Crash and Burn

I am trying to lose a little weight before my friend's wedding in May. I don't need to lose a lot, but enough so that I can laugh and speak while wearing the bridesmaid's dress.

I say this because the dress was so very snug in the first fitting and I have put on a little since then and I actually got asked the other day if I would like a seat on the train.

This is flattering in some ways - it means that I am pretty skinny except on my boobs and belly, so I look pregnant rather than fat. However it is depressing for someone who knows that a few sit ups each day wouldn't be so bad, but for whom the very thought of any form of physical exercise has sent shudders down the spine.

It's not that I don't want to exercise... I do. I love swimming but have been unable to do so thanks to prolonged labyrinthitis. I've had David Bowie chasing me on Esher staircases for weeks now, while small dwarves chant: 'you remind me of a man' while I sleep. It's most distracting.

But the last time I got into proper gym routines I lost far too much weight and ended up dangerously close to snapping in the breeze.

Is there anything apart from jogging/weights that would help me tone up without dropping weight? My metabolism is crazy and will go overboard if I try something too strenuous.

Tips would be greatly appreciated!

It's not Friday but the Budget has stolen a day from me.

It's not Friday, but the Budget has stolen a day from me. And caused me to repeat the headline of my blog post as my first line.

It's a cheap subbing trick that the sub editor's desk uses when they can't be bothered to think of a standfirst.

But that has nothing to do with chancellor George Osborne and his "Budget that rewards work"; his stern admonition to those wealthy who seek to avoid paying stamp duty on their big houses, "you have been warned" and various Despatches-box banging to emphasise his point that "Wallace and Gromit must stay in Britain".

 What happened yesterday was basically a later Budget (he usually stands to deliver at 12 noon on the dot) and 59 minutes (with some interruptions from a rather boisterous House of Commons) later, we had to scurry into meetings/to our desks to knock out the stories. In all we did 20 stories for the paper AND 10 stories for the web - from a team of just five journalists (I wasn't writing).

With all that copy editing, and with various hiccups on the way - from the machine at Marks & Spencer not working at 7:30 in the morning (the time I used to get up, last week, before the Budget planning wrecked my sleeping pattern) through to one of the Panelists being struck with a mystery bug and another forgetting to write their blog and various other minor irritations, I was completely copy blind by 5pm. I literally could not see to look at the screen nor even to look at the printed word. Which for a journalist whose job involves writing and reading copy, this is not a good thing.

Thankfully the Santander press office took pity on our poor team and treated us to Benihana's  in the evening - the food and the entertaining and slightly sexually disturbing chef almost banished thoughts of the boy-faced Osborne and his desk-thumpery.

However, it did not quite help.

This morning I was convinced that it was Friday. I sent out a twitter #FF to a bunch of people, most of whom said thank you; one was then convinced it was Friday and got worried that she'd missed a day of work.

I also started telling people I would see them tomorrow (thinking it was Saturday) when it blatantly wasn't and if my jeggings had not been hanging out to dry, I would have worn those to work forgetting that it is Thursday and I have three damn meetings.

Finally, I decided to go for my Friday morning ritual - a Cumberland sausage sandwich on brown bread at the Little Dorrit Cafe. Argle. Now I have to have one tomorrow as well ....

The only reason I can think is that on Wednesday, we did twice the amount of work that we would usually do on a press day and went out and almost died as a result. I think I also dreamt about work, which would add to my time-space-continuum confusion.

So thank you, George, for ruining my week, for stealing more money from female pensioners and seeking to shoo away all the wealthy people from the UK and send them scurrying to the Canton of Uri.

I am sure I am grateful. But you now owe me more than the £171 that the BBC's Budget calculator promises that I will be better off by as a result of Osborne's "working Budget."

Looking forward to penury

You know it is a bad time for pensions when even the Metro carries a story about the depletion of our pension savings.

