Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, 1922 - 1953. The "Gardener of Human Happiness" and "Brilliant Genius of Humanity" was celebrated in his lifetime in thousands of stylised statues and monuments erected across the Soviet Union - many of which were moved or destroyed in later "de-Stalinisation" drives. He also had a taste for palaces, booze and cigars and preferred to travel by armour-plated private train with a Tsarist-style entourage

7. Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Persia, 1941 - 1979. The "King of Kings" and "Sun of the Aryans" spent a reported $100 million on celebrations for the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian monarchy in 1971, serving breast of peacock on Limoges china to dignitaries in a 160-acre tent city at Persepolis - close to poor villages. His superb collection of sports cars can be seen at the National Car Museum of Iran, alongside custom models by Mercedes-Benz and Porsche for his son, the Crown Prince

8. Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq, 1979 - 2003. The Baathist leader with a fondness for gold-plated bathroom fittings, and Kalashnikovs, rebuilt Babylon on kitsch rather than authentic lines, stamping each brick of the "reconstruction" with his own name in the manner of Nubachadnezzar, the ancient Babylonian king and conqueror of Jerusalem. His playboy eldest son Uday, meanwhile, kept a private zoo with lions and cheetahs at his Baghdad residence and owned a collection of 1,200 luxury cars

9. Mobutu Sese Soku, President of Zaire, 1965 - 1997. Siphoning his country's wealth into Swiss bank accounts was a speciality of the "All-Powerful Warrior", whose personal fortune was estimated at $5 billion in 1984 - then equivalent to Zaire's national debt. Mobutu's extravagances included palaces and pink champagne, yachts and shopping trips to Paris by chartered Concorde. His second wife Bobi Ladawa rivalled Imelda Marcos as a compulsive spender - with a reported 1,000-dress wardrobe

10. Suharto, President of Indonesia, 1967 - 1998. The former bank clerk embezzled more money than any other leader in history, according to Transparency International. In 1999, Time Asia put his family's wealth at $15 billion. Playboy son "Tommy" was the biggest-profile spender - lavishing money on cars and clothes and buying a majority stake in Lamborghini before a conviction for murder in 2002. Suharto's daughter "Tutut", meanwhile, spent $100,000 on one shopping flight to the US

The 10 most stupid taxes... ever

2009-05-18T01:41:00.000-07:00

Gordon Brown may have admitted recently that the 10 pence tax fiasco was a “mistake” that “stung” him, but such tax blunders are certainly nothing new. From the window tax of the 18th Century to the Poll tax of the 20th Century, history is littered with examples of bizarre, ill-thought out, rash, excessive or just plain stupid taxes. Sometimes governments just don't know best.

Here are Times Money’s top 10 most stupid taxes... ever.

1. Early 1000s: Heregeld

Lady Godiva's legendary ride naked through Coventry was perhaps one of the most effective anti-tax demonstrations in history. Her tyrannical husband, Earl Leofric, had imposed an oppressive tax called the Heregeld to pay for the King’s bodyguard.

After pleading with him to repeal the tax, Leofric replied: "You will have to ride naked through Coventry before I will change my ways". So Godiva took him at his word – after ordering the town to close all their windows and doors, she rode through the town with only her long golden hair as her cover. True to his word, Godiva’s husband repealed the hated tax.

2. 1773: Colonial taxes

The Boston Tea party was not a party, but a demonstration against the unfair taxation of colonies. The British Government gave the British East India Company, an English trade company, far more beneficial tax arrangements than its colonial competitors.

Demonstrators in Boston became particularly fed-up with this, and one night a group of protestors sneaked onboard a docked British East India Company ship and unloaded 45 tons of tea (worth an estimated £10,000 - that is about £953,000 today) into the sea. The event ultimately helped spark the American Revolution and the loss of America to the British Empire.

3. 1696: Window tax

Ever wondered why some old or listed buildings have their windows bricked up? When William III reigned, a new tax was imposed on houses with more than six windows to help pay for the wars in Ireland and on the continent. Homeowners with bricked up windows would have undoubtedly suffered dark rooms and poor ventilation but many considered that preferable to paying up. The tax was not repealed for 51 years.

4. 1995: Illegal drug tax (USA)

On January 1 2005, Tennessee joined 23 other states in imposing a tax for possession of illegal drugs. People who bought drugs had 48 hours to approach the Department of Revenue and pay tax. It was levied per gram - $3.50 for marijuana, $50 for cocaine, and $200 for meth and crack cocaine.

Drug buyers did not need to provide identification to pay the tax and it was illegal for revenue employees to report them. In just 18 months, Tennessee has collected nearly $2.7 million in revenue – although it is thought this came mainly from drug users who were arrested and found not to have paid the tax.

In July 2006, a judge decided the tax was unconstitutional and it was scrapped.

5. 1988: Removal of Mortgage Interest Relief

This was partly precipitated by a blunder by the then Chancellor, Nigel Lawson. In his budget, he announced that in less than five months time, he was ending double mortgage interest tax relief, which was a major subsidy to mortgage borrowers at the time.

This led to a surge of people buying a home to take advantage of the tax relief. One year later and interest rates had almost doubled to 15 per cent, crippling homeowners and leaving many facing repossession.

6. Late 1970s: The 98 per cent tax rate

During this period there was a 60 per cent top rate income tax and then an "investment income surcharge" of a further 15 per cent. There was no incentive to increase profits because virtually everything was taxed. It led to high levels of non-compliance and lots of avoidance, and was abolished by Nigel Lawson in 1984.

7. 1689: Tax incentives for gin production

Anyone familiar with Hogarth’s engraving, Gin Lane, will understand the implications of this tax blunder. William and Mary, the protestant monarchs who ruled between 1689 and 1702, discouraged the importation of brandy from the Catholic French and instead promoted the local production of gin by abolishing taxes and licensing fees.

Unfortunately, the affordability of gin made it a favourite drink of the poor, and soon lead to mass drunkenness, vice and poverty. Government attempts to reintroduce the tax only lead to a proliferation in the making of illegal - cheap and poor quality – gin. Finally, in 1751, the Tippling Act allowed for reasonable prices, taxes and regulation of production.

8. 1700s: Scottish whiskey tax

The Scottish government applied ever increasing rates of taxation on malt and whiskey in the early eighteenth century. Distillers were driven underground, making smuggling a standard practice for 150 years.

By 1777 only eight licensed distilleries were paying taxes, while 400 unregistered stills were thought to operate within Edinburgh alone. By the 1820's around 14,000 illicit stills were being confiscated every year - suggesting more than half the whisky consumed in Scotland was “illegal”. Finally, in 1823 the Excise Act was passed, which sanctioned the distilling of whisky in return for a license fee of £10. Smuggling died out almost completely over the next 100 years.

9. 1990: Poll tax

This hated tax, set by local authorities, ended up being much more expensive than first thought – and eventually up to 30 per cent of people in some areas refused to pay. This culminated in the poll tax riots – 200,000 protestors attended Trafalgar Square on March 31 1990 – and ultimately to the downfall of Margaret Thatcher. It was replaced by council tax in 1993.

10. 1783: Hat tax

Prime Minister William Pitt added an excise duty to hats in 1783, costing retailers £2 a year in London and 5 shillings in the country. Duty was collected by means of a stamped ticket fixed to the lining of the hat.

A national debate ensued about what forms of headgear were classed as a "hat" – so in 1804 the statutory definitions were recast to include every description of hat by whatever name it was known, and almost every material from which it could be made. It wasn't until 1811 that the tax was repealed.

List compiled by Lauren Thompson with thanks to Andrew Jupp and George Bull

The 10 most ridiculous fines of all time

2009-05-18T01:40:00.001-07:00

ITV was fined a record £5.7 million for misleading viewers over the conduct of phone-ins on its flagship programmes this week. But it is not just big companies that have to stump up cash in fine-happy Britain.

With an army of pettifogging bureaucrats policing your every move, you better think twice before you eat, talk, drive and even relax… the list is almost endless. Here we list ten ridiculous but true stories where the authorities have demonstrated their limited grasp of common sense…

1. Sausage rolls

A picnic in the park turned into an expensive event for Mum Sarah Davies, from Hull. While feeding her four-year-old daughter a piece of sausage roll fell to the ground. The missed-mouth incident was spotted by council wardens and Ms Davies was fined £75, even though pigeons immediately ate the evidence.

2. What a load of rubbish

With photographic evidence and stab-proof vests, Cumbria council’s bin police confronted Gareth Corkhill with the terrible crime of … putting too much rubbish in his bin. The father of four was given a whopping £210 fine, plus a £15 victim surcharge and he now has a criminal record.

3. Oops…

Litter lout Christopher Murphy dropped a single crisp packet on Irish soil and ended up in court with a 600 Euro (£480) fine. While the term litterbug is no doubt a bona fide insult, this is an example of where the fine perhaps doesn’t match the crime.

4. Trying to be creative

Pretty hearts and rainbows may seem innocent enough, except if you work for north Wales police. Two teenage girls from Bangor were charged £80 for "graffiti" after drawing chalk pictures on a pavement, Mary Poppins style, which were completely washed away by the rain soon after.

5. Keeping the kitchen tidy

Nowadays using a public bin can get you into trouble. Detectives hunted down pensioner John Richards from Lincolnshire after he carefully placed some household rubbish into a bin on a lamp post. They traced Mr Richards from an addressed envelope that was in with the kitchen scraps and accused him of fly-tipping, which attracts a fixed penalty of £75.

6. Putting your feet up

Getting comfy on a Chester-bound train can get you a criminal record. Babiker Fadol put his feet on a train seat and was arrested for anti-social behaviour, despite taking his feet down as soon as he was asked. After appearing at court charged under the 1889 Railway Regulations Act, he was forced to pay £50 and was given a criminal record.

7. Keen to help the environment?

You still won’t escape the wrath of Swansea’s eagle-eyed council officials. Michael Reeves made a grave mistake when he accidently left a piece of paper in a recycling bag reserved for glass. He was promptly taken to court and fined £200 and swears he’ll never recycle again.

8. A quick fag

Fancy a quick ciggie in your break? Think again if you’re in the taxi trade. A lone fag cost cab driver Alan Cross £715. Mr Cross was spotted smoking a cigarette in his taxi by a Thurrock Council Enforcement Officer. The matter went to court and he was slapped with £300 of fines, £400 in costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

9. Defrosting the car on a winter morning

One cold winter morning Ken Hardman from Lancashire nipped outside to his car, turned the engine on to defrost the windscreen and then returned inside to wait. A local police officer charged him with "quitting" (leaving a car unattended with the engine on) and fined him £30.

10. Answering a phone call safely

Unlucky Nick Tubbs was fined £120 for the crime of ... speaking to his mum on the phone. He was driving in Westminster when his mother rang so he diligently pulled over to the side of the road to take the call. He spoke for one minute and 23 seconds then immediately drove away. Sadly for Mr Tubbs, Westminster council tracked him down from CCTV footage and accused him of “parking” on a single yellow line.

Ten ways to profit from gold

2009-05-18T01:40:00.000-07:00

The turmoil in global financial markets has triggered a surge in the price of gold, which investors consider a safe haven in times of trouble.

Here, Times Money offers ten ways investors can profit from demand for this precious metal.

1. Bullion

Small bars and bullion coins can be bought from dealers, such as Spink, at about 5 per cent above metal value and sold back at the same rate below value. This week Spink was selling 1oz Krugerrands for £470 and buying from the public at £426. Dealers tighten margins for customers who buy or sell in bulk.

2. Collectable coins

Gold coins with a value above their bullion content are an interesting option, but not one recommended by Ben McLoughlin, bullion manager at Spink. He says that the market is notoriously difficult for noncollectors to second-guess. “If you do decide to buy, rare coins in excellent condition are the safest,” he adds. “We are seeing strong interest in coins from Russia, India and China, and in British Celtic coins.”

3. Jewellery

This has the advantage of being both decorative and wearable. However, bog-standard new items come with a mark-up of as much as 300 per cent on the gold price. Collectible items, either vintage examples or new pieces from top designers, have greater investment potential and a value well above bullion, but they are a speculative punt, dependent on volatile market trends.

4. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs)

Gold ETFs track the gold price and offer what Gary Dugan, of Merrill Lynch, the investment bank, calls “the easiest way to gain exposure to pure gold”. ETFs are listed on the stock market, like shares, and can be bought through a stockbroker, held tax-free in an Isa and incur much smaller fees than managed funds.

5. Mining shares

Shares in goldmining companies provide geared gains over the metal price. This is where a rise or fall in the gold price translates into a more significant rise or fall in the share price. Several funds invest heavily in the sector, notably the Black Rock Merrill Lynch Gold and General Fund. This has delivered a return of 2,026 per cent since its launch in 1988.

6. Gold futures

These are high-risk investments available from stockbrokers. A futures contract is a tradeable promise to buy or sell at a set price on a future date. Investors put down a deposit of only 10 per cent, so can buy 100oz of gold - the size of a futures contract - for the price of 10oz. Huge profits, and losses, can be made.

7. An online option

BullionVault.com offers the chance to buy and sell shares of gold bars held in secure vaults in Zurich, London and New York. The metal is held in the investor's name - not in trust, as with ETFs. Transaction costs are a fraction of those in the small-bar market, while storage and insurance costs are 0.12 per cent a year, with a $4-a-month minimum. New users can sign up for a free gram of gold to get a feel for the site.

8. Metal detecting

A decent switch-on-and-go detector costs as little as £200. Though this hobby has gold-finding potential, base-metal items of archaeological interest, but minimal monetary value, are far more common. All gold finds over 300 years old must be declared as treasure trove and may be bought by museums at market value.

9. Panning for gold

This will not make you rich, but it is a fun day out in some of Britain's best countryside. The Museum of Lead Mining at Wanlockhead, Lanarkshire, Scotland, has full-day courses tomorrow and on September 21, priced at £65, including lunch and the necessary licence. The museum says that most participants find a small amount of gold to take home.

10. Treasure hunting

Lost treasures include King John's treasury, which disappeared into the Wash in 1216; two pirate caches on Cocos Island, off Costa Rica; and the cargoes of several wrecks. An alternative to searching for such riches yourself is to invest in marine-salvage businesses, such as Odyssey, which is listed on the Nasdaq stock market.

Times Money's top 10 investment gurus

2009-05-18T01:39:00.000-07:00

Genuine stock market experts are a rare breed, and their investment thinking is never more valuable than when the financial world is in turmoil, as it is today.

So here at Times Money we have come up with a list of our top ten stock market gurus of all time.

1. Benjamin Graham

He is generally regarded as one of the most influential thinkers on investment management. His book, the Intelligent Investor, is still selling more than 50 years after he wrote it.

Mr Graham’s basic idea was that you should be looking to buy companies worth ten dollars a share for five dollars a share. The way you determined which companies were selling at way below their book value was to make a detailed study of their balance sheets. He believed in cautious investment following thorough analysis and abhorred ill-informed speculation.

2. Warren Buffett.

The ‘sage of Omaha’ has put his investment skills to good use and is now the world’s richest man. In the process he has made millionaires out of many of the shareholders in Berkshire Hathaway, his main investment vehicle.

Mr Buffett’s basic idea is that there are a handful of truly outstanding businesses around - and a lot of mediocre ones. The investor’s skill comes in identifying the rare great businesses and then in waiting for the moment when a great business is selling at a really attractive price. He is down to earth - he won’t invest in a business he doesn’t understand - and very patient. He is prepared to wait a long time for the right sort of company to turn up. As he would put it, he is like a baseball player who is ready to stand at the plate for ball after ball until he finds one he can hit into the stands.

3. Philip Fisher

Mr Fisher, the father of Ken Fisher, was a renowned growth investor who was a passionate exemplar of the "buy and hold" approach.

His main idea was that the best way to invest is to buy a limited number of outstanding stocks and simply hold them for years and years. If you have chosen the right stocks in the first place - and that’s obviously a big if - then their real quality will shine through over the long term.
He was very definitely not an in and out trader. As he put it: “If the job has been done correctly when a common stock is purchased, the time to sell it is - almost never.”

4. T Rowe Price

Mr Price shared the long-term perspective of investors such as Philip Fisher. He, too, believed in the virtues of "buy and hold" and practised them with a vengeance. In 1972, looking back at a portfolio he had started in the 1930s, he found that he had held a number of stocks, such as Merck, the pharmaceutical company, and Black & Decker, the household tool company, for more than 30 years. Over that time they had made him a lot of money.

5. John Templeton

Sir John, who died earlier this year, was a classic contrarian investor. He embodied the dictum : "Buy when others are frantically selling and sell when others are greedily buying". While others were looking for gems in a jewel shop, he would be looking for diamonds in a dustbin. He was quite happy to buy what others were throwing away and believed that the stocks offering the best value would be those that other investors had completely neglected.

His most celebrated coup came in 1939, just after war had broken out in Europe. He reasoned, correctly, that although the immediate outlook was bleak, the war would provide a massive boost to US industry. He instructed his broker to buy 100 dollars’ worth of every single Wall Street stock that was priced at a dollar or less. Within four years he had sold his unusual portfolio of stocks for four times its original value.

6. Mark Mobius

Dr Mobius is from the Templeton stable of investment managers and has become a specialist in emerging markets. He shares something of Mr Templeton’s contrarian style. As he puts it: “We seek out shares that other investors have rejected. We go where others fear to tread.”

But above all he is a value-based stockpicker. He focuses on putting together a portfolio of good quality stocks, irrespective of which country they are from. One of his great strengths is that he immerses himself in his subject, travelling tens of thousands of miles each year to visit companies and meet their managements. He says:, “At Templeton we like to get out from behind our desks. We are also active investors, ready to get alongside management and take a seat on the board.”

7. Anthony Bolton

Mr Bolton is perhaps the best known UK fund manager of recent years, though he has now stepped back from the hands on running of funds. Like Mark Mobius he is a contrarian investor, as he demonstrated recently by indicating that he was putting some of his own money into bank shares just when everyone else was seeking to make a rapid exit from the sector.

One of his great skills is correctly anticipating market trends. He foresaw the end of the most recent bull run some months before the market peaked in the summer of 2007 and had already battened down the hatches before the market storms set in.

8. Neil Woodford.

Mr Woodford has taken over Mr Bolton’s mantle of best known UK fund manager and one of his great skills is being able to achieve very good performance with enormous sums of money that would weigh down a lesser investor. His two principal funds contain more than £13 billion of investors’ money.

Mr Woodford, like Mr Bolton, is something of a contrarian investor, and he shows considerable skill in keeping ahead of the investment pack. He had been warning about the excessive levels of debt in the UK and US long before the credit crunch struck and had sold all his bank and property shares before those two sectors collapsed.

He takes a top-down view of the economy and is not afraid to make big sector bets. In the past few years he has invested heavily in tobacco and utilities at a time when they were distinctly unfashionable areas to put your money.

9. Nils Taube.

Mr Taube, who died earlier this year, was Britain’s longest-serving fund manager. Like John Templeton he was fond of buying stocks that had been overlooked by other investors. He made a name for himself by keeping a cool head during the stock market slump of 1973-74 and was investing when most other people had despaired of shares ever recovering.

He called the market right again in 1987, when he anticipated the October crash of that year and was selling stocks short in the months running up to the dramatic drop in share prices.

10. Robin Geffen.

Mr Geffen might be viewed as something of a "new boy" because his company, Neptune Investment Management, was launched only in 2002. But Mr Geffen has nearly 30 years of investment management experience under his belt and it is now showing in the outstanding performance of his Neptune stable of funds.

Mr Geffen takes a thematic approach to investment and, like Mr Woodford, is prepared to take big sector bets. He is not constrained by index weightings and will seek out value wherever he finds it. He is quite prepared to go against the trend where he thinks this makes sense. For example while energy companies make up 60 per cent of the Russian stock market Mr Geffen’s Russian fund has just 22 per cent of its portfolio in energy.

Ten executives who should have kept their mouths shut

2009-05-18T01:38:00.001-07:00

We have all said things we regret: embarrassing comments we would rather forget. Most of the time the consequences are not too severe. But not for these guys and gals.

