Seeing the World

My pension pot has finally moved from a (worthless if I die) guaranteed income for life to a sizeable chunk of cash that the kids can inherit.

That gives me an incentive to survive two years to ensure they don’t end up paying 40% inheritance tax on quite a lot of money.

I then have the issue of beating the odds and surviving to a ripe old age.  Forget your inheritance kids, it’ll be long gone in the unlikely event that happens.

My main problem will be inflation eroding the value of the pot.  For now it’s invested in a cash fund that returns naff all.  With inflation above 2% within four years the cash will have lost around a tenth of its buying power.  If I go on and on, living in the shadow of an early death, that buying power gets less and less.

But while the odds are against my longer term health, I need to protect against investment risk.  All three of the kids are yet to buy a home.  While I quite like the idea of exposing the pot to the vagaries of the markets I could, overnight, lose a third of its buying power.

Recoverable in the long term.  But no good if I pop my clogs the day after a big fall in the market and somebody wants to set foot on the housing ladder.

So I choose inflation risk for as long as the numbers say my chances of living four and a half more years are only 14%.  If something comes up to improve on those numbers I’ll review my rather benign investment approach.

I hate inflation risk.  But it’s a better option than long term investing just now.

Farewell Trusty Insigna – My Final Company Car Has Gone

With thirty days left as an employee another step in the winding down of my thirty year career has been completed.  The company car went back today.

The good news is that this will save me about £140 in tax this month and I should get a £340 car allowance in my final salary.  The bad new is that the chances of that £340 being processed in this month’s payroll are about as likely as a Labour general election victory.

The tax won’t resolve itself for months either!

It’s also bad news for Chris.  He can’t drive the BMW that’s replaced it as the insurers consider drivers his age to be incapable of handling such a vehicle.  The Insigna gave him just a couple of months of driving pleasure that is now over.

As a car I quite liked it.  Reliable.  Workmanlike.  Cheap to run.  And priced at a sweet spot in the company car scheme that meant I got paid for having it, whereas a similar Mondeo would have demanded a substantial deduction from my pay.

I’m a little sad to see it go.  But the Beamer’s more fun even if I can’t work out how to tune in Radio Five Live Extra and can’t get Chris to chauffeur me.

Eindhoven

I’ve never been to the Netherlands.  I’ve seen England beat them 4-1 on the telly once.  My real life Dutch football experience was a mid-eighties 1-1 draw at Old Trafford between Manchester United and PSV Eindhoven.  And I laughed at Del Boy saying “Ajax” as he entered Holland’s canal system on Only Fools and Horses.

While trying to put together my Scotland north coast trip yesterday morning logistical snags, high time use, excessive air and rail fares and the restriction of hospital dates has meant I’ll defer that trip for another time.  In frustration my Manchester to Everywhere search on Skyscanner threw up Berlin and Eindhoven as sub-£40 return flights.

While Berlin interests me, I’ve been to Germany before.  So the Dutch got the vote with yet another Ryanair flight.  In reality the flights came in at £48.  Short, so I’ll risk the legroom and not pay for extra seating.  €2.20 from airport to town.  €70 a night for a central hotel with a 4.3 rating on Tripadviser.  And less than €20 for the eighty minute journey to Amsterdam.  I think that trip is a dead cert.

What is there to do in Eindhoven?  I’ve no idea!

Have I Got Yet Another Disease?

Unclean!  Unclean!  When I visited the eye clinic recently, thanks to a sore eye driven by my Bell’s palsy, the nice doctor chap did a hearing test and it became evident that I’ve lost most of the hearing in my right ear.

He put it down to “nerve inflammation” linked to the palsy, googled something that I couldn’t read and referred me for a non-urgent head scan.

Alas, this not working malarkey gives you time to Google things about your health.  Indeed, I think it’s highly likely that one of thirty eight other conditions will finish me off before the nasty cancer manages it.

And one of these searches unearthed a condition I’ve never heard of.  Labyrinthitis.  It sounds like a bad Hollywood movie title.  And like the Bell’s palsy it’s a FOIWGAOIO condition.  No drugs to fix it or improve it.  A month and it should be gone.  Meanwhile I’ll carry on walking around with my Halloween mask facial expression and have proper reasons for ignoring every word said to me.

FOIWGAOIO.  Go on, you can work it out.