Metro, by the way, is usually the one paper I strive to avoid in the morning, given that it usually only contains terribly depressing stories about children kicking ponies in the head or grandmothers sleeping with their progeny’s boyfriends - hardly the encouraging kind of get-to material one should read when going to work.

It’s so bleak sometimes I want to give up before I even get to the office.

But today, I wanted to get to the office to check my own pension savings. I’m afraid I’m one of those who have several small DC pots and one or two deferred DB pots left untouched. I intend to leave those DB pots untouched but to merge the three DC ones into my current scheme in the clutch-at-straws hope that by the sheer power of accumulated force, any incremental rise in interest rates/performance of the funds might be accelerated by having that additional £5k.

When I read that DB liabilities jumped £133bn in February alone, however, the safety of my old DB pots also looks miserable. And to think I dared to sign up for a company pension the very day I joined my first employer, Reed Elsevier Butterworths Tolley Et Al (as it was then, more or less) way back in 1999.

Was I really wrong? Jeff Prestridge, our esteemed columnist, has for many years extolled the virtues of Isas to augment - and perhaps even replace - traditional pension pots. I have an Isa too, of course - 10 per cent of salary to pension/Isa, 10 per cent to charity, the rest on the mortgage and the darn cat. That’s what I always believed.

But even with the wondrous Broughy of Schroders boosting my long-term Isa savings and cash, well, doing bleep all, I’m not exactly going to roll in the lap of luxury with this little bunch.

Now it seems with an estimated shortfall of 40 per cent I need to boost my own savings considerably. Perhaps even make it 25 per cent, 30 per cent of my monthly income. On my salary and with my bills, mortgage and travel expenses, that seems barely reasonable.

I’m pretty boring - I don’t drink, I don’t go out clubbing and my taste in clothes is so avant-garde that I pretty much hate, loathe and detest clothes shopping. But even if I squeeze a few more pence out of my salary, will any of it make any difference in the long-run?

We might not even have pensions by the time I come to retire which, it seems, will be a few weeks before I die - at least I won’t have to worry about long-term care costs, as I will be in my grave.

The only sniff of help might be from the fact that I have a property, although I am getting worried about my windows, my ceiling, rising crime (not in my property, although that could be a way out of my personal pensions crisis .... perhaps granny-crims will be on the rise... ) and a million other things to worry about, not least the fact the leaseholder of the flats has gone awol, just when I wanted to buy back some years on my lease.

I’ve forgotten my thread. Oh yes, so basically my Isa savings are pitiable, my pensions are pitiful and my retirement prospects are the pits. Well this is cheery.

I should never have read the paper this morning. Next time I board the 8:50 to London Bridge I’m going to get a copy of the Metro and shove it up, well, maybe I’ll be too depressed to do any shoving. Perhaps I’ll start collecting them and store it as fuel for when I’m 75.

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

No cash please, we're mates!

Your friends will be borrowing £1 coins off you: beware

As we start 2012 with a whimper, carefully nursing our battered wallets back to financial health by not spending on anything except reduced lines baked beans and bread, let us not forget those whose friends are responsible for their penury.

Yes, friends. I'm not talking about lending money to friends - although I would no longer advocate this as you never know what situations may happen to prevent your friends from repaying you in full, in the time you needed. It can affect the dynamics of a relationship or, like Charlie Sheen's character Charlie in an earlier-than-Ashton series of Two and A Half Men, mean you get stung in an elaborate plot that involves you sleeping with your step-sister-in-law-to-be, lending her $50,000 and buying a Ferrari you didn't want.

What I am talking about is the Cash Converter friend. The friend who turns to another for all their coinage and notage needs. The friend who gets the bus with you and has not got £2 for the fare. The friend who does not have anything smaller than a £20 when it comes to paying tips. The mate who suggests getting a taxi but somehow does not carry anywhere near enough money to foot the bill.