Their corporate blunders have spectacularly backfired. More than one has lost their job because of their thoughtless gaffes or watched as their company's share price has plunged because of an ill-chosen word.

10 Freddie Shepherd (1998)

Newcastle United

"Newcastle girls are all dogs. England is full of them. The girls are ugly and they're dogs."

So said Freddie Shepherd, the chairman of Newcastle United Football Club, after a spectacular expose by the News of the World’s infamous "fake" sheikh" in a Spanish brothel.

Mr Shepherd also mocked fans for buying shirts that cost less than a fiver to make overseas and said that United's striker Alan Shearer was as boring as Mary Poppins.

He was gone in less than a fortnight, but not for long. He reappeared on the Newcastle board 10 months later. Proof, if ever you need one, that you don't need charm to make it at the top.

9 Mark Sismey-Durrant (2008)

Icesave

On October 4 Mr Sismey-Durrant, chief executive of the failed Icelandic bank, went on BBC radio to tell his 300,000 UK customers that "They shouldn't be nervous about the state of the bank. We have a strong capital base and 63 per cent of our balance sheet is funded by deposits."

Asked if customers could be sure their money was safe and they could get it out he answered: "Yes, they can be."

Three days later, Icesave's parent Landsbanki went into receivership and customers were left bewildered and angry as their deposits were frozen.

8 Tony Hayward (2007)

In 2007, Tony Hayward took over at BP from Lord Browne, the oil giant's long-standing chief executive who resigned following allegations about his private life in the Mail on Sunday.

Hayward was reportedly keen to shake-up the organisation from the outset and described the oil giant’s performance as "dreadful". His comment succeeded in shaking things down, rather than up. BP's shares plunged, wiping £3.5 billion off their value.

7 Gerald Corbett (2002)

Woolworths

Gerald Corbett caused a storm when he delivered a less-than-rosy verdict on Woolworths, soon after taking over as the retail chain's boss.

Asked for an assessment of the company after a disappointing trading statement Mr Corbett said: "Some city centre stores are vast open deserts with nobody there."

The recent performance of the high-street chain suggests things haven't improved. Sales have been falling, as have profits. A sorry picture reflected in its shares, which have plunged 85 per cent over the past three years and are now worth just pennies each.

6 David Shepherd (2001)

Topman

Today, Topman is packed full of on-trend T-shirts and one-off designer lines, primped and pawed at by achingly cool art students. But back in the early noughties, when high street menswear catered to simpler tastes (and a customer base that didn’t moisturise daily), Topman was cheaper and a younger version of unfashionable Burtons.

Even so, the comments of brand director David Shepherd seemed a little unwise. When a reporter from trade magazine Menswear asked him to describe his target customers, he said: "Hooligans or whatever", adding: "Very few of our customers have to wear suits to work. They'll be for his first interview or first court case."

For shoplifting, perhaps?

5 Matt Barrett (2003)

Barclaycard

Like any loving father, Matt Barrett warned his children of the perils of using a credit card in adulthood and set an excellent example by never borrowing on the costly cards himself. A wise man. Unfortunately, Mr Barrett was head of Barclaycard, one of Europe’s largest credit card companies.

Customers weren’t too pleased when he told a Commons' Treasury Select Committee: "I do not borrow on credit cards. I have four young children. I give them advice not to pile up debts on their credit cards."

At the time, Barclaycard was charging card holders an eye-watering APR of 17.9 per cent.

4 Jeffrey K Skilling (2001)

Enron

It is never a good idea for a chief executive to swear outside of the privacy of their own home. It's unseemly for a start, and it also suggests that they are buckling under extreme pressure.

At least that's the lesson that can be drawn from the undignified performance of Jeffrey K. Skilling, then the chief executive of Enron, who lashed out with an expletive (we'll spare you the details) at an analyst asking a difficult question. Six months later the company collapsed and Skilling was sentenced to 24 years in prison for fraud and conspiracy.

3 Alain Levy (2003)

EMI

In 2003, EMI boss Alain Levy described in an interview how they had cut the number of Finnish artists on their label. He said "We discovered we had 49 artists in Finland. I think that is a bit too many. I don't think there are 49 Finns that can sing.''

Three years later the Scandinavians got their revenge, as Finnish monster metal band Lordi took the top prize at the Eurovision song contest with a song titled Hard Rock Hallelujah. Unsurprisingly the band signed to rival Sony BMG.

2 Mark Owen-Lloyd (2008)

E.ON

Mark Owen-Lloyd, head of power trading at energy company E.ON, was pilloried after he recently said that the worst-case scenario for his company in the current difficult economic conditions was "more money for us".

When asked what would happen in a ‘worst case scenario’, with gas and oil prices staying at high levels, he said: "It’ll make more money for us".

Perhaps we shouldn't condemn him too harshly. At least he's man enough to admit the truth.

1 Gerald Ratner (1991)

Ratners

In the early 90s Ratners was one of Britain’s biggest jewellers. You won't find a Ratners on the high street anymore though, and all because of a notorious gaffe made by Gerald Ratner, the company's boss.

When asked to speak at a dinner held by the Institute of Directors, he made the decision to lighten up his speech with a few jokes at the expense of his business. He joked that his Ratners High Street chain 'sold a pair of earrings for under a pound, which is cheaper than a prawn sandwich from Marks & Spencer, but probably wouldn't last as long'.

He didn't stop there adding: "We also do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray that your butler can serve you drinks on, all for £4.95. People say, 'How can you sell this for such a low price?' I say, because it's total crap."

He lost his job and the firm quickly changed its name (to Signet in case you were wondering).

His faux pas has since been immortalised in the phrase "Doing a Ratner", which means making a massive error of judgment. Fame of a sort.

And some more worth repeating

Richard Fuld (2008)

Lehman Brothers

Lehman's boss Richard Fuld and his sidekick George Walker scoffed at an in-house proposal that the investment bank's executives forgo lucrative bonuses only weeks before the company became the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

In an e-mail to Mr Walker, the Lehman's chief executive said: "Don't worry. [Those complaining] are only people who think about their own pockets."

Mr Walker, President George W. Bush's cousin, wrote: "Sorry team ... I'm not sure what's in the water" that caused someone to make the recommendation.

The email exchange came back to haunt Mr Fuld when it was revealed at a congressional hearing after Lehman's collapse. Red faces all round.

Carly Fiorina (2008)

Ex Hewlett-Packard

Bit of a cheat this one, but topical all the same. Carly Fiorina the former chief executive of the technology giant Hewlett-Packard and key economic adviser to John McCain didn't do the US presidential hopeful any favours when she told a radio host that his deputy - the indomitable Sarah Palin - couldn't run a major company like Hewlett Packard.

Asked later in a television interview about her remark, she put her foot even further into the mire when she added: "Well, I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation."

That's a vote of confidence in the potential leader of the world's most powerful country.

The 10 dumbest money-saving tips

2009-05-18T01:38:00.000-07:00

Journalists and bloggers have seized on the downturn to offer readers thousands of helpful money-saving tips. And a good number of duds. Here is Times Money's cream of the clangers:

1. Re-use sandwich bags (without washing them)
You can buy 1,000 sandwich bags for under £10. Re-using them to save money is extreme - sparing you less than 1p a time. And re-using them without rinsing is just grim.

2. Buy and re-use old calendars
Why buy a new calendar for 2009, when a second-hand one from 1942 or 1970, for example, will do the job - with the correct days of the week for each date? To save time and cash, thanks.

3. The Christmas Lottery (no. 37)
You agree with friends and family to hold a Secret Santa-style draw so that each person buys a present for one other only. Erm. Try selling that to your mother or seven-year-old nieces.

4. Use small tins of paint to minimise waste
"Small tins of paint may be a better deal than large ones," says the Guardian. Because they are less likely to dry out or get dirty and it is not "such a disaster" if you drop one.

5. Don't wash clothes after one or two wears
Yesterday's sweaty t-shirt may be fine for moping around the house, but is probably not a good idea in the workplace or a social context. P45 fast-track.

6. Don't use loo roll
Buy a "Handheld Portable Bidet" instead, apparently. Eww.

7. Cut your own hair
The question of self-respect arises. See no. 5 above.

8. Brush your teeth with bicarbonate of soda and salt
Using a twig? The obvious downsides are the taste, which is presumably vile, and the lack of flouride and breath freshener.

9. Re-use teabags five times
Nothing wrong with re-using a teabag to make several cups in one round. But hanging one on "your Tea Stand" for resurrection throughout the day?

10. Make your own clothes
You can buy a shirt and tie from Asda for £3. Enough said.

If you are after some sensible money-saving tips then why not try our 50 tips to beat a recession or 50 great things you can get free. Or see the list below. And post the dumb tips you have heard or read about in the comment field below that....

How to find the cheapest train tickets

2009-05-18T01:37:00.000-07:00

We explain how to make big savings on your rail fares

Lauren Thompson

The cost of train fares has rocketed in recent years, and the array of different ticket types and travelling times has left many consumers bewildered at how to obtain the best fare.

Train companies are now introducing a simpler ticket system to help consumers to distinguish between peak and off-peak times, with the latter being the cheapest time to travel. But there are other ways for rail passengers to make savings, from booking in advance to using a railcard.

Railcards

For those aged 16 to 25, or 26-plus and in full-time education, a 16-25 Railcard, which costs £24 a year, cuts a third off all standard-class fares. See www.16-25railcard.co.uk

If you travel with at least one child, you qualify for a Family & Friends Railcard. It costs £24 for one year or £65 for three years and gives one third off most adult fares and 60 per cent off most children's fares. Up to four adults and four children can travel on one card. See www.familyandfriends-railcard.co.uk

Those aged 60 or over can save a third on most standard and first-class rail fares with a Senior Railcard. The card costs £24 a year, or £65 for three years. See www.senior-railcard.co.uk

Advance fares

Krista Hamblin, of Passenger Focus, the rail passenger watchdog, says: “Book as far in advance as possible to get a better deal. It is normally possible to book up to three months in advance. You can also save if you travel in a group of ten or more and book at least seven days in advance.

“By booking four weeks in advance, you can pay only £15.50 for a single trip from Holyhead to London. If you bought the same ticket on the day of travel, it would cost £65.50.”

As a seat reservation is included when you book your ticket in advance, it is also a good way of ensuring that you will not have to stand. But remember that when you book in advance, you can travel only at the specified time and are likely to be charged again if you board a different train.

Advance tickets are subject to availability and sold on a first come, first served basis. You can see what is on offer at www.thetrainline.com or www.nationalrail.co.uk.

Avoid peak times

Ms Hamblin says: “If possible, avoid travelling at peak times – between 6.30 and 9.30 in the morning and 3.30 and 6.30 in the afternoon. If you travel outside peak times, you can also get some great deals on first-class travel.

“A first-class ticket from Euston to Glasgow, bought outside peak times, can cost only £39.50, instead of £93.10 for a standard ticket at 5.30pm.”

Single tickets

Buying two one-way tickets (one to your destination and one back again) can work out cheaper than buying a return ticket, so check before you buy.

A midweek Manchester to London train, coming back the next day, would cost £230 on a standard return. The outbound journey on an advance standard single can cost £61, while returning on a value advance single at £26 would put the overall cost at £87 – a saving of £143.

Season or Rover tickets

If you make the same journey more than three or four times a week, a season ticket will usually offer better value than buying daily tickets. You can buy a season ticket for seven days or any period between one month and a year.

The National Rail website has a useful calculator that allows you to check if you could save money by buying a season ticket.

A season ticket may not be available for very long journeys, but an All Line Rover ticket can work out a lot cheaper than buying individual tickets and gives the added bonus of unlimited travel anywhere on the National Rail network.

You can buy a season or rover ticket at the ticket office of your train station.

How to switch energy supplier

2009-05-18T01:36:00.001-07:00

Every round of energy price rises leaves millions of consumers worse off. And whether or not you were caught in the latest British Gas/EDF spat, it pays to check your deal against the competition every few months.

The internet makes this simple. If you find that you are paying over the odds, changing provider is straightforward and could save you more than £300 a year.

Most deals have a 28-day notice period but no exit charge. Here is Times Money's quick guide to making the switch.

Compare prices

The websites listed below can estimate providers' prices based on your household's recent bills and patterns of energy use. They use your postcode to narrow results to companies and offers available in your area.

Enter details of your gas or electricity deal – or both – to see how much you could save. Online tariffs and dual-fuel plans, where gas and electricity are supplied by the same provider, tend to be cheapest.

Compare service

Money savings are not everything - switching to an inferior service to save £5 a year could be a false economy. The website of Energywatch, the independent watchdog, details complaints against providers and is well worth a browse. Comments on dedicated internet forums, such as Moneysupermarket forums and Moneysavingexpert forums, may also be useful.

Make the move

Once you have decided to switch, the process itself is straightforward. First, call your existing provider to say that you are not happy and intend to switch. You may be offered a cheaper deal. If not, or if you are determined to switch regardless, contact the company you want to switch to for instructions. Alternatively, follow instructions on the comparison website that you used. The process should be smooth, but it does take about six weeks.

Keep switching

The best deal tomorrow may not be the best in six months. Keep checking and, if necessary, switching.

If things go wrong

If your switch does not work out through no fault of your own, complain and set a deadline –- ten days is good – for resolution. If this has no effect, contact Energywatch here. If you still have no result after eight weeks, contact the Energy Ombudsman.

Other ways to save

Switching supplier is of limited use if your home is not energy efficient. The Energy Saving Trust's Home Energy Check details basic measures that can save hundreds of pounds a year. Paying by direct debit can also bring substantial savings.

How to boost your spending power

2009-05-18T01:36:00.000-07:00

Mark Bridge

New shoes or a good book might take your mind off the economic gloom, but shopping without planning means money down the drain. Follow Times Money's ten tips to stay savvy.

1. Be prepared

Before you shop, work out what you need to buy and how much you can afford to spend. Shopping with a list and a budget is safer than shopping on impulse.

2. It's cheaper online

The internet gives access to a huge choice of retailers - for everything from T-shirts to fridges. A recent survey for Which? magazine indicates that online retailers are “generally” cheaper than the high street, with the best deals on books, DVDs, sports equipment and homeware. Buying online should be safe, provided that you take precautions outlined at getsafeonline.org, the government website. For a list of the best online shopping sites, click here.

3. Compare prices

Comparison websites, such as Kelkoo.co.uk and Pricerunner.co.uk, list the prices of goods at both online and high street stores. No site has full market coverage, so it is best to check several, as well as retailers' own websites.

For example, a search of Kelkoo finds the 8Gb iPod Touch priced from £139 at Amazon.co.uk to £177 at Misco.co.uk. Pricerunner, however, finds it for £129 at Dixons.co.uk. Users of Mysupermarket.co.uk can compare the cost of their grocery shop at Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Ocado, and order via the website (but note that Aldi and Lidl may be cheaper).

4. Claim cashback

The companies behind cashback websites make commission by referring users to retailers and then pass some, or all, of it to members. Quidco.co.uk, for example, offers 7 per cent cash back on games and DVDs at HMV.com.

5. Earthly rewards

If you use the relevant stores, sign up to free loyalty schemes, such as the Boots Advantage card, the Nectar card, the Waterstone's card and Airmiles. Points can be earned and redeemed in stores and online. The Boots card, for example, gives four points, equivalent to 4p, for every £1 spent.

6. Now is the winter of our discounts

Even after the January sales, watch out for unseasonal promotions on the high street - the financial crisis has hit retailers hard and many are desperate to generate business. Compare apparent bargains with prices online.

And remember that cheap does not always mean good value. Clothes shoppers should check LynkU.com for details of sales and sample sales across the country.

7. Buy second-hand and salvage

Scouring charity shops, markets and the internet for used goods can turn up outstanding bargains, especially in clothes, books and furniture. Architectural salvage stores offer old - often antique - home and garden goods at knock-down prices. Items listed at Salvoweb.com, a portal for dealers, include reclaimed York-stone paving, washbasins, church pews and cast-iron radiators. A set of 20 Edwardian oak boardroom chairs, meanwhile, is listed at £745, or £37.25 a chair.

8. The incredible bulk

Most products work out cheaper when you buy in volume. For example, a 12-bottle selection of “October fine wines” at Waitrose.com costs £99, saving a total of £44 on the usual price. Many retailers run multipurchase promotions in-store and online, so it can pay to shop with friends or family to share savings.

9. Talk is cheap

Haggling has a place, not only on holidays to far-flung destinations, but also on the high street. A straight request for a discount can work, even in chain stores, but you are more likely to get money off if you can show that a product is better priced elsewhere, or that it is shop-soiled or obsolete, such as a portable CD player.

10. Why pay if you don't have to?

Members of the Freecycle network, at uk.freecycle.org, list goods they no longer want, which other members can collect from them - therefore saving on disposal costs, as well as reducing the amount sent to landfill. Items range from sofas and rugs to cars. Free items are also listed at Gumtree.com

How to complain

2009-05-18T01:35:00.000-07:00

Complaining to a company should be straightforward, but research by the National Consumer Council indicates that one in two of us considers it too much hassle. Here is Times Money’s quick guide.

It is important that you remain – or appear – calm throughout the process and keep a record of all communications. For tailored advice, call Consumer Direct on 0845 4040506.

Know your rights

Complaints are best made with confidence: “I am entitled to…”, not “I think I am entitled to…”.

Therefore it is critical that you understand your statutory rights. These are contained in the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 (among other legislation) and state that goods should be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described, while work carried out by a tradesman or service provider should be done with reasonable care, in a reasonable time and at a reasonable charge.

If these conditions are not met, you are entitled to a refund – from the retailer, rather than manufacturer in the case of goods – within a reasonable time, then to reduced compensation for six years from purchase. What is reasonable varies, but it can be as little as a few days.

Act fast

It is best to report any problem as soon as possible. In the first instance, this means a relatively casual approach, such as a phone call, e-mail to customer services or a face-to-face chat with a tradesman or shop manager. Explain the situation and ask for a refund or, if you prefer, replacement or repair.

Put it in writing

If you do not obtain an immediate result, write a letter. This should be addressed to a name – typically the customer services manager – rather than sir or "Sir/Madam". It should explain the problem and include specifics, such as details of the product or service, the date of purchase and names of staff. State what evidence you have – a receipt or photos of a botched job, perhaps – but do not send originals. Then state that you are entitled to a refund under consumer law, that you would like a refund and that you expect to hear back within a set time; 14 days is good. Your letter should be typed, where possible, and sent by recorded delivery.

Escalate

Still no luck? Contact the relevant trade association or regulatory body. These are listed, with other useful information, at howtocomplain.com. Staff may take up the matter or direct you to a dispute resolution service. In some cases, the complaint may be referred to an ombudsman.

Seek help

Next contact your local Trading Standards Office or Citizens’ Advice for free help and advice.

Take action

If all else fails, threaten then initiate legal action. Community Legal Advice and Citizens Advice can provide free help.

How to have a cheap holiday

2009-05-18T01:34:00.002-07:00

Mark Bridge & Lauren Thompson

Making plans for a summer break is perfect cold weather escapism. But if money is tight, brochure prices can be a cruel dampener. With research and a flexible approach, however, you can wipe out much of the cost of conventional travel, sourcing free accommodation and free, or cheap, flights.

Getting there

Reward schemes

If you are a member of a reward scheme, such as Nectar or Airmiles, check your account, as you may have collected more than you realise. If you are not a member and shop at affiliated retailers (see Nectar.com and Airmiles.co.uk for lists), it makes sense to register. A spend of £85 a week at Tesco nets holders of the retailer’s Clubcard 1,000 Airmiles each year. One return flight to Paris with British Airways (BA), including taxes and charges, costs 750 Airmiles.

Budget airlines

If you do not have reward points, budget airlines are the next best bet. Ryanair often has 1p or even free flight offers - it will cost you £4.75 in payment booking, although this can be avoided by using Visa Electron. EasyJet will charge £4.95 for credit card use.

Watch out, too, for extra charges per item of cabin baggage – £5 or £10 with Ryanair and £3.99 with easyJet. At popular times, such as school holidays, budget fares can hit premium prices, so compare deals at eBookers.com or Expedia.co.uk as well as airline's own sites.