I Might Drive 500 Miles …

There’s a time slot that opens up before the May school holidays where I’m tempted to head up to Scotland.

The “North Coast 500” is a relatively new marketing concept claiming to be “Scotland’s Route 66” and doubtless plays on the Proclaimers wearing out their shoe leather.

But marketing or not there is little doubt that these islands have some stunning scenery that’s well worth seeing and the top bit of Scotland is no exception.

I have previously got as far as the north coast of Loch Ness.  This trip, if it happens, will cover the bit above that.

My main concern is the drive north.  It’s a bloody long way before you get there!  I might fly and hire.  Or I might break the journey with a stop each way.  It’s unlikely I’ll do the full five hundred although now the football season is over I have the option of tapping into the weekends.  A series of medical appointments are the main time stealers before we head off to Boston in June.

So this one’s not in the bag yet.  I’ve got Northern Ireland next week which includes a little bit of their north coast.  But I feel a Scottish schedule coming my way soon.

Cheap Tickets, Flexibility and Pain

I like cheap.  Manchester to London trains are cheap if you buy at the right time and specify a specific service that you want to travel on several weeks in the future.

And I’m yet to miss a train and end up paying full fare on the day, although it could always happen.

Today I regretted this.  The Oldham match finished around 2pm.  I’d built in sorrow drowning time just in case a relegation that once seemed likely occurred.  That possibility was avoided last week though.

This left the two of us tired on the outskirts of London with a three hour wait to our train and not being allowed to hop on an earlier one.  Time to eat?  Not hungry.  Time to drink?  I’m not exactly a heavy drinker and there’s a car to drive later.

So time to get bored in and around Euston station concourse.  Sitting on hard chairs or benches which, after a time, cause genuine pain to my back and coccyx.

Maybe next time I’ll just cough up the extra £40 or so and make life easier.  Some of that will save on drinks and food bought in the waiting period anyway.  It’s not always essential to grab a bargain.

The Free Hotel Suite and the Hooker

The footballing conundrum that Stockport needed to make the play-offs nearly fell into place.  Chorley did their bit, losing at home to Halifax, and the County nearly fulfilled their part of the bargain until a rather good late Gloucester City equaliser spoiled the show.

So we headed off to London town to check into our free hotel room.

Free because I’d got myself a Hilton credit card and spent £750 on it.  Retail value of the room £329.  I think that’s a win!

Additionally, last year I leveraged some hotel stays for work and pleasure to give me IHG (Holiday Inn) Gold Elite status.  The main benefit being a free drink during stays.  I spotted a Hilton “status match” offer and obtained Hilton Gold status without spending a single night in a Hilton!

Hilton Gold entitles me to free breakfast, free room upgrade if available and a bottle of water.  Nice enough and I duly responded to their email offing a free upgrade.  Indeed, I was surprised to see they’d booked my “twin deluxe” request into a double room for Chris and me.

After negotiating Virgin Trains, a group of West Ham fans and the Victoria Line we wandered down the Monopoly board around Green Park, admiring Piccadilly and checked into the Park Lane Hilton, overlooking Mayfair.  I pondered a red hotel in Mayfair costing £2,000 in the classic game.

Dressed in my usual casual style of scruff/tramp and Chris kitted out in his proud blue Oldham Athletic shirt the receptionist told us we’d been further upgraded to The Clarence Suite on the 27th floor.  To me, hotel suites are few and far between.  When they come they tend to mean two chairs and a table in a six foot lengthening of the standard room.  I particularly liked the version with a balcony overlooking the Colorado River last summer.

As the express lift flew up to the second highest floor we wandered out into a normal looking hotel corridor and immediately spotted the door to our room.  A large internal area turned left into a huge room.  Impressively furnished with two large settees, heavy wooden dining table and chairs, coffee preparing area the size of a kitchen in a good sized semi and views to kill for over London moving east from Hyde Park Corner.

Another corridor led us to the bedroom.  King size bed for me.  Comfortable bed at the end for Chris.  Then onto the bathroom.  DIsappointingly small and functional, but shaving kits, toothbrushes and bidet all happily supplied.  Within the corridor was a makeup desk and two wardrobes.  Further on down the corridor a shower room and a steam room.

Yes, we have a steam room in our hotel suite!

Besides all that we’d missed another bathroom in our first corridor.  It’s fair to say we stumbled into movie star territory here.  Rock Stars have surely spent time in our suite.