According to a Capital One survey, Brits have been forking out £562 million a year as a result of ‘subbing’ friends.

More than 43 say they never receive a penny of this borrowed money back.

Now you have been warned. Next time you go out with friends, ask them to make sure they have some cash. Or don't carry any yourself and make sure you recoup your 2011 losses in 2012!

Capital One asked respondents which items they had paid for on behalf of others who did not have cash in the past three months:
Drinks in cash-only bars/restaurants	18%
Items bought in cash-only stores e.g. markets	13%
Tips in bars and restaurants	12%
Taxi fares	10%
Charity donations and fundraisers	6%
Items purchased with cash due to a minimum card spend	6%
Tolls and one-off/unexpected charges	6%

Muddlin' through

This seems to be the mot du jour as the US continues to debate the finer points of cutting taxes and expenditure, the Tea Party continues its lunacy, Spanish people take to the streets without there being any young bulls to kill and the spectre of debt knocks at the door of M Sarkozy et Co.

Germany - the former 'sick man of Europe' seems to have shaken off his cold and emerged triumphant, standing tall through the sun roof of his VW as he zooms along the autobahns regardless of rising oil prices. What cares he? He has cash in the bank and the bank has cash in its own banks, and well, so on and so forth.

The UK too seems to have found its feet again, slipping and sliding but struggling ahead nevertheless, free from the encumbersome burden of the Euro and thankful for a nice stretch of water between the island and the continent, or else there would be more political force exerted upon it from Brussels to cough up for the Piigs and the next dominoes in the line should these all collapse.

FTSE100 keeps fluctuating between 5800 and 6000, bound in a range but buoyed by corporates putting out relatively good interims, while gold - ah, gold - shines like a star in the firmament for those canny investors who paid attention to my postings in 2006/2007 and bought it back then.

Too late now for the rest, perhaps, unless you can melt down your gran's old rings in a frying pan.

China is in for a soft landing and on the Eastern front, Japan's equity markets have not been as dire as one would expect, although exo-shocks to the region are still very much on the cards as we head into typhoon season.

As for me, well the money under my bed is now showing signs of strain as the bed itself looks like it is breaking. Depreciation of Norwegian wood stock after six years of wear and tear is having an effect on the resale value of my sofa bed in the secondary market. Home improvements and renovations may need to be a wise expenditure in this market, without being able to get off the first rung of the housing ladder and onto the second.

However, owner of the freehold might not like me adding decking onto the outside of the property and erecting a barbeque/half-covered seating area on the first floor of the flats in which I live. Therefore perhaps I should invest in shoring up the bed until the cash beneath it is safe enough.

Note: of course I've not put £ under my bed. I fear the eroding effect of inflation. Instead, I keep the ex-boyfriend's body under there. It is eroding by itself, but at least it keeps the bed frame from collapsing. The smell might be one of the reasons the resale of my flat is becoming more difficult.

Still - gotta keep muddling through.

Note: of course the ex-boyfriend is not under my bed. I'm not that cruel. I let him live in a cage in the garden.

Greece, Greece, Greece - and Harry Potter

And the Walls Came Tumbling Down

Every single fund manager in the world is talking about Greek debt, whether or not he or she actually manages Greek debt.

UK equity investment managers are putting out statements about the situation in the Hellenic Republic; US academics are stitching together 19th Century political and economic history and the current situation in the Aegean.

This week we received about 30 press releases about Greece: manager comments on Greece, Forex traders' comments on Greece, Equity fund managers on the impact of Greece's debt on the Eurozone, Bond fund managers' concern about sentiment towards fixed income, Consumer groups lamenting the knock-on effect, SAY NO campaigners heralding this as yet another reason to stay well out of the Euro, Australian Farmers simply taking the proverbial out of the UK because they couldn't care less..