Courier flights

For a long-haul break, BA offers two courier flights a day to Tokyo and one to Bangkok. Passengers carry documents on behalf of a company in return for a discounted, or free (though rarely), round trip. Call BA on 0870 3200301 for information.

Accommodation

Exchange websites

International hospitality exchange websites, such as CouchSurfing.com and HospitalityClub.org, allow members to offer a few nights accommodation on a spare bed or sofa, or the chance to meet for coffee or a meal. All users have a profile page stating what they can offer and when, with information on themselves and comments – de facto references – from other members. Each of the sites has more than 350,000 members, most of them in Europe, Australasia and the US.

Some hosts offer a couch and key while others throw in home-cooked meals and tours of the town. The sites are free and members cannot charge. However, some help with chores and contributions to shared food are expected. “Exchanges” need not be reciprocal. Some members host but do not travel, while others travel but cannot – or choose not to – host.

Home swap

If staying with a stranger does not appeal and you are a homeowner, a home swap could be a comfortable alternative. Members pay about £30 to £120 a year to list their property at websites such as www.homebase-hols.com and HomeLink.org.uk. Listings give a description and photographs of each home, plus the owner’s availability for travel and preferred destinations. Other members whose requirements mirror their own, can offer a rent-free exchange. Homes in Europe, the US and former British dominions, such as South Africa and New Zealand, are best represented.

Renting

Alternatively, renting a privately-owned villa is more expensive than the above - but could work out cheaper than a hotel. It also allows you to go self-catering, which means you do not have to spend money eating out every night. Websites such as Owners Direct and Holiday Rentals list thousands of houses, villas and city apartments across the world and allows you to liase directly with the property's owner. Do not be afraid to haggle on price - especially if you are not booking during the school holidays.

Hot tip

Tom Hill, editor of Lonely Planet travel guides, tips Romania and Bulgaria as ideal for a cheap short-haul break. He says that both offer unspoilt natural and historical sites, plus the chance to trek. “Visit the Saxon villages in Romanian Transylvania. In Bulgaria, I would go for the medieval monasteries and Black Sea resorts.”

Return BA flights from London to Bucharest or Sofia come to 2,500 Airmiles, including taxes and charges. Hospitality Club and Couch-Surfing members offer spare beds in both countries.

The top 10 financial freebies

2009-05-18T01:34:00.001-07:00

We all like something for nothing, especially in a recession.

So here are ten financial freebies currently available, from flights and financial advice to cold hard cash.

The deals vary and some are only available to certain groups, such as existing customers.

The information has been supplied by price comparison sites moneysupermarket.com and moneyfacts.co.uk, along with Defaqto, the financial information group.

1. Switching current accounts

Like clearing out of the attic or sitting through an entire episode of Heartbeat, we all dread the prospect of switching current accounts. We fear our direct debits will be lost, our standing orders will left unpaid and we will never receive a payment again. Ever. This is, of course, unlikely, and if you are willing to take the risk, some banks will pay you £100 for your bravery.

At the moment First Direct, owned by HSBC is offering £100 to current account switchers. The bank offers a switching service which should reduce the hassle of moving all those direct debits and regular payments. And First Direct has won plaudits for its customer service, so it might not be as painful as you think.

2. Tesco Clubcard credit card

Tesco Clubcard credit card customers receive points for using their card which can be converted into vouchers for use in Tesco stores, converted into Airmiles or exchanged for Clubcard deal vouchers, which double the value of your points – these can be redeemed on restaurant trips, weekend breaks at hotels in the UK and other leisure activities. Spend £4 at Tesco and it will give you five Clubcard Points. Spend £4 anywhere else and it will give you 1 Clubcard Point.

3. Free credit report

Risk-adverse banks and building societies are going through the credit files of prospective borrowers with a fine tooth comb to uncover evidence of defaults, financial mismanagement or irregularities. This means the quality of your credit report has never been more important and it pays to check it regularly. Experian, the biggest credit reference agency, offers a free 30 day trial of its CreditExpert service, which allows you to scan your report and stay updated with any changes that occur on your account for a month. Just remember to cancel your contract before you are charged for another 30 days.

4. MBNA bmi American Express credit card

This is a quick and easy way to bag youself a free flight to any European destination, providing you have a decent credit record and therefore will be accepted by MBNA. Cardholders with the MBNA bmi American Express credit card receive 20,000 destination miles when you spend £250 on the credit card in the first 90 days. Under the bmi scheme, 12,000 points are required for a return flight to any destination in Europe. Just remember to clear the balance on your card each month and cut it up once you have earned your miles to ensure the flight remains "free". The card has an interest rate of 15.9 per cent.

5. Halifax Reward current account

Halifax is keen to advertise its shiny new "Reward" current account, which pays you £5 a month just for being a customer. Sadly, as we are now only too aware, there is no such thing as a free lunch in finance, and there is indeed a catch with the new Halifax account. The cost of going overdrawn is £1 a day, rising to £2 over a certain limit.

6. Free advice from an IFA

It has been said that free advice is not worth the price, but the alternative, paying for it, can be punishingly high, particularly for those with less to invest. Thankfully, most financial advisers offer introductory "taster sessions" where you can ask an expert questions without having to pay for it. Alterntively, a number of high street banks are running schemes offering customers and non-customers financial planning advice, although these services are unlikely to be impartial, as the Times Money team exposed last month. To find a financial adviser in your area visit unbiased.co.uk

7. O per cent purchase credit cards

This is not technically a freebie but it does save you money if you're in the market for a personal loan. Marks & Spencer offers 0 per cent on purchases for 10 months, while Halifax charges 0 per cent on purchases for the first nine months. Customers who need to borrow cash to make an essential purchase should use the cards as an interest-free personal loan, provided that you can clear the balance in time. The interest rate on both cards after the initial introductory period is 15.9 per cent.

8. The American Express Nectar credit card

The Clubcard scheme is not the only loyalty scheme and if you live nearer to a Sainsbury's than a Tesco, you should opt for Nectar instead. Regular shoppers at Sainsbury's can quickly build a bumper pot of Nectar points if shopping is bought with the American Express Nectar card. Cardholders can earn 2 points for every pound spent with the credit card and another 2 points for shopping at Sainsbury's. The points are worth 0.5p each. The interest rate on the card is 18.9 per cent.

9. Childrens accounts

It is beneficial to get children into the habit of saving sooner rather than later. The Abbey Flexible Saver account includes a free wallchart to help your child keep track of his or her deposits. The Lloyds TSB Young Savers account comes with a free moneybox.

When parents sign up to KidStart.co.uk, they earn up to 20 per cent back on purchases made on their debit or credit cards at hundreds of online or high-street retailers. This cash is deposited in either a Child Trust Fund or a nominated children's savings account. It is free to join, and is also open to grandparents or friends.

10. Weekly Money Bulletin

Last but by no means least, Times Money offers a free weekly e-mail bulletin sent directly to your inbox every Wednesday. The bulletin contains money savings tips and advice.

Ten tips to cut the cost of car insurance

2009-05-18T01:33:00.000-07:00

Drivers are often encouraged to use a comparison website when buying car insurance - but there are also other ways of cutting the cost of premiums. Here are Money Central's top ten tips.

1. Make accurate calculations. Avoid guessing - time spent on accurately calculating your annual mileage could mean you save money in the long term.

2. Ditch the boys’ toys. This especially applies to young drivers, as the more modifications you have on your vehicle the higher your premium could be.

3. Alarm your vehicle. Having a Thatcham approved alarm installed by a professional could save you in the region of 10 per cent on your premium cost.

4. Clear the clutter. Clear out your garage and park your car in it or off the road. You could reduce your premium by roughly 5 per cent compared with parking it on the road.

5. Named drivers. Adding mum or dad to a younger driver’s insurance policy could lower the cost. Similarly male drivers could also benefit from adding their female partner as a named driver.

6. Increase your voluntary excess. Some insurers will allow additional discounts for a higher excess - but make sure you are able to make your excess payment if you need to make a claim.

7. Build up your no claims. This could save you up to 30 per cent, proving it literally pays to be a careful driver.

8. Consider your options. Do you really need comprehensive insurance? Third party, third party fire and theft and fully comprehensive cover are all priced differently. It could be worthwhile getting quotes for all three levels of cover and consider the option which best suits your needs, budget and value of the vehicle.

9. Get advanced. Enrolling on one of the DVLA’s advanced driver courses could give your driving confidence a boost and may lower the cost of your insurance.

10. Choose carefully. Before purchasing your next car, get insurance quotes on the ones which are best suited to keeping your premiums low. A good guide generally is the lower the engine capacity the cheaper the insurance.

The 10 most extravagant weddings ever

2009-05-18T01:30:00.004-07:00

Earlier this month, Wayne Rooney and Colleen McLoughlin were married in a lavish ceremony rumoured to have cost £5 million. But while the wedding was criticised in some quarters for its excess, there are plenty of other contenders for the title of most extravagant marriage ever....

1. Liza Minnelli and David Gest (March 17, 2002)

Cost: £1.8 million

The Oscar-winning actress’ wedding was a real cabaret, with fleets of black limousines sweeping guests to the Marble Collegiate Church where Minnelli (56) and Gest (48) tied the knot in true Manhattan style. Gest, who compulsively collects memorabilia of Minnelli’s mother, Judy Garland, wed the actress in an extravagant ceremony orchestrated by world-famous wedding planner Preston Bailey. The wedding was attended by hordes of celebrities including Michael Jackson as best man and Elizabeth Taylor as maid of honour, who enjoyed a twelve-tier wedding cake and sixty-strong live orchestra. One bridesmaid described the event as “the night of 1,000 facelifts.”

2. Princess Elizabeth Windsor (later Queen Elizabeth II) and Prince Philip (November, 20 1947)

Cost: unknown

The magnificence of the royal wedding, with its Norman Hartnell dresses and nine 400lb wedding cakes, was frowned upon by some quarters in the frugal atmosphere of post-war Britain, although ingredients for the main cake were in fact a gift from the Australian Girl Guides association. For the rest, the splendour was a welcome break from the privations of a ration-book economy. Thousands turned out on to the streets to cheer for the princess and her new husband, who King George VI gifted with the titles Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich for the occasion. In the interests of economy, some officials proposed an elaborate fireworks display in order to make use of the “surplus explosive chemicals” left over from the war.

3. David Beckham and Victoria Adams (July 4, 1999)

Cost: £500,000

The multi-millionaires lovingly known to the world as “Posh ‘n’ Becks” wed at Luttrelstown Castle in Ireland in a not-so-subtle statement on the coincidence of royalty and celebrity at the turn of the 21st century. Fireworks and white doves filled the sky as the newlyweds posed on a pair of magnificent velvet thrones, the bride wearing a large gold crown studded with diamonds. OK! Magazine bought exclusive rights to the Beckham wedding for £1 million, the largest sum ever offered for a celebrity wedding, kicking off a harrowing battle with their longstanding rivals, Hello!

4. Amit Bhatia and Vanisha Mittal (June 18-21, 2002)

Cost: £30 million

In the most expensive wedding festivities ever conducted, four days of lavish revelry marked the nuptials of banker Amit Bhatia and Vanisha, daughter of the steel magnate Laxmi Mittal. The engagement ceremony is said to have been the only public function ever held at the palace of Versailles, near Paris; later in the festivities, nightclubs were hired across the city and the couple starred in a specially written full-scale Bollywood musical version of their early relationship. Kylie Minogue was amongst the many performers. Thousands of guests, flown in from over the world, sipped cocktails after the Mehendi ceremony, where world-famous artist Ash Kumar designed an exclusive henna pattern to match the embroidery on the bride’s designer dress.

5. Donald Trump and Melania Knauss (Jan 22, 2005)

Cost: £900,000

Real-estate mogul Trump married his third wife, Slovenian model Melania Knauss, in a ceremony at Palm Beach. The wedding was designed to be “understated”, despite the bride’s £106,000 dress by John Galliano, which sported a 13-foot train and weighed an astonishing 50lb. Scores of rowdy onlookers gathered outside the reception desperate to spot celebrity guests such as Hilary Clinton, Tony Bennett and Billy Joel, who later serenaded the waiting crowds in an impromptu performance. ‘This is the closest you’ll get to a royal wedding in America,’ said one guest.

6. Barry Drewitt and Tony Barlow (July 1, 2006)

Cost: £800,000

Chemical research millionaires Drewitt and Barlow became the nation’s first openly gay surrogate parents after a five-year transatlantic battle, and were the first men to be recorded jointly as parents on a birth certificate. This extraordinary family does nothing by halves, and their wedding in Chelmsford, Essex was no exception. Daughter Saffron, five, who already owned 150 pairs of shoes and £200,000 worth of designer clothes and bags, chose a Christian Dior off-the-shoulder dress for the event. Her dad and daddy arrived at the ceremony in a pumpkin-shaped Cinderella-style glass carriage pulled by six plumed white horses, followed by stretch limousines worth half a million.

7. Nero and Pythagoras (c.AD 65)

Cost: 25,000 Denarii

In a fallow period between luckless wives, Emperor Nero married a young Greek slave-boy, Pythagoras, in a traditional Roman ceremony with rings and flame-coloured veil. The festivities were accompanied by Tiberian pleasure-boats stuffed with exotic animals, feasting, singing and “high-born” prostitutes. According to the historian Tacitus, the emperor took the woman’s part in the ceremonies.

8. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas (Nov 18, 2000)

Cost: £1.5 million

The actress, who was born on a housing estate in the Welsh village of Mumbles, married Hollywood leading man Douglas amid lush festivities at New York’s famous Plaza hotel. The aftermath of the wedding was even more fantastic than the celebrations themselves. Despite the high security, photographers from Hello! Magazine gatecrashed the event and took surreptitious pictures. Rival glossy OK! had already secured an exclusive photo deal. After a drawn-out civil court wrangle, OK! made legal history by successfully suing Hello! for £1million. Unlike the two embittered magazines, the Douglases continue to enjoy a functional relationship.

9. Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer (July 29, 1981)

Cost: undisclosed

A global audience of 750 million viewers tuned in to watch the heir to the British throne wed a blushing 20-year-old former children’s nanny - the largest viewing figures recorded in television history. The royal couple married in St Paul’s Cathedral, with Diana in a dress of antique lace with a 25ft train, as crowds of 60,000 flocked to catch a glimpse of the newlyweds on a one-off British national holiday. Stylishly flaunting royal protocol, the couple stole a kiss on the balcony – an image which remains iconic despite the shattering of this fairytale marriage over years of messy divorce, infidelity and tragedy.

Times Archive, 1981: Wedding of Charles and Diana

10. Wayne Rooney and Colleen McLoughlin (June 14, 2008)

Cost: £5 million

Private jets flew the couple’s 64 guests to Portofino, where the England footballer and his childhood sweetheart were wed in an intimate Catholic ceremony in a 16th-century castle overlooking the Italian Riviera. The bride wore a handmade, £200,000 full-length Marchesa gown embellished with pearls and crystals, with a 25ft train. Afterward the wedding, guests were ferried to 24-hour party on a multi-storey, multi-million pound super yacht complete with solid gold fittings and a helicopter pad. The couple also dished out £400,000 for an exclusive performance by Colleen’s favourite pop group, Westlife.

The ten cheapest countries to holiday - and the ten priciest

2009-05-18T01:30:00.002-07:00

A weekend away in the eurozone might seem a little less appealing this spring. As the value of sterling has nose dived, the cost of holidaying abroad has shot up.

A bottle of beer in Rome is now likely to set you back £3.37, whilst a cup of coffee in Cyprus will cost you almost £4.

The euro isn't the only currency to become prohibitively expensive either. According to calculations by the Post Office if you fancy a three-course meal in a restaurant in Barbados you can expect to pay £135.52.

And if you're planning on topping up your tan in Australia be warned, the average price of a bottle of factor 15 sun lotion is now £7.30.

It's not all miserable news though, there are some countries where the currency has fallen against sterling. Here are the top ten holiday destinations when measured by value for your pounds.

Rank	Country	Currency to the pound (as of 16/02/09)	Average price of a basket of holiday goods*
Cheapest
1	Hungary	303.42 forint	£31.46
2	Czech Republic	29.121 koruna	£31.49
3	Thailand	45.602 baht	£38.65
4	South Africa	13.267 rand	£43.27
5	Malaysia	4.758 ringitt	£44.71
6	Turkey	2.222 lira	£49.40
7	Bulgaria	2.005 lev	£49.87
8	Kenya	103.487 shilling	£51.45
9	Croatia	7.599 kuna	£57.26
10	Spain	1.039 euro	£61.73

Most expensive
1	Barbados	2.582 Barbados dollar	£152.52
2	Mexico	18.364 new peso	£96.76
3	Brazil	2.768 real	£78.02
4	Australia	2.054 Australian dollar	£77.84
5	Italy	1.039 euro	£76.09
6	USA	1.326 dollar	£75.24
7	Canada	1.663 Canadian dollar	£73.79
8	Portugal	1.039 euros	£73.67
9	New Zealand	2.564 New Zealand dollar	£73.55
10	Cyprus	1.039 euro	£73.32

* Holiday basket includes: Cup of coffee, bottle of Heineken, bottle/can Coca-Cola, bottle of mineral water, factor 15 suncream, insect repellent, three course evening meal including bottle of house wine in a local restaurant.

10 tips to cut the cost of your holiday

2009-05-18T01:30:00.001-07:00

The school holidays are about to begin. Normally this would be the cue for an exodus to foreign climes. But as the cost of food, fuel and mortgages soars many have left it until the last minute to decide what to do.

Last week a Times survey reported that a third of the public are switching their plans from a holiday abroad to a holiday in Britain. Gordon Brown himself announced that he will be spending this summer in Southwold, Suffolk.

As the economic gloom deepens it appears that many have scaled back their plans and are opting for what Americans are calling a "staycation" rather than a vacation. Unless the weather improves substantially it looks like its going to be one of the most miserable summers for years.

But don't despair. Before you give up on Barbados in favour of Bognor take a look at our 10 tips which, taken together, could save you hundreds of pounds on your next trip.

1 Knock off hidden extras online

If you are booking a package holiday, using the internet will usually save you money compared with going to a travel agent, and also gives you the chance to get rid of hidden extras.

For example, if you go for a one-week self-catering holiday for a family of four to Cyprus flying from Gatwick with First Choice on July 20, the price is £1,419.18 if you book it as standard through its website.

If you exclude flight meals, cut the baggage allowance from 20kg to15kg per person and get your own transport to and from the airport you save £130.

Also, if you remove your "world care fund" contribution, which is essentially the optional carbon-offset charge, you knock off another £4.50 - saving £134.50 and taking the total cost to £1,284.68. This "carbon footprint offsetting" is one to watch on many flight and holiday websites as it may be included automatically, but you can usually remove it if you wish.

2 Plan your parking

If you fail to book at all and go to the long-stay car park at Gatwick, you would pay £9 a day - or a total of £63 for a one-week holiday. If you go to the short-stay car park, you will pay a whopping £20.90 a day, according to BAA Advance, which deals with car park pre-booking for Gatwick - £146.30 for a one-week break.

Sites such as Holidayextras and Simplyparking offer a range of options. For example, through Holiday Extras, you can park at Gatwick for £59.80 in the first week of August. It’s only a saving of £3 but every little helps.

3 Don't get currency at the airport

If you leave your currency purchase until you reach the airport, you will get about 10 per cent less than if you buy it elsewhere. You should also make sure you are not taken in by "no commission" deals as they often have a worse exchange rate.

Marks & Spencer and the Post Office are consistently competitive on the high street, and a recent survey by Which?, the consumer group, found that Chequepoint, Saga and Travelex were among the cheapest places to buy foreign currency.

The most expensive place, besides airports, are travel agents. Thomson, Going Places and First Choice were among the most expensive, according to the Which? survey.

4 Chop the cost of flights

Air travellers can pay hundreds of pounds more than other passengers on the same flight, for seats booked at the same time, depending on whether they bought their ticket through the airline or a partner.

