Nobody understands me

Apparently I do not speak or write English and therefore people who do speak and write English cannot understand me.

I say this because quite evidently, I can do both fluently. However, it seems that nobody gets what I'm saying, so I must either assume they do not listen, they do not understand because they haven't grasped the meaning of my words and so take it upon themselves to do what they think I meant, or that they are being deliberately obtuse.

What has prompted this outburst?

Well several things. First of all, I put a job advert in for a 'literate reporter' to work across features and news on our weekly financial newspaper.

Out of the 60-plus entries I received, about five came through with no spelling or grammatical mistakes on them.

Many of the applicants had proudly informed me they were 'fluent' in English, only to assure me of the complete opposite through their appalling spelling, lack of syntax and complete fabrication of vocabulary. 'Journalisticism' is not a word, nor is our paper called XXXX 'Advertiser' (although we do carry a lot of adverts, so perhaps you were just being a smart Alec. In any case, you went into my 'idiot' pile').

One man went to great lengths to tell me how much he wanted this job, his dream job, because he loved Formula 1.

I don't know how he got from IFA to 'Bernie Ecclestone' but he also went onto my 'idiot pile'.

When I have a free moment, each of these idiots will receive a letter from me explaining why I dismissed their application instantly and suggesting that, if they wish to get a job in journalism ('journalisticism') then they either learn how to spell or use a spell checker.

Because I am the human spell-check, sweethearts.

So, either 55 of these applicants were being deliberately obtuse, failed to understand my meaning or just didn't read the job description properly, or I was not writing in English. So many people cannot be wrong... can they?

The second thing to tick me off is the lack of understanding that people have when I speak on the phone. Admittedly you now only have my word for it but I can at times, and helped by gin, sound extremely posh. Sort of like a sardonic Lady Thatcher but without the apparent insanity.

So when I speak on the phone, I am offended all the time when people whose verbal skills are only slightly better than that of a Macaw keep asking me to repeat things because they 'don't understand my accent'.

This really gets to me. How many 't's must I overemphasise on words until you catch my drift? Why should I have to say 'ow-ah' instead of 'hour' or 'Stre-am' instead of 'Streatham'?

However, I am evidently not speaking English. (I am, just in case you didn't already pick up the gist of this post).


The third thing that frustrates me is when I email things so carefully, using short words and short sentences, and people ask me to explain it all verbally.

My temptation in this matter is to just read my email to them, pointing at each word in turn and enunciating v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y the various syllables just in case the vocabulary was too much for them.

This does not go down well with colleagues. Or my mother, who put the phone down on me, but that was probably fair enough.

I don't mind people asking me to explain things, or to clarify things. But when they have an email in front of them and ask me: 'What did you want me to do with this?' the logical conclusions to draw are either that I have been writing in ancient Sanskrit or they just haven't bothered to read the email properly.

All these things, and so many, many more things - oh, another example: Facebook posts where people instantly jump down my throat thinking I've declared allegiance to one flag when it is clear to all the other 30 commentators that I had categorically not declared any such thing - make me sad.

What has happened to communication? What has happened to the beauty of the written word, where once upon a time, great novelists luxuriated in finding the mot juste or, if they couldn't, they just stuck a French phrase in, like wot I just did, and pretended they were educated.

Alas! Text speak and 140-character Twitter feeds have killed the radio, television and newspaper star.

KTHNXBY

Learning early is the best way to financial health

You don't have to be rich to be good with money. Being good with money isn't always about getting rich, which is why I get shivers up my scrawny spine when I see adverts for 'Rich Dad' or 'Prosperous Parents'. The idea that the unwashed masses can achieve stellar returns by following the tips given by some 'guru' is noxious. The only reason these gurus are rich is because they make lots of money off the numpties who buy their books.

That said, the value of early learning should not be dismissed. After all, if my mother had not taught me to read at 1, I would not have been such a quiet child at 2. If my father had not taught me how to fish, I would never have been able to sew crayfish into my friend's curtains at uni.

One of the above statements is true.

However, I digress. I don't often brag about my parents and, considering that they are both mentally unstable and have poor fashion sense (sorry Old Tarf, but it's true) it's understandable.

However, with all the press releases and surveys I get at work about how terrible it is for first-time buyers, having to borrow from mum and dad, I thought it worth giving a bit of praise to my maternal unit.

My mum - nothing short of a financial genius.

I have seen how she came back to the UK in the early 1980s - hardly the time of equal financial and employment rights for women - with less than £700 in her pocket, unable to return to teaching, and a small daughter to bring up on her own.

I watched as she raised herself up, pound by pound, by clever saving, saying 'No' when the man from the Pru tried to flog her an endowment mortgage, and making expenditure less than her income - Micawber would have been proud.

Was it tough? Did we go without a few luxuries? Of course! Yet this woman managed to put me through private school and buy a house of her own and pay off her mortgage. And, now a pensioner living on less than £8000 pension a year (yes, a year), she is NEVER in debt AND still manages to save, when she's not gadding off around the Bodliean looking at early Church documents.

Moreover, she's taken on Barclays over unfair lending terms and won. She's scoured T&Cs of various pamphlets that pour through the door from providers and written letters to them and the OFT and who knows who else over what she deems to be sharp financial practice.

It's because of her that I got interested in saving when I was 16. I never, ever thought twice about putting aside a few pounds each week into my then Abbey National account. I didn't question whether or not to join the pension scheme at my first job - a defined benefit scheme - even though I was a highly qualified post-graduate, earning just £16k in what I thought would be a temporary job before I got my dream position preserving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts at the British Museum Library.

I didn't go against her advice when she suggested I put my bonus and, later, redundancy pay-outs into an Isa and start saving for a deposit. Every time, I have benefited from her good advice and sound wisdom.

I have never gone to her for money - she could not afford to support me through university education, but I took out small loans, worked during the holidays in a pensions office, and got a scholarship from the British Council for my MA, which helped me pay off my loans by the age of 22.

Perhaps rather than young people going off to the bank of mum and dad to help them onto the housing ladder, or to save up for a car, parents should take on the responsibility of educating children about money from a much younger age.

This is why I welcome the efforts of the Opposition MPs who are pushing for more debates on the Child ISA and a reprieve for the Child Trust Fund. Such schemes helped to educate both parent and child and that education is priceless. No matter how much - or how little - you have, learning early about saving is the very best financial start that any child can have.