All week we have had missives of doom and gloom, such as this one, which interpolated normal text with BIG BOLD LETTERS ABOUT UNANSWERED QUESTIONS: "Despite politicians expressing their strong commitment to keep the Euro together through this new package, we continue to worry about the peripheral countries' capacity to deliver on their adjustment programme."

But when it becomes ridiculous is when fund management groups strive too hard to attract the attention of media pundits and financial journalists with their own take on Greece.

For example, one press release we received this week said: "This weekend’s family activity centred on the final film in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 10 years on from when we saw the first instalment of the magical film series in 2001. Meanwhile in the Monday to Friday muggle world, the markets are focusing on the modern classical tale of Greece, that also began 10 years ago in 2001 when they entered the European Monetary Union. How will that blockbuster story end?

"In the final instalment of Harry Potter, the story centres on the deathly hallows. Spookily, the three elements of the deathly hallows are comparable to some of the magical instruments Greece has at its disposal."

I mean, really, mashing together the last of the great Potter blockbuster films with the situation in Greece is going three Quidditch pitches too far in an effort to get our attention.

Expelliarmus Hellenicus Debticus!

Harry Potter and the Debtly Hallows

What has annoyed me today?

1) People ringing me up at work on press day to tell me how their day is going. I do care, I DO. But I WORK. Send me an email, or call me after 6pm. Is that too much to ask? I WORK
2) Mum insisting on having a text conversation with me WHILE I AM AT WORK. I AM AT WORK. I cannot text or spell correctly when bashing out texts at speed on my BlackBerry Torch (TM)
3) People ringing me up at work on press day to ask me for directions to my mum's house.... WHEN THEY HAVE BEEN THERE FOUR TIMES BEFORE. I am NOT STREETMAP.com. Last time I looked, I was not a search engine, a map, a cartographer, a policeman, a community support officer, a local cabbie or the freaking A-Z. I WORK.
4) Being asked to buy London 2012 Olympic Tickets - not for someone to GO to the olympics, no, no, I have to spend my overdraft for a ticket FOR POSTERITY...

I WORK, people, I WORK. Do you understand the concept of full-time employment?

I also freelance in what passes for SPARE TIME. This means I work at home, too.

When I say I am busy, I am not saying 'I am busy filing the hard corny bits on my feet for a few hours so I cannot talk to you/come for a coffee/have a sleepover at yours despite being a fricking adult whose idea of a sleepover does not consist of staying on the mattress in the spare room of a newly married couple.'

Even if I WERE shaving the corny bits off my feet, I should have the freaking right to do so without being made to feel guilty for not pandering to your ridiculous requests.

So the next person who rings me to whinge or ask a bleeding ridiculous question that even an 11-year old would be ashamed to ask, I will collect my foot shavings, stick them in a freaking home-made cupcake and watch you freaking eat it.

YEAH.

Why I will NEVER eat at Strada again

Strada restaurant

I'd remembered its prawns, you see. Delightful, light, juicily marinaded gambas in a sweet white wine and chilli sauce. I remembered them with fondness, which is why, when we were looking for a decent restaurant to eat at last night, Strada seemed like a good choice.

I don't really know what went wrong last night, other than the restaurant having no professional serving staff and hiring a shipping container of rabid chimps in uniform.

Don't get me wrong, the food was good. But it was just the wrong food at the wrong time, the wrong cutlery and the wrong kind of service. Ie, none. It was like being trapped in a Norman Wisdom spoof.

I'd already lunched well (at The Ivy, no less) so only wanted a light meal and no starter.

But it was a chore to get one of the waiting staff to take our order in the first place. My companion decided to pretend to cry like a baby, which disturbed the Yankee next to us.

Just at the point when I considered standing on the chair and doing a full-on belly dance, waiter One came up. The chap with whom I was dining ordered a plate of cured meats to start and spaghetti for main.

I said: 'Please may I have the prawns and a salad, but can I have these as my main course please?'

Waiter One said: 'You want this as your main?'