The difference arises due to a practice called codesharing, where an airline sells tickets on a flight operated by another. Most airlines are part of a wider network and can offer their partners seats on their flights, which they can then sell at their own prices.

The best way to ensure you are not paying over the odds is to use a website such as Skyscanner, Flightchecker or Kayak. These send your trip details to scores of airlines and flight-broker websites for a range of quotes, listing the cheapest first.

5 Ask to pay in local currency

Hotels, restaurants and retailers have found a way to fleece holidaymakers using cards abroad with a scam known as dynamic currency conversion. When you pay by card, you should be given the option of paying a bill in the local currency or in pounds.

The hotel, shop or restaurant should inform the cardholder verbally of the payment choice before the transaction. However, many do not, converting your bill automatically into sterling at their own uncompetitive conversion rate, plus commission of up to 4 per cent.

Always ask to be charged in the local currency to avoid the fee.

6 Use the right card

Debit and credit cards typically charge a foreign-loading fee of 2.75 per cent plus 2 per cent to 3 per cent on withdrawals.

The Abbey Zero credit card, however, does not charge a fee, will not charge you for foreign usage, and will enable you to withdraw up to £300 a day.

If you are making purchases abroad, you will also not be charged a foreign usage fee by Nationwide or the Post Office Classic Mastercard, but you would be charged for withdrawing cash from an ATM at 2.5 per cent and 2 per cent respectively.

You should always avoid using a credit card for cash withdrawals from an ATM at home or abroad. Not only are you likely to be charged a withdrawal fee, you will also start accruing interest on the amount you withdraw.

7 Get the best cover

If you travel abroad more than once a year, you would probably benefit from taking out annual rather than single-trip cover.

Data from Travelsupermarket shows that for a couple on a multi-trip policy covering Europe, the annual premium is £40 with Top Dog Insurance, which covers you for £10m medical expenses, £2m personal liability cover, £1,250 cancellation cover, and £500 for baggage cover.

Insurance sold alongside a holiday by travel agents, tour operators and airlines is best avoided. It is unregulated and often ridded with exclusions. The Financial Services Authority (FSA), the City watchdog, is stepping in to regulate these sales but not until January.

8 Bundle your calls

Charges for making and receiving calls in the European Union have been capped at 38p and 19p since last summer.

Most networks now offer "travel bundles", which are worth buying if you will make a lot of calls or send numerous texts.

Orange, for example, offers 75 texts to be used in Europe within 30 days for £15. Call customer services from your mobile phone to see if your provider can offer any deals, or refer to its website.

9 Cut car hire costs

Those who leave it to the last minute to pick up a rental at their destination generally will find that the cheaper cars are not available. So book online in advance to get the best deals.

10 Beware travel surcharges

Potential fuel surcharges imposed by airlines and operators in reaction to rising fuel prices could add significantly to the cost of a holiday, particularly where families are involved. Your travel company could ask for a surcharge even after you have booked to cover the soaring cost of oil.

House prices: the latest forecasts, region by region

2009-05-18T01:29:00.001-07:00

As the Nationwide announces UK house prices are now 6.3 per cent lower than a year ago, many of us are wondering when the property turmoil will end. The overall picture is bleak, with Savills, the estate agent, predicting a drop of 10 per cent this year and a further 15 per cent drop next year. But this figure masks widespread regional variations, and it could be higher or lower depending on where you live.

Here are the experts' predictions on how much further prices will fall this year in each region of the UK.

London

There is a lot of stock on the market in London at the moment as buyers are being very cautious. James Hyman, of Cluttons, an estate agent in London, says: “I am seeing sellers reduce asking price by 10 per cent at the moment. I expect prices to ease another 15 per cent over the next year as buyers try to safeguard themselves from further falls in the market. If vendors are keen to sell, most will simply have to drop asking prices.”

South East

Although the south-east is generally more resilient to house price drops than say the North, it has still taken a hammering recently. Mr. Hyman says: “Where as parts of the north have seen falling prices for the last three years, this has only happened in the last 12 months in the south-east.
“Again, unless vendors are selling something very special or rare, they will need to reduce asking prices significantly to secure a buyer.”

Scotland

Scotland has been more resilient to price falls than the rest of the UK. Nonetheless Savills predicts that the turmoil in the property market means prices will fall by 5 per cent this year.
Faifal Choudhry, of Savills, says: “The expected fall is still significantly less than in other parts of the UK. Scotland has resisted a lot of the pressures of the UK’s housing crash, not just because of steady demand in cities like Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow, but because the average house prices have remained relatively low at around £150,000 – so borrowers are less stretched than in, say, London or the south-east.”

South-West

Estate agents in the South West are predicting a "flat" market for the rest of the year. Jonathan Haward, of The County Homesearch Company based in Cornwall, says: “Sellers will have to price properties very competitively to attract buyers. With the exception of a few period properties with coastal views, which are still selling quite well, prices will stagnate until confidence returns to the market.”

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland continues to show by far the steepest correction in house prices across the UK with prices down 18 per cent over the last three months alone. Fionnuala Earley, chief economist at Nationwide, says: "The recent falls come on the back of unusually sharp increases in prices during 2006-7, when prices grew by 79 per cent. These increases were clearly not sustainable and leaves the market in Northern Ireland particularly vulnerable.”

Midlands

There are a very large number of houses unsold in Birmingham, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire. Nicholas Leeming, of Propertyfinder.com, says: “Vendors will have to continue reducing prices significantly to secure buyers this year.”

East Anglia

Andreas Bonney, regional director for Nolfolk, Suffolk and Essex at The County Homesearch Company, says: “It doesn’t surprise me that prices have already dropped 5 per cent in East Anglia. I would expect them to drop a further 5 per cent by the end of this year, with further small drops next year. I’m seeing buyers putting in offers of £250,000 on houses asking £325,000. It will be a long and slow recovery.”

North West

Gordon Roberts, who finds properties in Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire at The County Homesearch Company, says: “The market is still moving downwards and we expect to see some further falls later this year. The properties worst affected are new build apartments in the centre of Manchester and Liverpool, where there is a massive over-supply. I’ve seen these apartments sell at auction for half of what they were bought for.

"Overall sellers of City Centre flats may have to take 30 or even 40 per cent less than their asking price by the end of the year. But I expect ordinary family homes to see a less dramatic drop in prices, probably at around 10 or 15 per cent this year.”

North East

The north east is already amongst the worst hit by the property downturn – and estate agents expect the market to continue to deteriorate throughout the year. Nicholas Leeming, of Propertyfinder.com, says: “Newcastle began to see house price falls even before Northern Rock. In places such as Durham, Northumberland and Leeds the market has effectively ground to a halt.”

Wales

Carol Peett at The County Homesearch Company says: “Whilst holiday homes or second houses in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthem are holding up well, the more run of the mill new-builds are falling by up to 10 per cent, and I expect to see this continue throughout the year. Properties in ex-mining communities are being badly hit, because there are simply too many houses.”

The 10 worst property investments ever

2009-05-18T01:28:00.000-07:00

Homeowners across the land are holding their collective breath as daily reports show the housing market threatens all out collapse. The likelihood, however, is that losses over the next year or two will not nearly be enough to reverse the huge gains of the last ten years.

But not every real estate investor is this fortunate. We've put together a list of the ten worst property investments ever. In the unluckiest or most calamitous of cases, the losses run into the millions...

1. Hotel of Doom

The North Korean government is looking for $330 million from foreign investors to finish the pyramid shaped Ryugyong Hotel, which towers 1,083 feet over central Pyongyang (see picture, above). The massive concrete white elephant is known locally as the "Hotel of Doom". It was conceived as a flagship project for the communist government, but embarrassed officials have since wiped it from official maps as building work floundered due to lack of cash.

Construction was eventually put on hold in 1992 when the project ran into financial difficulties, but work has reportedly started again. When completed, the hotel will boast 3.9 million square feet of floor space and seven rotating restaurants. North Korea has already sunk $750 million, of 2 per cent of its GDP, into the building, but it is unclear how many rooms the hotel will boast, or how many visitors are expected when it finally opens.

2. A place in the sun

The brochures were too good to be true. Buyers gazed in wonder at those shimmering golf courses - yet to be built; the beautiful beaches - only a short two hour drive away; the lively restaurants and bars - now abandoned; and those glorious villas - mostly unsold.

Thousands of British ex-pats, wanting to live the dream of eating a full English on their own patio gazing out over the Mediterranean, are facing up to a Spanish property nightmare. Prices have slumped by up to 65 per cent in the last year according to some websites, as the market is struck by a country-wide collapse in house values and massive overdevelopment on the Costa Del Sol. In the most acute cases, Brits who have bought off plan are now stuck with apartments in uncompleted developments they don’t want but can’t sell.

3. World’s largest shopping centre

Investors in the new shopping malls opening in west London, Liverpool and Bristol over the coming year will hope the centres prove more successful than the world largest and possibly emptiest mall, in Donguan, southern China. The gigantic centre opened in 2005 and is four times the size of Bluewater, in Kent, with 6.5 million sq feet of retail space. However, the owners who sunk millions of dollars into the project have persuaded only a dozen stores to open. Still, shoppers dispirited by the lack of retailers can instead take a trip down a Venetian canal leading onto a replica St Mark’s Square, enjoy a ride on the indoor roller coaster or grab some food under a giant 80ft mock-up of the Arc de Triomphe, all added in the vain attempt to increase foot fall at the mothballed mall.

4. The collapse of Nation Life

Thousand of private investors lost their life savings when one of the UK's first property funds, Nation Life, collapsed in 1974. It was part of the property empire of tycoon William Stearn, who holds the title of the UK's biggest bankrupt, after losing £118 million. When banks stopped lending Nation Life money, the holdings quickly ran out of cash and had to fold. The Policyholders' Protection Act was passed in 1975 as a direct result of Nation Life's losses, but there were no compensation schemes at the time to prevent thousands of small investors from losing everything. In April 2000 William Stearn was banned from serving as a company director after a second commercial empire worth £11 million collapsed.

5. Poor Barry Gibb

It may not have been the worst property investment, but it could certainly be the unluckiest. In 2006, Barry Gibb, one third of spandex-covered falsetto super group the BeeGees, blew £1.5 million on the one-time home of Johnny Cash in Nashville, Tennessee. The bearded former hunk sunk huge amounts of cash in the project, thoroughly renovating the three-storey timber house. Sadly, weeks before work was due to finish on his dream holiday home, tragedy struck when a devastating fire ripped through the property, causing wide-scale damage.

6. Canary Wharf

It was a squalid stretch of land home to an abandoned watery industrial estate, miles from any decent forms of public transport. But Michael von Clemm, chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston, spotted an opportunity. On a visit to the site in the early 80s he envisioned spending billions of pounds of private and public money building 12 million square feet of office and retail space. It was music to the ears of local developers. Welcome to Canary Wharf, one of the most audacious urban regeneration projects in Europe and a fitting monument to Thatcher’s free market revolution. It arrived complete with the tallest building in Europe (at the time) and even its own zippy transportation system. Sadly, just two years after its iconic office block was completed, the London property market collapsed. The gleaming towers of E12 stood half vacant and in 1992 the company behind the estate, Olympia and York Canary Wharf Limited, filed for bankruptcy, losing millions of pounds of investor cash.

7. Hamilton Palace

Notorious businessman and property owner Nicholas van Hoogstraten has sunk £40 million of his own money into Hamilton Palace, a spectacular vanity project sitting in the rolling Sussex downs near the small town of Uckfield. It currently lies abandoned and incomplete after reports of a disagreement with builders. Mr van Hoogstraten, who was one of the UK’s youngest millionaires, has also apparently been at war with the Rambling Association who believe they have right of way across his land.

8. New-build city-centre flats

Thousands of newly-built urban apartments have flooded the market in recent years, dominating northern city skylines, but now prices are plummeting by up to 70 per cent. New-build blocks attracted amateur buy-to-letters eager to earn a quick buck from the property boom. But now many fear they paid vastly over the odds. One report cites a three-bedroom apartment in Kelso Heights, a development near the University of Leeds campus in the centre of the town, which was recently sold for £71,000. It was bought in 2006 for £237,999. Flats in certain developments in areas such as Manchester, Newcastle and east London have also fallen in value by 40-50 per cent.

9. Land banking

Investors have lost thousands of pounds to “landbanking” firms in recent years. Dodgy companies buy tracts of greenbelt land, then sell chunks of it to individuals on the promise that when houses need to be built on their acres of countryside, the value of the land will soar. This will happen a couple of years after their purchase, investors are told to convince them to hand over cash. However, it isn't that easy to get rich quick. It emerged that many of the schemes fell within areas that local authorities said would never gain planning permission for new homes, or at least not in the lifetime of the devastated investors.

10. Debbie does bankruptcy

Shy and retiring are not words usually associated with the Hollywood legend Debbie Reynolds, star of classic musical Singin’ in the Rain and mother of actress Carrie Fisher. In the mid-80s Debbie decided to open a hotel in Las Vegas, modestly titled the Debbie Reynolds' Hollywood Hotel and Casino. The centre showcased her illustrious career and also contained her full collection of Hollywood props and costumes, including the headdress used in Cleopatra. Sadly, the world wasn’t ready for such a Debbie Reynolds extravaganza, and the project flopped. Debbie had opened the hotel with her then husband, real estate developer Richard Hamlett. But the couple divorced and she was left with picking up the bill for the failed venture. In 1997, poor Debbie was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Ten tips to negotiate a 10% pay rise

2009-05-18T01:26:00.000-07:00

In these times of rising living costs, we could all do with a bit of extra income. But before you storm into your boss’s office and demand a bigger salary, read our top ten tips on becoming a smooth negotiator.

1. Do your homework
Consult job ads, recruiters, and colleagues to find out the pay range for your job. Then work out the skills you need to claim the top 10 per cent of that pay range.

2. State your objectives clearly
When you ask for a meeting, don’t talk vaguely about "prospects" - be clear that you want to talk about your contribution to the organisation and that you’re asking for a pay rise.

3. Be clear about what you want
Are you really after a pay rise, or would your life be improved by something else, such as flexible working or more varied work? Know exactly what you are asking for.

4. Create the right impression
Make sure you look, act and sound like a person already holding down a job paying the kind of salary you want. Don’t try to negotiate a pay rise in an old suit.

5. Make your pitch
Your opening needs to be about your contribution, and not about money. Talk about what you have added to the role and how you have made a difference.

6. Bid, don’t complain
Managers get defensive when it comes to pay issues. No matter how carefully you make your case, what they will hear is "I’m unhappy". Be careful to ensure that you communicate how much you enjoy the job, particularly those parts where you have extended your job content.

7. Don’t talk about your bottom line
Don't be tempted to talk about what you "need" financially, or about your financial commitments or pressures. Talk about the value you add to the business.

8. Let your boss shoot first
Keep your cards close to your chest. Try to find out what your employer is prepared to offer before you say what you would like. Even if your employer asks "What did you have in mind?" it’s worth at least one attempt to find out what might be possible.

9. Negotiate like a pro
Don’t believe that the first offer, particularly if it’s made quickly, is the last word. Relate your proposed total salary in monthly terms to the annual bottom line contribution of the job, and be aware of how much it will cost to replace you.

10. Assert yourself
Stand up for yourself. Demonstrate exactly the same robustness and negotiation skills your employer expects you to use in the job.

Compiled by Lauren Thompson and John Lees, author of How To Get A Job You’ll Love

50 tips to ride out a recession

2009-05-18T01:25:00.001-07:00

With the economy teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown, it is time to prepare for the worst...

BEAT THE PROPERTY CRUNCH

1. Take a break from your mortgage
If you are struggling with your mortgage repayments many lenders will let you defer payments for a few months. Here is a guide explaining how to arrange a mortgage holiday

2. Negotiate cheaper rent
With first-time buyers unable to get on the property ladder, demand for rental properties is increasing. Here is a guide on how to negoiate the cheapest rent possible

3. Move to one of these counties
House prices may be falling but not everywhere. Here are the 10 most recession-proof counties in England

4. Rent a central London flat for just £60
With house sitting it is possible to live in luxury for a fraction of the usual cost

5. Remember: property is not as safe as houses
Don’t throw your money away like these people who made the 10 worst property investments ever

DRIVE DOWN THE COST OF MOTORING

6. Beat higher fuel prices
Petrol and diesel prices may be at record levels but there are ways to drive down costs. Here are ten tips to save on petrol

7. Appeal all parking tickets
Don’t let the parking profiteers unfairly take your hard earned cash. Here is a guide on how to appeal your parking tickets

8. Save on car insurance
With petrol prices at record levels you cannot afford to be paying too much for your car insurance. Here are ten tips on how to find cheap car insurance

9. Share your car journey
There are four empty seats in your car. Here is a guide on how to make use of them

DON'T BE TAXED BY TAX

10. Get a free financial makeover
Times Money’s experts are happy to help. Here’s how to apply

11. Maximise your profits
If you are making money there are ways to make sure you minimise the amount you have to share with the Government. Here is a guide on how to avoid capital gains tax

12. Claim a council tax rebate
Millions of homeowners could be owed rebates worth hundreds or thousands of pounds because their homes are in the wrong council tax band. Here is a guide on how to claim a council tax rebate

BEAT RISING DOMESTIC BILLS

13. Energy needn’t be expensive
Gas and electricity prices are expected to rise by up to 40 per cent but there are ways you can cut costs. Here are ten tips on how to save on gas and electricity bills

14. Don't pay for phone calls
Still paying for your phone calls? That is so 1990s! Here is a guide on how to make free calls over the web

15. Get the cheapest energy deal
With energy prices soaring there is simply no excuse not to be on the cheapest deal. Here is a guide on how to switch energy supplier

BOOST YOUR INCOME

16. Sell your childhood toys for profit
Those old Star Wars toys in your loft may be worth a fortune. Here are the 10 most collectable Star Wars toys

17. Reclaim your PPI
You may have been mis-sold payment protection insurance when you took out a loan. Here is a guide on how to claim a refund

18. Become a guinea pig
Make money on medical trials, shopping, or even going to the pub.

19. Become a film extra
Working as an extra is a fun way to earn extra cash – and a lot of bragging power. Discover how easy it is to find film extra work

20. Find treasure
If all else fails, why not go metal detecting? Here is a guide on how to find buried treasure

BEAT THE STOCK MARKET

21. The 20 golden rules
The stock market is no place for the faint hearted at the moment. But you can minimise the risks by following the 20 golden rules of investment

22. Get 7% on your savings
The credit crunch has been good news for savers as interest rates have soared. Here is a guide on the best savings rates

23. Profit from a falling market
Just because shares are losing value doesn’t mean you cannot make money. Here is a guide to absolute return funds.

24. Save without even noticing
When times are tough, saving isn’t easy so here are ten ways to squirrel away cash without even noticing

25. Six stocks to buy on the way down
He who dares wins. Here are six stocks with plenty of recovery potential

26. Have some perspective
The current stock market turmoil is just not that bad. Here are the 10 biggest stock market crashes of all time

LEARN SOME OLD FASHIONED THRIFT

27. The thrifty 50
There is no shame in a bit of economy in times of trouble. Here are 50 easy ways to save some cash

28. Perfectly prudent
Why cash is tight make sure you don’t waste a penny. Here are the UK’s ten best bargain retailers

29. The good old bad old days
There are ways you can save in the kitchen. Here are 20 thrifty recipes from the Times Archive

SHOP SMART

30. Get stuff free
From music to films, food to French lessons, here is 50 great things you can get free

31. Buy one of these
Petrol and food prices may be rising sharply but not everything is getting more expensive. Here are the 10 items that have fallen in price most this year

32. Why pay when it's smarter to barter?
Local exchange systems allow members to trade their skills cash-free

33. Fight for your rights
Don’t become a downtrodden consumer. If you have a problem with a company let Times Money’s Troubleshooter help you. Find out how here

34. Get paid to shop
If you are spending anyway, why not use a reward card? Here is a guide to the best reward cards on the market

35. Get your news for nothing
Get the best news and comment on the web free at www.timesonline.co.uk

36. Music to your ears
There is no point paying over the odds for internet downloads. Here is a guide on how to find the cheapest tunes online

37. Compare before you buy
By comparing different financial products before you buy you can save yourself hundreds of pounds. To compare the cost of anything from pet insurance to credit cards, visit The Times money shop.

38. Share a millionaire's lifestyle
You don’t have to be rich to be able to afford a luxury lifestyle. Here is a guide to fractional ownership

39. Learn to haggle
Even supermarkets may negotiate on price. Here is a guide on how to drive a harder bargain

40. Go on holiday for next to nothing
Going away can be cheap if you know how. Here is a guide on how to cut the cost of travel

BE FASTIDIOUS WITH YOUR FINANCES

41 Budget sensibly
It may be boring but budgeting a sensible way of managing your money. Here is a guide on how to draw up a workable budget

42. Don’t get sunk by debt
If you are in real financial difficulty, don’t panic. Here are ten ways to deal with debt

43. Get cheaper credit
Affordable credit is now much harder to come by so that’s why it is more important than ever to have a good credit history. Here is a guide on how to improve your credit rating

44. Consider the emotional strain
Money, or the lack of it, can prove a major strain on any relationship. Here is a guide on how to weather the emotional strain of an economic downturn

DON'T WORRY ABOUR WORK

45. Be positive
Losing your job need not be the end of the world; with a little help it could mean the beginning of a better way of life. Here is a guide on how to gain from redundancy

46. Know your rights
Should the worse happen and you lose your job there are laws that can help. Here is a guide outlining your rights if you're fired.

47. Smarten up
Wearing a tie may cut the chances of being made redundant, according to Moss Bros

IF ALL ELSE FAILS...

48. Leave the country
Fed up with the doom and gloom? Here is a guide on how to take a career break

49. Dance your way to happiness
Cheer yourself up, have a laugh at Matt

50. Have a rant
Let us know how fed up you are with Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and the entire Labour government. Get it off your chest by posting your comments below. You will feel better...

50 great things you can get free

2009-05-18T01:25:00.000-07:00

"The best things in life are free", sang the Beatles.

Bitter experience tells us that is rarely the case. The Fab Four admitted as much when they revealed that money was what they really wanted.

But there's no need to be too cynical. There are a surprising range of free things out there, if you know where to look.

Here are 50 fab freebies which were available at the time of writing - enough to make John, Paul, George and Ringo change their tune.

Art & Entertainment

1. Cinema Paradiso

Get to see the latest must-see movie first and without paying a penny. See Film First, Freecinematickets and Momentum Pictures offer regular preview cinema screenings nationwide. Or check out one of the free films being shown this summer in the Scoop, an open-air amphitheatre outside of London’s City Hall.

2. Televisual Treat

Many top TV and radio shows offer free tickets to people who want to be part of their studio audience. It’s a fun and free way to fill an afternoon or evening and there’s something for everyone’s taste: from Mastermind on the BBC to ITV’s The X Factor

3. Bag a Banksy

The art gliterrati snapped up works by grafitti artist Banksy for £3.5m at auctions in London and New York earlier this year. Fools. Didn't they realise they could have downloaded the artwork of the reclusive painter by heading for the shop on the official Banksy website.

4. West End Pizzazz

Once a year cast members from some of the top West End shows perform free in London’s Leicester Square. You’ve missed this year’s event, which featured stars from shows such as Mamma Mia, The Sound of Music and Jersey Boys but keep an eye out for next year’s extravaganza.

5. Olympic Glory

The Beijing Olympics may be over but the fun goes on. A huge parade is planned through the streets of London on October 16 to salute the athletes who represented the country and bought back the prized medals from Beijing. The whole event is free and promises to be quite a spectacle. All you need to do is bring out your flags and whistles and join the party.

6. Movie Collection

Free DVDs are often used as an incentive by market research firms to encourage consumers to fill in questionnaires. At the Free DVD Club you can choose from over 50 titles.

Health & Beauty

7. Sparkling

The Silver Jewelry Club offers silver rings, earrings, pendants and bracelets free and ships to the UK. All you pay is a shipping charge of $8.99 (about £4.50). It seems to think it’s a good marketing technique. Other businesses take note.

8. Made Up

If you want to freshen up your look go to one of your local department stores where many of the beauty counters provide free makeovers. Don’t be presssured into buying products, but be polite or you could end up looking more like Coco the Clown than Coco Chanel.

9. Beauty Tips

Ayton Online Research recruits volunteers to trial new ranges before they hit the shops. The products have already been declared safe, so you won’t end up with third degree burns, and are not tested on animals; the companies just want consumer feedback before launch. A host of other websites offer free samples. Check out the links on Mysavings and Smartfreestuff or Free Samples.

10. Dental Work

There are opportunities for free treatment by dental students at all UK dental schools. The British Dental Health Foundation has contact details.

11. Cut and Blow Dry

Salons and colleges up and down the country need models for hairdressing students to practise on. If you’re prepared to put your hair on the line it’s a great way to save money. Just make sure you have a paper bag handy in case they are overzealous with the clippers or hair dye.

Sport & Leisure

12. It is Cricket

LV, the friendly society formerly known as Liverpool Victoria, has been handing out tickets for County Championship matches. At the time of writing it had run out but the website promises that it is working on getting some more. If you’re a cricket fan check the site daily as new tickets are likely to disappear fast.

13. Chuck the Gym Subscription

Get fit jogging or walking and enjoy the great outdoors: it’s that simple.

14. Fitness Freak

If you’re a gym junky at least take advantage of a free trial at your local gym. Fitness First and LA Fitness offer a free day at selected gyms.

15. Play the Game

"Don't work play games". This noble sentiment is the motto of Freeloader where you can download hundreds of online games. Hours of fun, just don’t tell the boss.

16. Read all about it

Many magazines and newspapers, including of course the Times and Sunday Times, now have an online presence, which you can often access for free.

17. Football Crazy

If the reams of newspaper pages and hours of TV dedicated to the beautiful game are not enough for you don’t despair. There are several free online football mags to feed your longing. Away Win is published monthly, Catflap once a week.

18. Picture this

Photo Box is offering 50 free photo prints when you register with its site.

19. On the horses

Bookie William Hill is giving new customers a free bet of £10 or £25.

Music

20. Downloading

Online music downloads have become hugely popular, thanks to the surge in use of MP3 players such as iPods. You have to be careful about using sites which offer very cheap or free downloads as many are illegal. However, Last FM has the seal of approval. It offers 200 free downloads every week.

21. Band Aid

Freeloaders will do all sorts of unspeakable things to get into gigs and concerts. But you don't need to degrade yourself to get to see great bands, as those aiming for the big time often play in front of non-paying audiences. More mainstream artists appear regularly in HMV stores. Or check out what Puregroove and Rough Trade have planned in trendy Shoreditch. Here are details of what else is going on in London.

22. Liszt for Lunch

Concert halls and churches up and down the country hold free recitals, usually during week day lunchtimes. The Royal Albert Hall, for example, has a programme called Ignite every Friday lunchtime where you can hear “talented young ensembles in performances from gypsy jazz to Parisian folk”. Whatever floats your boat.

23. Sheet Music

Musical scores, from ABBA to Wagner, can be downloaded from a host of sites including Free Sheet Music and Free Scores. The Free Sheet Music Guide is a good place to start.

Children & Animals

24. Give your Dog … a Health Check

Tired of expensive vet's bills? Keep your dog in tip top condition by attending a free health check organised by PDSA, an animal charity. Their trained veterinary nurses even provide slimming tips if your dog is a little on the porky side. Unfortunately for cat or guinea pig lovers only dogs qualify. For safety reasons apparently - when a guinea pig is in a mood they can be a real threat to life, didn't you know?

25. Animal Magic

There’s masses of free stuff out there for your furry friends from collars and leads to vitamin supplements. Try Free Pet Stuff.

26. Baby Talk

Register with Pampers and you get vouchers to spend on Pampers' products like nappies and wipes. Huggies has a similar offer. There are loads of other freebies for parents, from baby food to nappy rash cream.

Holidays & Travel

27. Drive Time

Sick of sky-high rail fares? Try Liftshare, a nationwide database of more than 200,000 members. Just register your journey and the website will hook you up with drivers who are taking the same route and will allow you to jump on board.

28. Couch Surf

The cost of hotel rooms can be extortionate. A cheaper way to travel is to join an international hospitality exchange website such as Couchsurfing and Hospitality Club. These enable members to offer a few nights accomodation on a spare bed or sofa. The sites are free and members are not allowed to charge.

29. Swap your Home

If staying with a stranger does not appeal and you are a homeowner, a home swap is an alternative. Members pay about £30 to £120 a year to list their property at websites such as Homebase-Hols and HomeLink (so I guess its not completely free but bear with me). Listings give a description and photographs of each home, plus the owner's availability for travel and preferred destinations. Then you make a rent-free exchange (the free bit) with members whose requirements mirror your own.

30. Oyster Top-up

The Rewards Centre promotes everything from mobile phone deals to book clubs. If you use its website to sign up for at least one of its advertised deals and can persuade a friend to do the same it will give you a £250 voucher to top up an Oyster card used on the London transport network. There are a lot of strings attached so read the terms and conditions carefully.

Money

31. Don't Fret over Debt

As the credit crunch has worsened companies have sprung up offering debt advice for a fee. But don't waste your hard-earned cash. National Debtline, Debt Free Direct and Citizens Advice will help you out without making a charge. You can check your credit report for free at Credit Expert.

32. Free Cash

When new customers sign up to First Direct’s 1st account they get a £100 bonus provided they start paying an income of at least £1,500 into the account within three months. There is another £100 on offer if you decide to switch away from First Direct within 12 months of opening the account. The downside: the account doesn’t pay any interest.

Open an Alliance & Leicester’s Premier current account online and receive £100.

33. Borrowing

By switching to a 0 per cent credit card you can save yourself interest and effectively borrow for free. Times Online lists the latest offers.

Food & Drink

34. Forage in the Hedgerows

There’s a whole countryside of free food out there. Some of it’s appetising – mushrooms (provided you don’t pick ones that are deadly poisonous) blackberries, wild garlic – others not so tasty- hawthorn shoots (believe me, they are not worth the effort). Here’s some ideas.

35. More Nourishment

There are loads of free and discounted food offers on Food Freebies.

36. Cook’s Delight

Don’t bother with expensive cookbooks. Tens of thousands of recipes are available online at sites like this. More than enough for a lifetime of meals.

37. In the Drink

Retail Eyes sends tens of thousands of members on up to 16,000 “mystery shopper” assignments a month - all expenses paid. You could be asked to go to the pub or stay a night in a hotel. Hard life.

Good for the mind

38. French Lesson

The BBC offers excellent courses online in languages including French, Spanish, German, Mandarin, Polish and Urdu.

39. Local Library

Borrow books for free, saving yourself money and shelf space.

40. Culture Vulture

Bored? Why not take a trip to your local museum or art gallery – most permanent exhibitions, including the great ones at the British Museum and the National Gallery, are free.

41. Educate Yourself

Some universities offer study materials, incluiding video lectures, notes and exams, on the internet. You won’t earn a degree but it’s a good way to improve your learning. In the UK material is available from the Open University while in the US the world-famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology is equally generous.

Technology

42. Internet Access

Browse the world wide web free of charge by logging in at one of the plethora of wi-fi hotspots. My Hotspots can help you find locations in your local area or take a look here for spots worldwide.

43. Debug your Computer

Protecting your home computer is vital, especially if you bank online. Virus protection from the likes of Norton, McAfee and Symantec typically costs about £40. But there are free alternatives. Microsoft offers Windows Vista users a free firewall, which should be adequate for most users. Free updates are available here. Another option is Grisoft's AVG.

44. Free Wii

Wii, the games consule that has taken the nation by storm, keeps selling out in the shops. However Dialaphone is offering a free Wii, Ipod Touch or laptop if you take out a mobile deal with it. Read the terms and conditions extremely carefully as there are strings attached.

Shopping

45. Retail Therapy

Even better than doing something you love for free is getting paid for it. Retail Eyes sends members to use a shop and report on the quality of service. Most earn £6 to £10 a task, plus expenses, and are reimbursed for, and can keep, any purchases. Easy money.

And the rest

46. Freecycle

Like eBay, without the money. Freecycle encourages members to give away unwanted junk instead of throwing it away. Just as importantly they can replace it with new stuff for free.

47. Dressing Up

What’s Mine is Yours and Big Wardrobe are similar to Freecycle but for users who want to swap dresses, shoes, bags or furniture.

48. The In-Crowd

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, the former It-girl, has set up an online lifestyle mag that promises special offers and free gifts from some of the worlds leading brands

49. The Business

Create your own business cards at Templates 4 Cards

50. Romance isn't dead

A century after it published its first bodice rippers the magic of Mills & Boon's romance novel continues to woo women in their millions. If you've been seduced you can get two free books and a mystery gift. Swoontastic.

Ten people who predicted the financial meltdown

2009-05-18T01:24:00.003-07:00

The financial events of recent weeks have filled many of us with shock and panic. Surely no one could have predicted that we would be in this mess? Well, actually, they did. Here are ten people who saw the financial meltdown coming...

1. Vince Cable - deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats

Here is a question Mr Cable’s posed to Gordon Brown, then Chancellor, during Treasury Questions back in November 2003: “The growth of the British economy is sustained by consumer spending pinned against record levels of personal debt, which is secured, if at all, against house prices that the Bank of England describes as well above equilibrium level. What action will the Chancellor take on the problem of consumer debt?”

Mr Brown did not answer how he would solve the problem, merely replying that: “We have been right about the prospects for growth in the British economy, and the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cable) has been wrong.”

2. Christopher Wood – chief strategist of CLSA, a broking firm in the Asia-Pacific Market.

In October 2005 Mr Wood wisely declared: "Investors should sell all exposure to the American mortgage securities market." In an interview in 2007, he said: "Some institutions have been behaving like leveraged speculators rather than banks… The UK economy is heading for a sharp shock. It just remains to be seen how bad."

3. Founders of www.stock-market-crash.net – website aimed at investors

The writers of this site claim that predicting crashes is, in fact, easy: “One of the greatest myths of all time is that market crashes are random, unpredictable events. The lead up to a market crash is often years in the making. Certain warning signs exist, which characterize the end of a bull market and the start of a bear market. By learning these common warning signs, you can liquidate your investments and prosper by shorting the market.”

4. Henry Weingarten - astrologer

Mr Weingarten is head of the Astrologers Fund, a New York firm that advises businesses on the basis of planetary movements. He forecast a major economic downturn in March 2007 – so hopefully his clients took note.

His website claims he has in fact made numerous successful predictions about worldwide financial affairs, including “both Mexican 1995 crises, the first 1995 dollar crisis, the 1998 oil collapse and 1999 recovery, and the decline of the Euro after its 1999 birth.”

5. Nouriel Roubini - economics professor

Aka Dr Doom, Dr Roubini is an economics professor at New York University. On September 7, 2006, at an International Monetary Fund meeting, he announced that a crisis was brewing. He said that the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession.

Homeowners would default on mortgages, trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities would unravel worldwide and the global financial system would shudder to a halt. These developments, he said, would cripple major financial institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

As Mr Roubini stepped down, his host said: “I think perhaps we will need a stiff drink after that.” They do now.

6. Nikolai Kondratiev - Russian Marxist economist

In the early 1920s, Mr Kondratiev proposed a theory that Western capitalist economies have long term (50 to 60 years) cycles of boom followed by depression. These business cycles are now called "Kondratiev waves", or grand supercycles. He predicted an imminent dip, and he was proved right with the Wall Street Crash in 1929.

The current crisis may mean he is about 10 years out – but, still, not a bad prediction for a man who died in 1938.

From the archive: William Rees-Mogg on Kondratiev (1980)

7. Founders of Housepricecrash.co.uk – property website

HousePriceCrash.co.uk was established in October 2003 after its founders predicted “one of the potentially biggest economic boom bust events in living memory” was coming. Its aim, apparently, is to provide a “counterbalance to the huge amounts of positive spin the housing market receives in the main media”.

Whist there is not currently a lot of positive news about the housing market to counter, the site does provide a plethora of information, statistics and forums for those interested in the great house price crash.

8. Lord Oakeshott - Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman

He may not have predicted the entire financial meltdown, but he did warn the Government of the possible collapse of Icelandic banks back in July. He said last week: “"Alarm bells were ringing all over about the Icelandic banks and the Treasury must have been blind and deaf not to hear them."

In a written question to the government in July, he asked: "What steps [have] the United Kingdom financial authorities taken to satisfy themselves, independently of the Icelandic financial authorities, of the solvency and stability of Icelandic banks taking deposits in the United Kingdom?”

Lord Davies, for the Government, replied that there was no concern about the liquidity or capital base of Icelandic banks operating in the UK.

9. Stephen Roach - senior executive at Morgan Stanley

In November 2004, Mr Roach predicted an “economic Armageddon”, in part due to the record US current account, trade and government deficits. His outlook was largely dismissed at the time.

Having being proved right, he recently went on to accuse central banks of being “asleep at the switch” in failing to stop the escalating crisis. “The lack of monetary discipline has become a hallmark of unfettered globalization,” he said.

10. Ron Paul - Republican Congressman

Back in September 2003, Mr Paul told a House Financial Services Committee that: “Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market.

“This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions.” Of course, if we are going to give Mr Paul credit, than we should also highlight the efforts of Peter Schiff, his economic advisor and long-time economic hawk.

Ten mind-boggling statistics from the credit crunch

2009-05-18T01:24:00.001-07:00

It's been a year of mindboggling statistics and silly money, of soaring debts, collapsing stock prices and astounding events.

When Northern Rock collapsed last year, did you think, "We're going to have to nationalise the rest of them too". No, me neither.

I also bet you didn't work out that the part-nationalisation of our banking sector would cost you at least £8,000 in taxes. And this is just the beginning.

Here are some other surprising, dispiriting and utterly disturbing statistics from the financial credit crunch which has ravaged our financial sector, broken the back of our economy and produced a recession that could be the worst for many generations.

1. £500,000,000,000

...or around £8,000 each. £500 billion is a conservative estimate of what taxpayers, you and me included, are paying for Gordon Brown's plan to bail out the UK banking system. The three-part package includes committing up to £50 billion of taxpayer funds for a part-nationalisation of Lloyds TSB, HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which is now 57 per cent owned by you and me.

The Bank of England will pump at least £200 billion into the money markets to encourage banks to lend to each other again, which should help lower the costs of new mortgages. And the Government is also making a further £250 billion available for banks over the next three years to guarantee medium-term debt which is of dubious quality. This should also help restore confidence and get banks lending to each other again.

£500 billion is a staggering amount of money, equivalent to 4,000 brand new hospitals (at £125 million each), 16 new high speed rail links between London, the north of England and Scotland or 37,000 Jamie Oliver-approved free school meals for each and every pupil in the UK. Instead, they'll be eating turkey twizzlers.

2. £20,000,000,000

This is the amount of taxpayer cash that has gone into the coffers of the Royal Bank of Scotland, a bank which was the pride of Scotland until the prefix "troubled" was permanently attached to its name. This is the equivilent of £333 each. You have Sir Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of the much-maligned firm, to thank for this. Royal Bank of Scotland made £7.5 billion in net profits in 2007, the year before the banking bubble popped. Last month Tom McKillop, chairman of RBS, apologised for the right royal mess the firm was in.

3. £1,800,000,000,000

£1.8 trillion is the cost to the global economy of the credit crunch. Such a vast number is difficult to grasp, but in the same report, the Bank of England valued the UK economy, the fifth biggest in the world, at £7 trillion. So it has so far cost about a quarter of the value of our entire economy.

4. 0.4 per cent

The drop in retail sales last month compared to a year ago, according to the British Retail Consortium. This doesn't sound like much, but a predicted fall next year of just 4 per cent will produce the worst conditions on the high street since 1965, according to research by Verdict, a retail consultancy. Major retailers are collapsing into administration, including Woolworths, Pier and MFI, and more are expected to follow in the next 12 months, as consumers shut their wallets, bury their purses and consider making half their Christmas presents.