Me: 'Yes please, I don't want a starter, so please can I have the prawns and the salad as my main course?'

*DONG* (sound of Pavlovian warning that trained chimps cannot compute when the parameters of their training changes).

We waited.

Waiter TWO brought my companion's cured meats for starter, along with my prawns, without the salad.

I called him back. "Excuse me please, but I ordered these prawns as a main course to eat with my salad. Can they be put to one side please?"

Waiter Two started to take them away, whereupon I had visions of the prawns being left out in the meantime, or microwaved to keep hot.

Now, I don't mind diahorrea, after all, it's a good way to get thin quick without having to diet or throw up. But I don't like the feeling associated with bum curry, to wit, a pain akin to having a small, exoskeletal, fire-breathing animal driving a spiked chariot through your colon before developing into an intense burning sensation in the anus.

So I thought it expedient to eat the prawns there and then.

But I was not happy. And then, on the first prawn, I realised that they'd not brought me a bowl with lemon to clean my fingers. How was I supposed to shell the prawns? Eat them whole like an anaconda and hope that I can crap out the shell? That wouldn't be like the feeling of diahorrea - that would really be the pain of passing a small exoskeletal creature through my duodenum. I'm not ready for that kinda thrill.

I confess that I lost my temper and ranted for a good five mins while my patient dining companion just waited for me and offered me his napkin instead.

When we eventually attracted the waiter's attention - it was back to Waiter One - I explained that I had ordered a salad to eat with the prawns, and that I needed a bowl of water.

He brought me my salad and a bowl for finger-cleansing, and a menu so that I could order a main course as well - I wasn't going to sit there while my date ate by himself. I ordered a pizza from Waiter one.

Waiter Three came up and took away my companion's plate before he had finished eating.

Waiter One came up and put a long, thin jar of chilli oil on our table. I assumed this was for the pizza, because he didn't say anything when he put it there.

Waiter Two came with our main course, and tried to give it to the Yankees next to us, who had just paid their bill and were ready to leave.

WTH????

Waiter Two left the food on our table, but neglected to clear away my dirty napkins or the bowl of water, and didn't give us any cutlery with which to eat our food!

Then we had fun trying to catch the attention of a waiter - it was not that crowded by that time - there were many empty tables - so that we could eat our food without resorting to picking it up with our fists and ramming it into our faces like some retarded ape on amoxycillin.

Waiter Three walked past so we asked him for some cutlery so that my date could eat his spaghetti and I could have clean cutlery for my pizza.

Waiter Three went away.

Waiter Two came to our table. With ANOTHER salad.

I still had the original, untouched, beside me. When I explained that I'd only ordered one salad, he tried to take both away. I had to hold down the original salad. It was very hard to explain in one-syllable words that I only wanted one salad and to take his sticky fingers off my food before I sawed them off with a (dirty) knife.

Waiter Three came back with clean cutlery, which he then proceeded to lay carefully upon a very dirty prawn-sauce encrusted napkin.

He gave my date a knife and fork with which to eat his spaghetti.

Half-way through the meal, when the spaghetti was almost finished, Waiter Four asked him 'Do you want any grated parmesan on that'!!!!

Waiter One returned to ask if everything was fine - given the whole debacle that preceeded this, we just burst out laughing. I don't think he understood why.

Quite frankly, I am pleased that 'service' was optional as there were WAY too many cooks and they would have spoiled our broth, or would have brought us two bowls of it and then forgotten that we needed cutlery.

I mean, four waiters, one simple order and basic knowledge of things like: 'humans need cutlery to eat' and 'give the customer pepper and grated cheese before they start eating'.

Seriously, Strada is supposed to hire staff with basic skills and understanding of how restaurants work. This isn't a Butlin's-style self-serve canteen. Nor is it a tiny one-man band trying to operate on a skeleton staff.

To be honest, the only reason why I didn't complain was because my dining companion is such an affable, laid-back and good-natured person who finds humour in everything.