This won't just create less choice on the high street. The retail sector employed 3.2 million people last year, so problems on the high street spell huge problems for the economy at large.

5. £50,000

This is the amount which will have been wiped off the value of your house by the end of next year, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), an optimistically-minded think tank. It predicts that average prices will fall by 25 per cent and not return to their peak until 2013. The average home in the UK, which hit £200,000 in August 2007, will fall to £149,000 by 2009. Capital Economics, the consultancy, has said that prices could fall by 35 per cent, peak to trough, although it also forecast a tentative recovery in 2010.

6. £50,000,000

Executive pay at the five biggest banks exceeded £50 million in the last five years, according to a report by the Labour Research Department. Sir Fred Goodwin, the head of RBS, was paid a basic salary of £3.5 million last year. Between 2003 and 2007, Goodwin got £15.5million in basic pay and cash bonuses. Eric Daniels, of Lloyds TSB, pocketed £10.2million and HBOS chief executive Andy Hornby earned £6.9million, according to annual reports.

Another number to remember is 59.9p: the lowest share price this year of Halifax Bank of Scotland, 92 per cent less than the highest point in the year. Stocks in the embattled mortgage giant, which is set to be taken over by rival Lloyds TSB have plummeted since trading at almost £11.60 last year.

7. £2.5million

The cost of celebrating Christmas at Britain's nationalised banks. Lloyds TSB, which is accepting about £5.5 billion from taxpayers to shore up its broken balance sheet, is to spend around £2.5 million on Christmas parties for its 100,000 UK employees, or around £25 a head. Meanwhile, HBOS is hosting a "luxury dinner and dance" at the Birmingham NEC for 1,500 mortgage workers, with free hotel rooms thrown in. Meanwhile, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is spending £1 million on parties for its 100,000 staff. RBS also spent more than £300,000 entertaining 40 senior employees and 30 partners recently.

Alex Neil MSP, an SNP member representing central Scotland, reflected the mood north of the border when he said the bank was "playing with fire". He added: "I don't want to be a party pooper, but spending £1m on Christmas parties when so many pensioners have lost their savings as a result of the RBS share collapse is obscene."

8. £1,500,000,000,000

This is the amount of debt which Britons have to pay back. £1.5 trillion is the amount we owe in the form of mortgages, credit cards, personal loans and store cards. This equates to roughly £4.5 billion washing machines or 7.5 million three-bedroom houses.

The average household in the UK with personal, unsecured debt, such as personal loans or credit cards, owe £22,190. If you include mortgages, the average household debt is £59,715.

However evidence suggests that we can't afford to pay it back. About 120 properties were repossessed every single day in the UK last month and the situation is expected to get worse as growing numbers of households struggle to meet their mortgage commitments. The Council of Mortgage Lenders says 200,000 homeowners will have missed at least three mortgage repayments by the end of the year.

Auction houses are reporting a huge jump in the number of repossessed homes on their books. Allsops, one of the largest, recently held an auction with 996 lots, compared to 227 in the same month last year.

The bad news continues. The number of homeowners trapped in negative equity is expected to soar to 2 million by 2010.

9. $2,900,000,000

Last year's pay cheque for George Soros, the second-highest-paid hedge fund manager in the world. Mr Soros is the chairman of Soros Fund Management and was estimated to be worth about $8.8 billion by Forbes magazine last year. This could clear the credit card debt of almost 300,000 struggling Americans.

The average American household owed $2,966 on their credit card in 1990 compared to $9,840 in 2007. The average American male earned $32,000 last year, according to figures from the US Census, and last month more than 533,000 Americans lost their jobs, the largest amount in 34 years.

10. $52,000...

...every minute. This is how much cash GM, or General Motors, is losing as a result of the economic meltdown in the US. Note that this eclipses the average annual American salary. This collapse in profitability has forced the world's biggest carmaker to go cap-in-hand to the US government and it has been joined by Ford and Chrysler, which are facing similar loses. The US carmarkers are asking for £23 billion in taxpayers cash.

The 10 biggest winners from the financial crisis

2009-05-18T01:22:00.000-07:00

High street retailers, estate agents, Iceland…the casualties of the economic crisis are all too familiar. But while there are losers, others have profited from the doom.

We’ve rounded up ten credit crunch Houdinis who’ve escaped the financial crisis and are laughing all the way to the ailing bank.

1. Andrew Lahde
Andew Lahde, a California based hedge-fund manager, made 888 per cent profits last year when his company Lahde Capital bet against US sub-prime mortgage assets. In September this year Mr Lahde decided he was rich enough to retire, closed his fund and released a letter, which has become an internet sensation.

The opening paragraph begins: “Today I write not to gloat, given the pain that nearly everyone is experiencing, that would be entirely inappropriate.” In a petulant rant he then, bizarrely, goes on to ask the American government to recognise the benefits of growing marijuana and urges bankers to bin their blackberries and go on holiday.

2. John Paulson
Last year, John Paulson, a New York-based hedge fund manager, outsmarted Wall Street and made nearly $2 billion by betting against mortgage backed securities. Much derided for cashing in on others' misery, he has shown few regrets, telling the Wall Street Journal: “I've never been involved in a trade that had such unlimited upside with a very limited downside."

3. Barack Obama
The final straight of the presidential race has coincided nicely with the meltdown of the global financial system, providing a serendipitous marketing tool for Mr Obama. As voters watch the stock market plummet, the Democrats have offered to clean up the economic mess that the Republicans will leave behind.

4. Gordon Brown
A couple of months ago the Prime Minister was against the ropes. Now he’s being lauded as the rescuer of the banks. In an article in the New York Times entitled “Gordon does good” Paul Krugman, who two weeks ago picked up the Nobel Prize for economics said: “Luckily for the world economy, Gordon Brown and his officials are making sense… they may have shown us the way through this crisis.” Mr Brown’s polls ratings are starting to creep up and Labour, it seems, are back in the game.

5. Ronald McDonald
Don’t expect to bump into Ronald in the dole queue any time soon. As slightly pricier restaurant chains stare at gloomy sales figures, cheap and cheerful fast food joints are watching profits soar. McDonalds has seen two million extra customers a month compared with last year and is intending to create 4,000 new jobs in response.

6. Karl Marx
Dust off your headscarf, Marx is making a comeback. German bookstores have experienced a 300 per cent increase in sales of Das Kapital in recent months, and visitors are flocking to Marx’s birthplace in Trier – 40,000 so far this year. Jörn Schütrumpf, head of the Berlin publishing house Dietz, which brings out the works of Marx said: “We have a new generation of readers who are rattled by the financial crisis and have to recognise that neo-liberalism has turned out to be a false dream.”

7. Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase
With more than $900 billion in deposits, JP Morgan Chase is now America’s biggest savings business after it bailed out the failed Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual. Despite the market turmoil, its employees, not least its chief executive Jamie Dimon, can expect a nice Christmas box this year – staff have already been paid £700m in bonuses. Even better news for Dimon if rumour is to be believed, is that he will replace Hank Paulson as Treasury Secretary if Barack Obama makes it to the White House.

8. The Magic Circle
The paperwork is piling up on the desks of lawyers at Magic Circle firms such as Clifford Chance, Linklaters and Allen&Overy since the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Icelandic banks. Some top City lawyers are now demanding up to £900 an hour to dish out their advice on insolvency and restructuring. Fraud litigators are also feeling plush, as fraudsters are easier to spot during economic downturns.

9. Emilio Botin, chairman of Santander
Spanish Santander has been fattening itself up on high street banks rather than subprime mortgages, and thanks to a tough stance on exotic investment is now the world’s fifth largest bank based on the profits it generates. Already the owner of Abbey, Santander’s rescue of Alliance & Leicester and Bradford &Bingley mean that Mr Botin oversees almost 25million UK customers.

10. Bart Becht, chief executive of Reckitt Benckiser
The world’s biggest household detergent group and the makers of Cillit bang, Reckitt Benckiser has posted record profits of £373m for the last quarter. Apparently, as none of us can afford to leave the house or go out to eat we are staying in to clean the loo and stack the dishwasher instead.

List compiled by Laura Whateley

The 10 people most responsible for the recession

2009-05-18T01:21:00.000-07:00

The global financial crisis has evolved into a worldwide recession of epic proportions. Analysts fear the sudden slump which has followed the credit crunch could even rival the Great Depression of the early 1930s and lead to global stagnation.

But who is responsible?

The bursting of the housing bubble and the collapse in confidence throughout financial markets was not caused by one individual or a single decision, so pointing the finger of blame is a near-impossible task. But Times Money has given it a shot anyway. Here are ten suggestions for the nine men and one woman responsible for the mess we're in. Once you have read our notes, vote in our poll and make your own suggestions in the comment box at the end of the piece.

1. Dick Fuld

Multi-billionaire and US squash all-star Dick Fuld, 62, was CEO of Lehman Brothers when it went bust in September last year. Dubbed the “scariest man on Wall Street”, Dick Fuld is blamed for a litany of mistakes that include leaving Lehman Brothers heavily exposed to toxic US sub-prime mortgage debt and other assets that collapsed in value in the wake of the credit crunch.

His secretive work ethic, which rewarded loyalty over all else, has been criticised for silencing potential whistleblowers. In its final months a series of interested buyers surfaced to save Lehmans, but Mr Fuld would not sell at the prices offered. Had he acted sooner, he would have been able to avoid bankruptcy. Institutional Investor magazine named Dick “America’s top chief executive” in 2006. The collapse of Lehmans triggered the second destructive phase in the credit crunch and laid the foundations for a full blown global recession.

2. Hank Paulson

If Dick Fuld is responsible for the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Henry Paulson, the former US Treasury Secretary, is the man who let it happen. Anatole Kaletsky, of The Times, says: “The global banking collapse could perhaps be described as a bullet in the head, since its proximate cause was a conscious decision by the US Treasury to jeopardise the stability of the world economy in pursuit of an essentially political objective - to show that the Bush Administration was willing to act ruthlessly against at least one big Wall Street investment bank. Until that point, savers and investors around the world had assumed that financial institutions such as Lehman were “too big to fail” and would always be supported by their governments. By shattering this belief Henry Paulson triggered a run on every important bank in the world and caused the sudden implosion of consumer and business confidence seen in the past two months.”

Hank didn’t just let Lehmans fail. He made a series of mistakes in the run up to the Lehmans collapse. He also proposed a £700 billion package to boost the US banking system. And how did Hank come up with a figure of £700 billion? “It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com, the US financial website. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

3. Alan Greenspan

Alan Greenspan was feted for his management of the US economy while he stood in charge of the US Treasury, but has since been put under the spotlight. He was responsible for cutting interest rates to near zero in the US in the aftermath of September 11, flooding the world with cheap and easily available money. Did this pave the way for a “once-in-a-century credit tsunami"? In October last year he said: “I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organisations, specifically banks and others, was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders.”

Allan Meltzer is a professor of political economy at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said: “Alan Greenspan was much too afraid of a slowdown or other recession…he allowed the credit to expand too rapidly."

4. John Tiner/Hector Sants

John Tiner was in charge of the Financial Services Authority, the watchdog that polices the UK ’s complex financial services industry until 2007, when it was taken over by Hector Sants. The FSA failed to keep a close eye on Northern Rock, the Newcastle-based ex-mutual which gorged on wholesale mortgage securitisation and came a cropper as a result. A key parliamentary committee has said that the FSA was guilty of a "systematic failure". Mr Sants accepted that the organisation under Mr Tiner failed to stress-test the business model of Northern Rock and spot signs that the bank was dangerously dependent on interbank funding to remain in business. "We should have been in more intense dialogue earlier", he has said.

5. Fred “the shred” Goodwin

The "world's worst banker" has brought the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Britain's second biggest bank, to its knees. Last week it announced humiliating losses of £28 billion, the biggest in British corporate history, and economists and analysts have concluded that it could soon be fully-nationalised. In mid-January, taxpayers saw their stake in the banking giant increase from 58 per cent to 70 per cent.

Sir Fred joined RBS in 2000 and promptly embarked on a spending spree, acquiring 26 banks in seven years for more than £35 billion. These included NatWest and stakes in America and the Bank of China. In 2006, its share price stood at £13. But at the close of trading on January 28, RBS shares were trading at a near-worthless 15.9p.

In 2000, after the takeover of NatWest, RBS’s board rewarded Sir with a £2.1 million annual salary, including a bonus of £814,000 for the takeover — more than any other UK bank chief received that year. It paled in comparison with his £2.86 million bonus in 2007. Three months ago, in October, Sir Fred left the bank under a dark cloud that has now mushroomed into a thunderstorm. On the day his departure was announced, Sir Fred said he was "sad", adding: "Nobody will ever tell you that they feel good the day they have to step down.” The Prince's Trust recently dumped Fred The Shred and the campaign to strip him of his knighthood is gathering pace.

6. Gordon Brown

Apparently Gordon Brown predicted the global financial crisis ten years ago, in a speech he made to Harvard students. Sadly he did little to prevent it. James Gordon Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer during “the longest period of growth” in the UK ’s history, but economists blame Mr Brown for encouraging soaring house price inflation and the spread of credit which fuelled the years of boom and led eventually to the current bust.

In a recent speech to the London School of Economics, George Osbourne, the Shadow Chancellor, said: "Our competitors used the fat years to prepare for the lean years. Britain did not. We are the least prepared country in the developed world to cope with the current financial turbulence. Our financial reputation has been badly damaged by the only run on a retail bank in the world. Our double deficits - external and fiscal - are worse than any other European economy. Taken together, they are worse than the United States." The blame "lies squarely and fairly with Gordon Brown", he concluded.

7. George Bush

The former President was in charge during the boom years when the seeds of the sub-prime implosion were sown, but has failed to take any responsibility for the financial disaster which occurred on his watch. In a speech last year he blamed the bankers in New York for the problems facing his country's economy. “Wall Street got drunk…The question is, how long will it [take to] sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments?”

8. Kathleen Corbet

The credit rating agencies have been blamed for failing to ask tough questions about the collateralised debt products containing so many toxic sub-prime mortgages, which investors traded for millions of dollars during the booming housing years. The three biggest agencies have been accused of taking the word of investors and not properly assessing the risks involved in securitisation. Mrs Corbet was head of the biggest credit rating agency, Standard & Poors, before she quit amidst heavy criticism in 2007. Critics argue that S&P and its main rival Moody's, as well as other agencies, face an inherent conflict of interest, in that many of their clients issue securities that are rated by its analysts.

9. "Hank" Greenberg

Another Hank. This one was head of AIG, the insurance giant that had to be rescued in an £47 billion US government bailout just days after Lehman Brothers was allowed to go bust. Hank was in charge between 1967 until 2005, during which time the insurer got heavily involved in the murky world of credit default swaps. Mr Greenberg appealed to the US Government to save the company last September, saying: "It's a healthy company financially except for liquidity. No organisation around the world has the spread of risk that AIG does. It's a company that opens markets - letting it go down would be a dramatic mistake."

10. Angelo Mozilo

Mr Mozilo was head of the largest sub-prime mortgage lender in the US, Countrywide, until July 2008. Sub-prime lenders in the US have been accused of using misleading marketing to push unsuitable mortgages on sub-prime homeowners who could not afford to service the debt, the root cause of the credit crunch. During the housing boom, Mr Mozilo reportedly earned $470 million in salary and other income. Mr Mozilo has also been under the spotlight for a VIP programme in which politicians and senior officials in the Government were offered favourable mortgage deals. Earlier this month Bank of America agreed to buy Countrywide for about $4 billion (£2 billion). Meanwhile, Mozilo unloaded $141m in stock options before the company's share price collapsed

The top 10 cheap restaurant deals

2009-05-18T01:20:00.000-07:00

Print out and keep these discount vouchers in your wallet for the next time you fancy a credit crunch lunch or dinner.

1. Two for one on all main meals at Ask

Expires April 9, 2009 (valid Sunday - Thursday, excluding Mother’s Day)

http://www.askrestaurantoffers.co.uk/

2. Buy one get one free on all main meals at Strada

Expires March 31, 2009 (valid Sunday - Thursday)

http://www.stradaoffers.co.uk/gmtv

3. 50 per cent off your food bill at La Tasca

Expires March 15, 2009 (valid Sunday - Thursday)

http://s3.static.vouchercodes.co.uk/pdf/latasca_feb09.pdf

4. Pizza Express two for one on main meals

Expires March 29, 2009

http://www.pizzaexpressoffers.co.uk/

Two for one on main meals plus free dough balls or garlic bread each for Orange mobile customers

Expires August 31, 2009 (valid on Wednesdays)

http://web.orange.co.uk/images/managed/PizzaExpressVoucher.pdf

5. A main course for £1 when you buy any other main course at Zizzi

Expires March 12, 2009 (valid Sunday - Thursday)

http://www.zizzioffers.co.uk/

6. Dine for £5 at All Bar One

Expires March 12, 2009 (valid Sunday - Thursday)

http://www.allbarone.co.uk/pdf/ABO_dinefor5_feb09.pdf

7. Two for one burgers and salads at Gourmet Burger Kitchen

Expires March 26, 2009 (valid Monday - Thursday)

http://www.gbkinfo.com/downloads/GBK_Half_Offer.pdf

8. Two for one on main meals at Prezzo

Expires March 20, 2009 (valid Sundays - Fridays)

http://www.prezzoplc.co.uk/2for1_6days.pdf

9. Two for one on main meals at Ha! Ha!

Expires March 18, 2009

http://www.hahaonline.co.uk/bring-a-friend

10. Buy One get one free on all mezes and souvlakis at The Real Greek

Expires April 9, 2009 (only valid until 7pm in some branches)

http://www.therealgreek.com/download/pdf/TRG-241-Voucher-Feb-Apr.pdf

Ten ways to save without even noticing

2009-05-18T01:16:00.001-07:00

Earlier this month, the Office of National Statistics reported that the savings ratio – the proportion of our income we put aside each month – had fallen to just 1.1 per cent, the lowest level since 1959. No wonder when higher inflation and more expensive mortgages have been eating away at our income. But fear not, there are ways that you can save without even noticing...

1. Sweeping

Find out if your bank of building society offers a monthly "sweep" facility. This means that whatever is left in your current account on the day before payday can be transferred into a savings account without you having to lift a finger.

Abbey, HSBC, First Direct, the Co-operative and Intelligent Finance will all set up a "sweep" on your account free, while Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest charge an annual fee of £35.

2. Save the change

Customers at Lloyds TSB can sign up to a unique saving scheme called Save The Change, which rounds up debit card purchases to the nearest pound and saves the difference in a designated savings account. For example, if you buy a sandwich for £1.70, the bank will deduct £2 from your current account, with 30p going into your savings account.

3. Children's perks

When parents sign up to KidStart.co.uk, they earn up to 20 per cent back on purchases made on their debit or credit cards at hundreds of online or high street retailers. This cash is deposited in either a Child Trust Fund or a nominated children's savings account. It is free to join, and is also open to grandparents or friends.

4. Cashback credit cards

Credit cards that reward you with money back have been on the market for a while, but Leeds Building Society is the only provider to return the cash by cheque, rather than as a credit on your card's account. All you have to do is deposit the money in a savings account. The Leeds Building Society Cashback Mastercard has an APR of 17.9 per cent and offers 0.5 per cent cashback on all purchases.

5. At the supermarket

If your supermarket shopping comes to less than you've budgeted for, ask the cashier to add the difference to your savings account. Both Tesco and Sainsbury's allow customers with one of their savings products to pay money into their accounts at the tills with the swipe of a debit card.

6. Collect your reward

The Co-operative membership scheme rewards regular customers with a cash dividend twice a year in exchange for the points they have collected across the group's finance, travel, funeral and food divisions. The cash can be paid directly into a savings account, which doesn't have to be with the Co-op. Last year the Co-operative's 2.5 million members were paid 1.43p per point.

7. Regular savers

Sign up and a standing order will take between £20 and £250 from your current account to a regular saver account, often with excellent rates. Abbey's Fixed Monthly Saver, for example, promises a 7.25 per cent return on your cash for 12 months.