Otherwise, I would have stabbed waiter four to almost death with the dirty cutlery that waiter two had left behind, poured chilli oil into his still-bleeding, prawn-infused wounds, thrown dirty finger-water over Waiter one while screaming for "Shaved Parmesan, now, or the Yankees get it", and force-fed Waiter Three with all the salads I could find this side of the Southbank.

"Think I like Rocket that much, do you? DO YOU? Choke on that, you imbecile."

And that is why I will NEVER eat at Strada again. Prawns or no Prawns.

I just might not see the funny side next time.

Prawns

Dazed and confused

The past month has been a whirlwind for the Merms.

I would like very much to explain why it has been so whirlwindy. Or Whirlpooly. But to do so would be to mention work, and that is a no-no on this blog. After all, some completely exaggerated imaginings that I released online a year ago - which had pretty much no basis in reality except that they had been triggered by a horrid situation at work - precipitated me into a terrible situation from which I had no energy or willpower to extricate myself.

So I can't write about work, nor any romantic entanglements nor any amusing incidents because they are all utterly work-related. Is anything uncomplicated anymore?

The only thing I can do is recommend some links to a fun evening that a few of us in the financial world did a few weeks ago, called glastonbury in the city. The mermins is the one crooning on the mike in the front.

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.

Oh my darling Clementine

Oh my darling Clementine

I once put three small Clementines in my mouth at the same time.

I was doing this at a summer garden party, for the sole purpose of showing off to my then boyfriend's younger brother and cousin to prove I was 'cool'.

While I was Clemmed up, I heard a clipped female voice behind me calling my name.

I spun round - it was ... his Cheltenham Ladies' College mother standing there ready to introduce me to her family.

I froze with embarrassment for a second, and promptly ejected all three Clems out of my mouth into my hand. Before she could even blink in surprise, I tried to redeem the situation by 'splaining.

However, all I could muster was holding out the spittle-covered Clementines towards her in the palm of my trembling hand, saying "Clementines." Hurrr

The teenagers whom I (actually successfully) impressed were rolling on the floor laughing their EMO butts off.

Suffice it to say, I am no longer friends with the ex boyfriend, but his young brother and cousin are still in regular contact.

Quick Moment of Smugness

So I helped my ex find some work before Christmas because he is always moaning on facebook about not having any money - and moaning all the while going out with me about it too.

In return, he bitched about me to some girl he was chatting to online, who then wrote a mean comment on his facebook page about me being annoying (what? Two texts and one phone call within two months since we broke up, all of which were about getting him a job?? How is THAT annoying?!).

Has he even bothered to email or text me to say thank you for getting him some work before Christmas?

HA!

Anyway he then goes and buys an iPhone - so much for being broke - and then drops it into the bath, part of me wanting to be snippy here says this may have been while sending more dirty texts to his female friends (one of the reasons behind us breaking up).

Now he has ruined his iPhone.

DOUBLE HA!

What goes around, comes around. Not that I'm gloating, but I was good to you despite everything you did to, and have been saying about, me. Evidently there's justice in this world, and you've just sucked on its bitter end.

Okay, I am gloating. Serves you right.

What would you do for a free £5?

Free Fivers? Cor blimey, gov!

There are many things I would not do to gain £5.

One of these would be to sit in a bath of spiders. That, as Meatloaf might have once sung, I won't do.

Another thing I would not do for £5 would be to eat mint choc chip icecream. Oh no, the resultant endoscopy would be far more hassle than a mere fiver is worth.

However, if I were to see a chappy standing in the street, wearing a sandwich board saying: "If you want a free £5, stop me and ask: it's yours", I would happily shuffle over to him and hold him to his promise.

Of course, the initial shame as people see me begging for money would be offset by my demeanour. I would feign that I was merely bantering with him, saying something like: "Yeah, mate, what are you selling? You're having a lend" in a loud voice. I would look quizzically at him, pretending to be oh-so-cool about it, when really I would be doing a happy dance inside ...