8. Deposit for your first home

NatWest is helping first-time buyers with a new account that rewards you with cash just for saving for a deposit. The First Home Saver Account promises to pay £125 on savings of £500, rising to £5,000 on savings of £50,000. The account has to be open for at least six months before you seal your first house deal, and regular payments of at least £50 have to be made.

The best bit is that you can transfer savings you have built up already into the account and still earn the cashback. The only drawback? To collect the money, you have to take out a mortgage from NatWest, which might not offer the best deal for you.

9. High-interest current accounts

A high-interest current account means that your money is working for you without you having to do anything. Standard current accounts have rates of nly 0.1 per cent, but Halifax pays 5.12 per cent on balances of up to £2,500 with its High-Interest Current Account. Unlike other current accounts boasting attractive rates, the interest you receive from Halifax won't fall after the first year.

10. Loose change

Last but not least, whether you keep it in a shoe box or a pink pig, loose change can grow into a healthy sum. Just 50p a day adds up to £182 a year. Transfer this annually into a high-interest savings account with a rate of 7 per cent, and your spare coppers and silver will turn into £2,690 after ten years, or £38,876 after 40.

By James Charles

Twenty reasons never to fly Ryanair

2009-05-18T01:16:00.000-07:00

You have to admire the audacity of everyone’s favourite love-to-hate chief executive Michael O’Leary.

His latest stunt, to cause outrage by suggesting that Ryanair might start charging holidaymakers “a pound to spend a penny” onboard, made it on to the cover of The Daily Express. In the process, one imagines, reminding several hundred thousand hard up Britons to take advantage of the airline’s spring seat sale.

This week The Sun reports: “A saucy stewardess is putting the thrills in no-frills airline Ryanair.”

The “34B Czech stunner” , it alleges, has been given her bosses’ blessing to moonlight as a porn star.

Depressingly, all publicity is good publicity when you are the world’s leading budget airline and Ryanair doesn’t give a damn whether you like it or not. O’Leary knows that when it comes to the crunch, especially this credit one, you will still turn to him for a cheap weekend jolly.

But while the airline can be cheap, the customer service truly sucks. So, here are 20 things to remember next time you are led into temptation by those 1p flights.

1. 1p flights are never 1p

Even if you strike it lucky and find a 1p flight you actually want to take, Ryanair charge you for the pleasure of paying for it. To the tune of £4.75. For each passenger. Each way.

And that doesn’t even include…

2. The check-in charge

If you want to book a bag into the aircraft hold you must check in at the airport, which will cost you £4.75 per passenger, per way, if you book online and a whopping £10 per passenger, per way if you pay at the airport or over the phone. And it doesn’t matter if only one person in your party takes a bag, everyone else still has to pay to check in at the airport too.

This week Ryanair announced that it’s all change from May when airport check in will rocket to £20 per person, per way. That is a grand total of £160 for a return flight as a family of four.

All without factoring in…

3. The baggage charge

Which is an extortionate £9.50 per bag, per flight. Or £19 if you book at the airport or over the phone.

4. The sneaky weight limit

Ryanair set its weight limit for hold luggage at 15kg catching the majority of passengers off guard.

You’re not allowed to pool bags either so, even if you have a party of four sharing luggage, if the bag weighs 16kg you will be charged £14 per additional kilo. Nevermind that it makes not a jot of difference to the weight of the aeroplane.

5. Queues glorious queues

If you’re still talking to your partner following the inevitable blazing row about why you shouldn’t just pay the bloody charges listed above, you won’t be after being told to join the back of the enormous queue at the ‘payments’ desk.

6. The additional baggage charge

Probably best to wear all of your clothes at once on the flight if you are travelling somewhere for more than a couple of days (until Ryanair start charging passengers for excess body weight that is). Check more than one bag in and it will cost you another £19 per extra piece of luggage, per way.

7. The website is rubbish. On purpose.

You have no choice but to book a Ryanair flight through its website so the airline may as well make it as stressful an experience as possible. The website is ugly for starters, and it crashes. All the time.

Because you can’t easily browse for dates when cheap flights are available you have to dedicate at least five precious hours of your life to sitting in front of the screen and laboriously trying different combinations to find a good deal.

And if you don’t understand what the hell you’ve just pressed there is no one to e-mail. Because Ryanair want you to spend more money and phone its…

8. Premium rate internet helpline

Calls cost £1 a minute to speak to someone in a call centre. Be amazed if you can explain what your problem is for under a fiver.

9. You can only fly cheap mid week

To get the bargains that make the pain of Ryanair worth the gain you have to be prepared to fly on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, which can rule out the bargain European weekend break. Kind of why you wanted to book with Ryanair in the first place.

10. You have to travel at obscene hours.

Not only are you travelling on a Tuesday you also have to be prepared to wake up at 2am to get to the airport two hours ahead of your 6.55am flight. Or, if you choose a more civilised evening departure time, arrive in your destination at midnight with no where to stay because…

11. The destination airports are in the middle of nowhere.

Don’t expect to fly to Frankfurt if you book a flight to Frankfurt, to name one of many examples. Frankfurt Hahn airport where Ryanair land is 120 km from the city centre.

12. A bottle of water on board costs £3

I know the moral of this story is to buy a drink from WH Smith before you board, but it’s still annoying.

13. Sweaty, plasticky seats

Whatever you do, don’t wear shorts or you might be stuck to your seat forever and forced to listen to…

14. The in-flight musak

Pray that your flight is not delayed before it takes off or you’ll have to put up with the bleepy, computer-game inspired musak that is played on loop as your board, over, and over.

15. The fanfare

Do we really need the shrill fanfare that sounds when/if the flight lands on time? Or does it just ruin the first three minutes of each passenger's holiday?

16. You can’t book a seat

As if the British holiday ritual of crowding round the baggage carousel isn’t enough to warrant the use of blood-thinning medication, Ryanair invite you to partake in the extreme sport that is racing across the tarmac to get a seat next to your companion. Flip flops are a distinct disadvantage.

17. No refunds, ever

Unless you have a spare few days to waste do not even bother trying.

18. Poor compensation

A report by the UK’s Air Transport Users Council has found that the world’s airlines lost more than one million bags in 2007 and more than 42 million pieces of luggage were mishandled worldwide.

Guess who it named as the worst airline for compensation if your bag goes missing or is damaged?

19. You are always being flogged stuff

No we don't want your ridiculously overpriced travel insurance, car hire or Ryanair tea-towels. Go away.

20. Michael O’Leary himself

Don't tell me you can bear to make him any more smug?

By Laura Whateley

How to buy a second-hand car

2009-05-18T01:14:00.000-07:00

With used-car scams on the rise because of the recession, we explain your rights and the many pitfalls

Lauren Thompson

The second-hand car market has become even murkier in the past year, consumer groups have warned, with cloned cars and forged documentation becoming increasingly common in the recession.

Last week the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) began an investigation into the market after Consumer Direct, the watchdog, received a record 68,000 complaints last year. Frank Shepherd, of Consumer Direct, says: “We are receiving more complaints than ever about dodgy car sellers. From false documents to defective parts, there are plenty of pitfalls to avoid.”

The prices for used cars fell towards the end of last year but have now recovered, according to Parkers.co.uk, the car information website, making it even more important for consumers to obtain the best deal.

Richard Headland, of Which? Car magazine, says: “The more you look into the used-car market, the murkier it gets. It is a minefield for consumers. Many people simply have no idea whether or not what they are buying is legitimate.”

Here we identify the main pitfalls and explain how to avoid them.

Stolen and cloned cars

More than 170,000 cars were stolen last year, the Home Office says. If you buy a stolen car, you risk losing the vehicle and your money.

Mr Shepherd says: “The police can take a stolen car from you to return it to the original owner or the insurance company. You will not receive any compensation, even though you bought the car in good faith.”

Car cloning is also increasing. This involves stealing a car and changing its identity before selling it on. Criminals replace the numberplates and vehicle identification number (VIN) with the identity from a legitimate vehicle of the same make, model and colour. Cloning can also have serious consequences for the owner of the original, legitimate car, because they can find themselves held responsible for speeding or parking tickets in places they have never visited.

The best way to avoid stolen or cloned cars is by checking the vehicle registration document (V5C). Buyers should not proceed with the sale until this document has been produced and they have checked it carefully.

Mr Headland says: “Stolen or forged documentation is relatively easy to obtain. Fake registration documents can be bought for about £200 and the real thing, stolen from the DVLA, costs about £500.”

Buyers should check that numbers on the V5C match the car’s number plate, engine number and VIN, which is usually found in the engine compartment. Make sure that none of the numbers have been tampered with.

If you do inadvertently buy a stolen or cloned car, you are likely to run into problems when making an insurance claim. Niki Bolton, of eSure, the insurer, says: “If the vehicle was stolen, this would be identified when a policyholder made a claim. While we would cover all third-party costs, it is unlikely that we would pay for any damage to the vehicle because it is not the policyholder’s property.”

If a vehicle has a numberplate starting with Q, which means that the identity of the vehicle is unknown or it has been built using several used parts, it will be very difficult to obtain car insurance.

Cars owned by a credit company

One in four checked vehicles still has outstanding finance, according to HPI, the organisation that performs checks on vehicle histories. Helen Saxon, of the Finance and Leasing Association, the trade body, says: “If money is owed on a car by a previous owner, the car still belongs to the finance company and can be taken from the new owner at any time. This is why it is very important to get a vehicle check on any used car you are considering buying.”

These checks, which can be carried out online or over the phone, cost about £20 and tell the buyer if a vehicle has been stolen, cloned, written off or has any outstanding finance. It normally includes a guarantee. HPI, for example, provides up to £30,000 financial reimbursement if a car turns out to have unforeseen problems.

Defective cars

Mr Shepherd says that most of the complaints received by Consumer Direct relate to faulty cars. “Common problems include a leaky gearbox and faulty clutch,” he says. “The obvious advice is to view the car in daylight, take it for a test drive and take someone else with you if you are unsure about cars.”

Clocking, where the mileometer is turned back to reduce the number of miles shown, is a big problem and costs consumers £100 million a year, according to the OFT. If the mileage appears low but wear and tear on the car looks heavy, there is a chance that the car has been clocked.

Mr Shepherd says: “Check MoT certificates and service documentation for mileage readings. Previous owners named on the V5C should be able to tell you what the mileage was when they sold the car.”

It is important to research the market value of a car by using a website such as Parkers.co.uk. If you are paying less than 70 per cent of the market price, the car is more likely to be defective, stolen or cloned.

Write-offs

It is also important to check if a car has already been “written off” by an insurance company. Ms Saxon says: “If a vehicle has been declared a total loss, or write-off, it has almost certainly been involved in a big accident. Many can be repaired safely, but others will always be unsafe.”

Write-offs have four insurance categories: A and B refer to very damaged vehicles that should not be allowed back on the road, while C and D generally refer to older vehicles with minor damage that can be repaired.

Ian Crowder, of the AA, says: “If you go ahead with the purchase, you must tell your insurer. It may not affect premiums, but you are likely to receive very little if you make a claim. Also perform, or pay for, a mechanical inspection — an MoT certificate is not sufficient — to ensure that the car has been repaired to a high standard. The vehicle’s market value will have been reduced considerably, so do not pay the full price.”

Know your rights

Consumer rights depend on whether the car is bought from a dealer, at auction or privately.

If buying from a dealer, you are covered by the Sale of Goods Act 1979, which states that goods should be of satisfactory quality and fit for purpose. If they are not, you can demand redress. Look for an established dealer with a good reputation and make sure that it is a member of the Retail Motor Industry Federation, which offers a conciliation and arbitration service. Consumer Direct recommends choosing a dealer with a quality-checking scheme, such as Ford Direct or Vauxhall’s Network Q.

You can find bargains at auction or privately, but you may not be covered by the Sale of Goods Act and have little hope of redress if something goes wrong. The buyer enters into a contract with the owner of the goods, not the auctioneer, and it can be difficult to track down the owner later.

Mr Headland says that consumers should also be wary when buying privately. “Many traders pose as private dealers to shirk their responsibilities to the customer,” he says. “If you do buy privately, always say that you are calling about ‘the car’ and be wary if the seller asks ‘which one?’. Make sure that you view the car at the seller’s home, not a public place, and that the seller’s phone number does not appear in several advertisements.”

Case study

Paul Hughes, above, of Stoke-on-Trent, was poised to splash out £11,000 on a used Nissan Navara when he discovered that it was actually a cloned car.

The 48-year-old entrepreneur says: “I saw the car in Auto Trader and it seemed reasonably priced; not low enough to cause alarm. I went to the seller’s house to view the car, which was in reasonable condition. The paperwork all seemed fine, so I made an offer. The seller insisted that I paid cash because he claimed to be having problems with his bank.”

But before Mr Hughes handed over the money he carried out a vehicle check with HPI for £19.99. An adviser pointed out that there was no issue number on the V5C, which meant that the documentation was probably forged. Mr Hughes says: “Sure enough, HPI called back and confirmed that the car was a clone. I told Auto Trader, which withdrew the advertisement. The vehicle check was £20 well spent and stopped me losing £11,000.”

Mr Hughes, who also contacted the police, adds: “I found the legitimate car online through a Nissan garage so I was able to warn the owner.”

Buyer’s checklist

Find out the car’s market value by using a website such as whatcar.com or parkers.co.uk.

Ask to see the V5C, MoT certificate and insurance policy.

Call the DVLA on 0870 2411878 to check that the V5C is genuine.

Perform a vehicle data check with a company such as HPI or the AA.

Consider taking an independent, qualified examiner to check the vehicle. The AA’s comprehensive inspection costs about £240.

Do budget airlines still offer the cheapest fares?

2009-05-18T01:11:00.001-07:00

As Ryanair prepares to introduce its new check-in charge, we investigate whether low-cost carriers offer good value

Laura Whateley

A pound to spend a penny; £30 to carry home a giant Toblerone that won’t fit in your bag; and now rumours that Ryanair is planning to introduce a fat tax for overweight passengers. It is little wonder that Times Money has received almost 600 comments and complaints about the budget airline on our Money Central blog.

From next week Ryanair will charge £5 to check in online and impose a £40 fine per person, each way, if you fail to bring your boarding card to the airport.

The aim, says Steve McNamara, a spokesman for the airline, is to phase out airport check-ins by October. He says that the charge will “benefit some as it will not be applied to promotional fares”. But he admits that for the majority of those who do not manage to bag the best deals “flights will cost a little bit more”.

Ryanair is by no means the only budget airline to catch out passengers with fees. Flying with bmibaby will cost you £10.99 per bag on each flight if you book online, but £15 if you forget and book in your luggage when you get to the airport. Flybe charges £13 and Aer Lingus £15 a bag, each way, if booked at the airport.

EasyJet demands a 2.5 per cent transaction fee when paying for flights with a credit card. This comes on top of a £2.95 booking fee — and you have to be careful to uncheck additional travel insurance when buying a flight on its website, otherwise as much as £17 per passenger will be added to the cost of your ticket.

With all these charges, can these airlines still claim to be budget carriers? Times Money decided to investigate. Looking at the two market leaders — easyJet and Ryanair — and British Airways, the scheduled airline, we have compared the total costs of taking a flight from London this summer for a family holiday, a weekend break and a business trip.

Two-week family holiday to Málaga, Spain

Two adults and two children travelling on Saturday morning, August 1, returning on Saturday evening, August 15, with three bags in the hold and one set of golfclubs.

British Airways (from Gatwick)

Cost with debit card: £1,166

Cost with credit card: £1,171

EasyJet (from Gatwick)

Cost with debit card: £1,073

Cost with credit card: £1,098

Ryanair (from Stansted)

Cost with debit card: £1,265

Cost with credit card: £1,265

The cheapest fare on a credit card for a family of four to Málaga is with easyJet, at £1,098. But this is only £73 less than flying with British Airways, which will offer you seats booked together, a more generous baggage allowance and free food and drink during the flight.

The easyJet ticket is £166 cheaper than the Ryanair equivalent, which is the most expensive option because of its additional charges. If you book everything on the Ryanair website, you still pay £94 more than you would for the same journey with British Airways. All the flights are about the same length at a little less than three hours.

If you book the flight after next week’s fee changes and forget to check in before you arrive at Stansted, you will have to stump up £40 per person, per flight — that’s a hefty £320 for a family of four simply to check in at the airport.

If you do not use the website and book your baggage into the hold via the Ryanair call centre or when you get to the airport, the airline will charge an extra £10 per bag, per flight, and an extra £10 per flight for each item of sports equipment.

It is worth noting that phoning Ryanair will cost you too — £1 a minute. A Ryanair flight to Málaga without prebooked luggage and check-in would cost £419 more than the same journey with British Airways.

Italian weekend break for two

Two adults travelling to Rome on Friday evening, September 4, returning Monday evening, September 7, with one bag in the hold.

British Airways (Gatwick to Rome Fiumicino)

Cost with debit card: £251

Cost with credit card: £256

EasyJet (Gatwick to Rome Fiumicino)

Cost with debit card: £240

Cost with credit card: £244

Ryanair (Stansted to Rome Ciampino)

Cost with debit card: £244

Cost with credit card: £244

British Airways is the most expensive flight, but only £12 more than Ryanair. But that difference disappears if you book priority boarding with Ryanair, at a cost of £3 each way per person.

It will cost only £7 more to fly with British Airways if you pay for your flight with a debit card. That is about as much as the cost of a couple of bottles of water and a packet of peanuts on one of the budget airlines.

Also bear in mind that Ryanair only flies from Stansted and into Ciampino, a small military airport with relatively few facilities for tourists, rather than Rome’s main international airport, Fiumicino.

Last-minute, midweek business trip to Scotland for one night

One adult travelling to Glasgow early on Tuesday, June 2, returning early the following day, June 3, with no bags in the hold.

British Airways (Gatwick to Glasgow International)

Cost with debit card: £79

Cost with credit card: £83

EasyJet (Gatwick to Glasgow International)

Cost with debit card: £56

Cost with credit card: £59

Ryanair (Stansted to Glasgow Prestwick)

Cost with debit card: £55

Cost with credit card: £55

A midweek flight, carrying no hold baggage, offers the best-value travel on the budget airlines. Mr McNamara points out: “The cheapest fares during the busiest periods — school holidays or over Bank Holiday weekends — are snapped up quickly, so it is worth booking off-peak.”

In this instance, a flight to Scotland with easyJet and Ryanair is more than £25 cheaper than a British Airways flight. The Ryanair outbound single fare actually costs nothing and the easyJet return flight £19.99. But with third-party fees and booking charges, the headline rates rise quickly.

What’s more, the Ryanair flight will take you to Glasgow Prestwick airport, which is 32 miles from the centre of the city — so your £25 saving will disappear on a taxi fare — all without a morning croissant and newspaper on the flight. And if you work in Central London, you will spend the additional £25 getting to the airport — the Stansted Express will set you back at least that much.

The moral of the story, according to Barry Smith, co-founder of the comparison website skyskanner.net, is “to stay flexible, add up the fees before you click ‘buy’ and never, ever fly on a low-cost airline with children — you will get hammered for baggage”. He adds: “Remember that aircraft are big pieces of kit and the cost of running them has to come from somewhere. If flights are 1p, the airline will rely on customer naivety to make its money.”

How to avoid those extra charges

If you can, fly midweek, avoid peak times and book several months ahead to take advantage of promotions. Ryanair allocates 50 seats per flight as “very low fare”, but they disappear in a flash.

Make sure that you weigh your luggage before you get to the airport. Ryanair has a stingy 15kg limit and will charge £15 for each additional kilogram each way if you overpack.

Check where your flight will land; the airport could be miles from your desired destination. Frankfurt Hahn airport, for example, is about two hours’ drive from the centre of Frankfurt.

Ryanair and easyJet do not charge booking fees if you pay for your ticket with a Visa electron card.

Use flight comparison websites. On skyscanner.net, for example, you can view a whole month of flights to the same destination, allowing you to pick the cheapest day to travel or find the airline with the lowest-priced ticket.