"I got a Fiiiiiiver, I got a Fiiiiver, you haven't got one, your mom's on welllllfare"

...

After receiving my £5, I would then come back for more, changing my appearance by carefully-positioned hats, coats, etc. I might even wear a shawl like a hijab to maximise my money-earning potential.

However, I would be in just 0.5 per cent of the UK population. Oh yes, 0.5 per cent.

For when someone from money-saving ideas website Save.co.uk did just that - stand in the West End for a day offering £5 to people - more than 2,700 people passed by and only 16 people decided to take him up on this.

That's right. SIXTEEN.

Which begs the question, are we Brits too proud to take money off strangers? Or too sceptical?

Either way, 16 people who either 'had no shame' or were trusting enough to believe his statement went home £5 richer than when they started out.

If only 0.5 per cent of the population is really bold enough to take such opportunities when they arise, then it's no wonder that UK consumers are more than £3trn in debt (excluding mortgages) and only 24 per cent of the population have made savings in the past 12 months.

Amoxicillin and the edge of ageism

The Big W - doesn't look quite so good in jpeg as it did on the night

I am not an old woman, apparently. And I know this to be true, for a 15-year-old girl told me this on Friday night as she badgered me to go on the Waltzers with her at the Crystal Palace Firework display.

When I say badgered, I mean, I was shamed into it by her assertion: 'What's wrong with you? You're not an old woman. You're not going to die.'

This would seem heartless, but then again there were only two of us youth leaders and eight 'young people' and someone had to pay for all the rides while the other stood next to the 1960s fairground equipment and hold all the 'stuff'. Seven teenage girls = a lot of stuff to hold. I opted for probable death rather than standing around in the rain with a bunch of handbags.

Thankfully I lived to tell the tale - despite the best efforts of the shady mulleted travellers who were trying to dislodge the change in our pockets by spinning our seats around at an alarming pace.

However, my voice did not survive the night. I think it fell out of the 'Hellraiser' and I've not seen it since. In its place I have had swollen tonsils, a sore neck (which I claim is 'whiplash' but is probably just my advancing years) and £30 down despite only going on 3 rides and eating one portion of curly fries. Not sure how that happened - as a financial journalist I'm usually extremely good with money. I reckon it's still rolling around the Tunnel of FEAR.

Add to this the requisite Annual Release International conference on Saturday, where I was wedged into an old Salvation Army hall next to the most icy air-con unit; and the all-too-familiar 'Pizza Express, South Croydon' dinner experience with church friends in the evening, and by Sunday I had tonsillitis.

Could I rest? No! I am 'not old' and I am 'not going to die'. An EMO told me so, and therefore Sunday I was up early, making sodding cards for people and baking a Sticky Banoffee Cake for the dear folks with whom I was going to lunch that afternoon.

Skipping church in the evening was a good idea, although that meant five phone calls from the young teens at church, asking how I was and had I seen their latest photos of me on Facebook - apparently having lent them my camera 'TO HOLD' they managed to take about 20 shots of my jeans-clad BUTT in various poses at the Fireworks party and posted them on Facebook.

Now this is where child protection policies fail. If I had done that = disgusting perv and off to jail, no passing Go, no collecting bail. However, a bunch of 15/16-year olds can do that to ME and - presto! My posterior becomes public property in punishment for me missing junior church.

Those pesky kids!

The only upside to the whole weekend's debacle was the fact that, because actually I AM old, despite what the Yoof assert, I keep a medicine chest in my bathroom and I had some old Amoxicillin tablets left over from when I had tonsillitis last year.

This was a Godsend - I have now got my voice back and my glands have decreased in size, allowing me to be able to shout.

By the time I see the youth group next Friday, I shall be able to tell them all what I think of their mockery. And hopefully get my camera back from them.