• Consider booking your outbound and return journeys with different airlines to cut costs.

Goodwin under fresh scrutiny for failings at the Royal Bank

2009-05-18T01:11:00.000-07:00

Sir Fred Goodwin and his erstwhile boardoom colleagues faced fresh scrutiny after they were criticised by one of Scotland's senior businessmen and as regulators were reported to have launched a fresh investigation into the conduct of former Royal Bank of Scotland directors.

David Watt, head of the Institute of Directors in Scotland, said the disastrous losses that left the bank requiring a massive bailout by the tax- payer were caused by "a failure of leadership and governance".

He warned that financial services players ran the risk of repeating the kind of mistakes that devastated Royal Bank unless there was a big change in the culture prevailing in the country's boardrooms.
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While Goodwin recently told MPs it was unfair to blame him for the bank's problems, Watt said the former chief executive of the bank had to shoulder responsibility.

Goodwin was the architect of a strategy of acquisition-led growth that culminated in the bank pressing on with the purchase of ABN Amro bank in 2007 despite clear signs that the credit crunch would cause a serious slowdown.

Watt criticised Goodwin for failing to listen to those who questioned the wisdom of the strategy. "Somebody understood that the challenges that Royal Bank was getting involved in were becoming too risky and that buying ABN Amro was not very wise," said Watt. Goodwin is said to have run the bank in a domineering fashion, which meant subordinates were not allowed to express dissenting views "His leadership culture left a lot to be desired to put it mildly," said Watt.

However, he said the problems resulting from Goodwin's misjudgments could have been avoided if his fellow directors had done their jobs properly.

Non-executive directors are employed to act as a check on executives and to ensure that the strategies they pursue are sound. "They should have been asking fundamental strategic questions like, Which countries are we investing in?', and that would have revealed that the bank was investing heavily in countries where there could be serious difficulties if things did not go to plan," said Watt.

His comments show that the debate about what went wrong at Royal Bank is still very much alive despite the efforts of the new management team to draw a line under the past.

Chairman Philip Hampton called for an end to "public flogging" of the bank at last month's general meeting.

On Friday, Chancellor Alistair Darling joined the attack on the management of banks that ended up requiring life support from the Treasury.

"There is a feeling that in a number of boardrooms that a number of people, non-executives in particular, did not ask the questions that they should have asked," he told industry leaders in Edinburgh.

Yesterday it was reported that the Financial Services Authority (FSA) had appointed the giant accountancy firm Pricewater- houseCoopers to investigate the conduct of former board directors of Royal Bank.

The investigation will cover risk management processes and the information provided to investors about Royal Bank's financial position. The FSA and Royal Bank both declined to comment on the report.

Watt said failings of leadership and corporate governance appeared to have affected other banks, including HBOS, which owned Bank of Scotland.

This became the subject of a government-brokered takeover by Lloyds TSB Bank after it hit the buffers because of overly-aggressive lending in the property and housing markets.

Sir Victor Blank will retire in the next year as chairman of the enlarged Lloyds Banking Group.

Some investors were unhappy that the hasty takeover left Lloyds saddled with massive debts.

Governments around the world are developing proposals to try to ensure there if no repeat of the crisis in the financial sector that has dragged the world into recession.

Watt warned that a response focused on regulation would fail. He said fundamental changes in boardroom practices and cultures were required.

Non-executive directors should receive training to ensure that they are able to exercise their supervisory functions adequately. They needed to ensure that companies pursued sustainable long-term growth rather than short-term targets.

Remuneration policies should not reward employees for actions that brought short-term gain at the risk of losses in future.

Directors should be recruited from a much broader range of back-grounds to ensure that boards reflected the interests of their companies customers.

"What got us here won't get us out," said Watt.

"We can't believe that continuing to do what we've done for the last 20 years will get us improvement; it won't."

Imperial Tobacco UK sales hurt by downturn

2009-05-18T01:09:00.001-07:00

Sales of cigarettes fall across Western Europe as the recession and long-term declines in smoking affect business

Catherine Boyle

Cigarette sales have fallen in the UK and the rest of Western Europe as consumer spending declines, according to Imperial Tobacco, which published interim results this morning.

The world’s fourth-largest cigarette maker reported a 14 per cent rise in adjusted half-year earnings per share to 71.8p today and said that it was well placed for the future. However, its share price fell by 4 per cent in early trade as the company made a net loss of £149 million, compared with net profit of £233 million in the same period last year, as it integrated Altadis, the Franco-Spanish maker of Gauloises cigarettes, which it bought in January 2008.

Adjusted profit from operations rose by 49 per cent to £1.37 billion, but the comparative period last year included only two months of Altadis's sales instead of six months this time. Imperial said today that it remains on track to deliver planned cost savings from the purchase.

Although cigarette sales fell across Western Europe, with the UK market down 2 per cent and the Spanish market shrinking by 5 per cent, a strong performance in Africa and the Middle East helped buoy volumes.

The cigarette maker also benefited from the weaker pound when translating overseas earnings.

Imperial, which makes Richmond and Lambert & Butler, the two most popular cigarette brands in the UK, said that cigarette volumes rose by 25 per cent to 152 billion around the world, while volumes of fine-cut tobacco rose by 4 per cent to 12,150 tonnes as smokers changed to rolling their own cigarettes to reduce costs.

Gareth Davis, chief executive of Imperial, said: “We are not immune from the pressures of the external environment but our enhanced business profile, combined with our ongoing focus on cost and cash management, leave us well placed to continue to create sustainable value for our shareholders.

"About half our portfolio is value brands and they've done particularly well taking advantage of the ongoing trend to down-trading, particularly in mature markets."

What's in a name? 10 cases where moniker maketh man

2009-05-18T01:03:00.000-07:00

The New Scientist gave it the name nominative determinism - the idea that there is a link between people's names and their occupation.

In their book Yes!, Goldstein, Martin and Cialdini cite the classic piece of research that supports the idea that nominative determism really exists. A study of the rolls of the American Dental Association shows that more people called Dennis become dentists than you would expect if the choice of profession were purely random.

And now we have the exquisitely named Bernard Madoff, making off with his client's cash.

Here are my top 10 examples of nominative determinism.

1. Theodore Hee. Mr T. Hee was responsible for most of the early comic storylines for Walt Disney films.

2. Cardinal Sin. The classic example, I think. Jamie Sin was an Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church of the Philippines. Wikipedia helpfully notes: "His name should not be confused with "cardinal sin", which is synonymous for the seven deadly sins".

3. Judge Judge. In July of this year Sir Igor Judge was appointed Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales.

4. Amy Freeze. Fox News Chicago's Chief Meteorologist could hardly have chosen a different profession. Save, perhaps, setting pay for Government employees.

5. Patty Turner. The inevitable name of the wife of McDonald's CEO Frank Turner.

6. Governor Blagojevich. The man responsible for introducing Americans to the British slang term "blag" which as the dictionary puts it means "To rob, steal [origin unknown]"

7. Dr Fred Grabiner. This is what the internet is for. A forum on appropriate names yields this brilliant moniker for a gynaecologist.

8. J. W. Splatt and D. Weedon. The New Scientist campaign was spurred on by the discovery of these two authors of an article on incontinence in the British Journal of Urology (vol 49, pp 173-176, 1977).

9. Usain Bolt. Surely his surname influenced the career of the world's fastest man? The same cannot be said of Marina Stepanova. This is the ideal name for an elite hurdler. But she earned her first titles under her maiden name of Marina Makeyeva, so her name can't have influenced her choice of career. Perhaps, though, it influenced her choice of husband.

10. Paige Worthy. Nominative determism has also fascinated the Freaknonomics blog ever since they discovered this fact checker for Good magazine.

Google challenged by new rival with all the answers - WolframAlpha

2009-05-18T01:01:00.000-07:00

A revolutionary new search engine that computes answers rather than pointing to websites will be launched officially today amid heated talk that it could challenge the might of Google.

WolframAlpha, named after Stephen Wolfram, the British-born computer scientist and inventor behind the project, takes a query and uses computational power to crunch through huge databases.

The service can compute the distance between two cities, the population of a country at a specific date and the position of the Space Shuttle at a given moment. The user does not have to search through links provided by the engine; the answer comes immediately and, if appropriate, is accompanied by charts or graphs. What it does that Google, at the moment, cannot do is provide answers to questions that have not been answered already.

The new service, available at wolframalpha.com, was previewed several months ago amid industry speculation that it could be a “Google killer”. Dr Wolfram, however, is at pains to point out that his brainchild is a “computational knowledge engine”, not a traditional search engine.

A physics prodigy who earned a PhD aged 20, Dr Wolfram, 49, founded Wolfram Research, in Illinois, which develops advanced software called Mathematica, used mainly by scientists. Mathematica has built up a number of databases and Wolfram Alpha is an attempt to bring them to a wider audience.

The service is free but the company plans to include advertising eventually and to offer paid versions with extra features. Dr Wolfram said that WolframAlpha was a “long-term project” and he hoped to broaden the databases that it uses.

Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, the website, said: “They're saying they're not trying to wipe out Google, but they feel they do the kinds of searches that Google doesn't handle. If you're trying to get facts, this might be a handy kind of encyclopedia for you.”

Last week Google previewed a new experimental service called Google Squared, which will automatically produce spreadsheets of information from search terms.

Forget the Carats. How Many Gigabytes?

2009-05-15T19:10:00.002-07:00

By DAVID S. JOACHIM

WHEN flash drives came on the scene nearly eight years ago, they were given all kinds of nicknames: thumb drives, for their small shape and size; or key drives, for how they plugged into a computer’s U.S.B. slot.

Multimedia
Unexpected Drives

Today, the guts of these little data suitcases have become so compact — and inexpensive — that they are finding their way into everyday items like pens, bracelets, picture frames, clock radios and even car stereos, making it tempting to give them a new name: invisidrives.

Manufacturers are adding these brains to some unlikely products in time for the holidays. For the woman on your shopping list who likes a bit of substance with her style, there is the heart-shaped stainless steel pendant that opens to reveal a one-gigabyte flash drive.

It is part of a line of techno-fashion accessories from the crystal maker Swarovski and Philips Electronics that also includes a crystal-studded decorative lock that doubles as a flash drive.

“Women are much more tech-savvy than men give them credit for,” said Henk S. de Jong, a general manager at Philips. He added that in studies that Philips conducted, women said their tech gadgets “should be like an accessory, so when I’m not using it, it should still look great.”

There are many men’s accessories with built-in flash drives, including wristwatches and even the venerable Swiss Army knife, said Joseph Unsworth, a principal analyst at Gartner, the research firm. Nevertheless, he questions whether women, especially in the United States, want their jewelry to be practical.

“It’s kind of geeky to have jewelry that doubles as a flash drive,” he said. “Are you going to risk buying that for your wife for Christmas? I’m sure I’m not.”

Mr. Unsworth said that such items might have more success in Asia, where women are known to be more enthusiastic about technology and less likely to see techno-jewelry as nerdy.

The heart pendant ($180) and lock ($180) are available at some Macy’s and Best Buy stores and at Swarovski shops.

Tiny flash drives are also helping to modernize accordion-style wallet photo albums. The WalletPix from IdeaVillage — the “As Seen on TV” people — is a credit-card-size device that holds about 50 digital photos transferred from your computer. It has a 1.5-inch liquid crystal display and two arrows for flipping through the album.

The WalletPix comes in black or white plastic. It is available at stores like Wal-Mart, Sears, CVS and Bed Bath & Beyond, as well as online, for about $30.

The data capacity of flash drives is also ballooning, with one- and two-gigabyte models becoming common and the latest models ranging up to 16 gigabytes, making them all practical alternatives to DVDs for storing and transferring big video files.

The TakeTV from SanDisk, for example, uses flash technology to solve the basic problem of moving videos from the computer to the television without running cables across the house or setting up a wireless-video system.

Once you connect TakeTV’s docking station to your television using the cables that are included, the set becomes a flash-drive reader, allowing videos downloaded from SanDisk’s Fanfare online service to play like DVDs.

“There are very few PCs that look good in the living room,” said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at the NPD Group research company. He said that wireless options like Apple TV were relatively expensive, starting around $300, and that flash technology could “ease the process of bringing video from the computer to the TV.”

TakeTV has a remote control and comes in four gigabytes (about $100) and eight gigabytes (about $150). It is available at Amazon.com, Buy.com and in most major electronics stores.

Mr. Unsworth, the analyst, said it was only a matter of time before televisions are routinely equipped with U.S.B. ports for digital video, just as car stereos are beginning to feature them.

He envisions lots of creative uses for flash drives in the near future, like keeping track of a car’s diagnostics and maintenance schedule, or even doubling as a digital wallet, allowing transactions to be recorded on miniature versions of financial software like Quicken.

Meanwhile, they are helpful for filling out the holiday gift list.

All You Need Is To Dream

2009-05-15T19:10:00.001-07:00

Have you ever dreamed of earning a SIX FIGURE INCOME ? Bet some of you do. But only a handful of us would actually commit ourselves into making our dream comes true. Instead of committing to pursue our dream we often just sit back and do nothing about it.

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." Eleanor Roosevelt "

Well, for some people, earning a SIX FIGURE INCOME seems to be an impossible dream to attain. It appears that such belief is absolutely pessimistic. To earn a SIX FIGURE INCOME is possible and within our reach if we possess the fundamental understanding of how wealth is created and accumulated.

By the same token, the depth of our financial knowledge and planning will determine our financial future whether we will retire broke, debt-ridden or leave a huge amount of wealth for our dependence. The choice is ours because we are the navigator of our own destiny.

As Burke Hedges the author of the book The Parable of the Pipeline eloquently writes , " becoming a millionaire is a matter of choice, not chance."

How To Achieve A Six Figure Income And Be Financially Free

Most of you must have heard of people saying; you either be a professional or run your own business to earn a SIX FIGURE INCOME. It is true to a certain extent however, a profession per se does not guarantee one a brighter financial future. Why? Because no matter how much we earn as an engineer, a manager, an accountant, an architect, etc. you will still depend on a paycheck or a fee for a living. So the moment when we stop working, our income will stop flowing in.

Thus, being a professional with a big income is never going to make us financially free. He/she will never make his or her family safe and secure. Burke Hedges calls this group of people a "bucket carrier". He writes," as long as you carry buckets, you have to show up and do the work in order to get paid".

Sound familiar isn’t it. This is how the rat-race world works. Instead of working for the money as Robert T. Kiyosaki the author of the best selling book Rich Dad and Poor Dad has pointed out, we should make the money work for us. A brilliant saying!

So how do we get out of this rat-race world? The answer is we need to start thinking on how to make the money work for us. Have you heard of the concept of leverage? It is a concept that is widely applied in all fields of work including the financial world. So what is it all about?

What is leveraging?

Leverage is a phenomenal concept that has been known to people throughout the ages. The root of the word leverage, lever is originated from an old French word that means, "to make lighter." Say, if we want to move an object, which is many times heavier than us, what do we do? That’s right. We place a rigid bar on a pivot to lever it and the object becomes so light that even a child can lift it easily.

" Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." - Archimedes

This is the power of leverage. In today’s financial world, we apply the same principle of leverage to time and money, and the outcomes are exponential. Leverage allows people to work smarter, not harder, and it is the reason behind the creation of so many millionaires in the last century.

Leverage: The Source of Residual Income

Residual income, which is also known as passive or recurring income, is an income that will continuously generates inflow of money to us after the initial effort that we have put to work or money we have invested in an investment fund. Alternatively, if you are an inventor, your residual incomes will basically derived from the rights and patents of something you have invented and used by others. The same goes to an artist or a musician.

Two Types of Leveraging

Leveraging Money

Have you heard of Warren Buffet? Yes, the second richest man in the world and a legendary figure in the stock market that earn six figure income by leveraging other people’s money and as result he made himself and his investors rich in the course.

Check this out. One share of Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway stock was worth around $19 in the mid 60s and by the end of 1998, the value of that single share has shot up to $70,000. Say, if you have invested $ 10,000 back in 1965, your investment at the end of 1998 would have been worth a whopping $ 51 million. WOW ! That’s unbelievable. The money was left to compound [1] by itself as time went by. That’s how money-leverager makes their millions.

Nevertheless, most of these ‘money-leveragers’ would only get to see their wealth touches the million-dollar mark after they have reached their 50s or 60s. Though it’s a long wait before they could see the result, it is worth the wait anyhow. Wouldn’t it be great to be a money-leverager?

Ok, let’s be honest to ourselves. Not everyone of us has the patience to wait, not to mention, some of us even find it hard to come up with the initial capital to invest. So, if we don’t have the money, what do we have to leverage then? The answer is TIME !

Leveraging Time

A day has 24 hours and all of us regardless whether we are rich or poor, have that same amount of time in a day. Time helps us to level the playing field. We can no longer give ourselves excuses not to get rich. We have been given an equal opportunity in this age where every one of us can have easy access to information and knowledge on wealth building.

All we need to do is to leverage an iota of our leisure time and spend it wisely to build our pipeline [2] that will continuously pay us day and night. Always remember - pipelines are no longer an affair of the rich. Pipeline belongs to people who believe that they CAN do it.

Why Leveraging Time Not Money?

"Life is a waste of time; time is a waste of life; so why waste your time when you could be having the time of your life?." - Unknown

Why leveraging time not money? Well, if you were a money leverager, you wouldn’t be here reading this article in the first place. You would probably surfing the net now scouting for stocks to invest or busy looking for real estate properties to add to your investment portfolio. Right? So I believe you are here because you do not have enough financial means to leverage money to build pipelines of ongoing residual income.

Up to this point, I hope that you understand the difference between leveraging time and money. Let us put aside the latter and pay more attention on the concept of leveraging time as I have mentioned earlier that building pipelines through leveraging time is within everyone reach.

In the next few hundred years from now, believe it or not, many millionaires will be created through either one of these two systems; E-Marketing or Network Marketing. Keep your mind open to ideas and let not prejudge it just because that you think it is not your cup of tea.

Perhaps, some of you will comprehend what is written here and proceed to set your own financial goal. Others may just call it a quit before even trying it. Whichever path you decide, always bear in mind this saying by Napolean Hill, "winners never quit, and quitters never win." End

FOOTNOTE:

1. Do you know that ALBERT Einstein once said, "Com?pounding is the eighth wonder of the world." Although he was referring to atomic energy, we know that the law of compounding applies just as astonishingly to the financial world as it does to science.

2. "Pipelines are designed to take the worry out of people’s lives by putting profits into their pockets. But most of all, pipelines are designed to give people personal and financial freedom and lifelong security." - Burke Hedges, The Parable of the Pipeline

Warren Buffet's advice for 2009

2009-05-15T19:08:00.001-07:00

We begin this New Year with dampened enthusiasm and dented optimism. Our happiness is diluted and our peace is threatened by the financial illness that has infected our families, organizations and nations. Everyone is desperate to find a remedy that will cure their financial illness and help them recover their financial health. They expect the financial experts to provide them with remedies, forgetting the fact that it is these experts who created this financial mess.

Every new year, I adopt a couple of old maxims as my beacons to guide my future. This self-prescribed therapy has ensured that with each passing year, I grow wiser and not older. This year, I invite you to tap into the financial wisdom of our elders along with me, and become financially wiser.

Ø Hard work: All hard work bring a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.

Ø Laziness: A sleeping lobster is carried away by the water current.

Ø Earnings: Never depend on a single source of income. [At least make your Investments get you second earning]

Ø Spending: If you buy things you don't need, you'll soon sell things you need.

Ø Savings: Don't save what is left after spending; Spend what is left after saving.

Ø Borrowings: The borrower becomes the lender's slave.

Ø Accounting: It's no use carrying an umbrella, if your shoes are leaking.

Ø Auditing: Beware of little expenses; A small leak can sink a large ship.

Ø Risk-taking: Never test the depth of the river with both feet. [Have an alternate plan ready]

Ø Investment: Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

I'm certain that those who have already been practicing these principles remain financially healthy. I'm equally confident that those who resolve to start practicing these principles will quickly regain their financial health.

With Best Regards,

Warren Buffet