Next we headed to the exclusive lounge.  Too late for food but time enough to grab a self poured G&T each, a couple of cups of tea and pocket a bottle of diet-Pepsi.  Conversation overheard from other guests along the lines of “I’ll have a word with the High Commissioner about getting the tickets …”.

With starters on the menu beginning at £21 a head, we decided to shuffle out in the hope of finding a takeaway.  An attractive foreign lady outside the hotel asked us where we were from.  One of us muttered “Manchester”.  She responded with “United!” and Chris, quite rightly, highlighted the Oldham Athletic badge on his shirt.

Despite my suave good looks being hampered by Bell’s palsy she carried on the chat before asking me to light her cigarette.  Not being a smoker myself she handed me matches and guided me towards a sheltered wall to protect against the breeze as Chris followed.

As I went to strike the match, her hand moved firmly into my unsuspecting crotch.  I turned white, she said something like “are you shy?”and I politely returned the unlit matches and headed off rapidly in the first direction I could see with Chris close behind me!

A minute or two later we were back in the hotel lift wondering what the hell had just happened and returned to the suite to order a Chinese.  Meal that is.

As we waited, slightly shellshocked, I failed to convince Chris that attractive ladies can’t keep their hands off me and she wasn’t really a lady of the night.  I then checked out the retail price of the suite and discovered it was north of £2,000 a night.  It’s almost a shame we part-wasted it by scheduling in two football matches!  As freebies go, pretty damn good!

Maybe the nice lady was included in the price.  Damn!

Plugs next to the bed to charge devices?  Nope.  I want my money back!

The Free Hotel, 4.5% off Petrol and Gloucester City

Today sees the start of enjoying two of the finest football matches you could ever hope to see this weekend.

The centre piece of the event was meant to be tomorrow’s clash between AFC Wimbledon and Oldham Athletic.  I’d predicted results forwards and come to the conclusion that this was going to be a must win game to avoid relegation.  Rather selfishly they achieved safety last week so this is a dead rubber.  At least we get to stay in a free hotel room tonight – one that’s been upgraded and includes a free cooked brekkie!

When I booked train tickets for the journey south I was anticipating Saturday morning travel.  Virgin were only offering their more expensive open tickets for the journey out.  I booked begrudgingly and was feeling so miffed I even forgot to apply the 20% off code that they’d emailed me a week earlier.  Fortunately the open ticket has gifted us some flexibility.

When I get out of my pit, I’ll be driving to my local Sainsburys.  I don’t shop there and I rarely fill up there.  But today they’re chucking Nectar points around like confetti and I can effectively save 5% on what’s already the cheapest fill up in town.  While Nectar doesn’t excite me anywhere near as much as Tesco Clubcard I am confident that I will buy Easyjet flights in future.  These points will give me a straight forwards discount off the fare.

Then it’s over the tops to meet up with Chris and take on the challenge of a Wetherspoons breakfast.  I reckon we’ll be able to feed us both, with drinks, for less than £8.  Then we’ll have a strange time period where we tend to go to some random shop and buy nothing.  B&M Stores.  A random half price Poundland superstore.  All classy stuff.

Then the big natch of the day.  A fixture with a play-off place at stake.  Something where it matters.  An event bigger than anything else in town.  The Vanarama North (division six) clash between Stockport County and Gloucester City.

After being rubbish for most of my life Stockport went quite good for a bit.  They enjoyed beating Manchester City rather a lot when the two teams played in the same division.  Alas, as the sky blues became wealthy and signed Aguero, County fell on hard times.  Effectively going bust and getting relegated three times.

Today might be a key step in their recovery.  They have to win.  And even if they win either Chorley or Salford City have to lose.  As Salford are owned by a bunch of former Manchester United rich boys biggest pleasure will come from Salford slipping up.  If County win 14-0 and Salford draw that would also see Stockport make the play-offs.  It’s a big ask, but I’m expecting over 6,000 to rock up at Edgeley Park today to make a hell of a noise.  And even though it’s not exciting to most of the nation, I’m right up for it.

After the game it’ll be interesting to see how quickly other results are communicated to fans if Stockport have won.  I assume Twitter will be first to report any excitement in Salford or Chorley.

And then, regardless of the outcome, we’ll head south to Euston.  I’ll treat us to an overpriced first class upgrade of wide seat, free wifi, coffee and a sandwich.  £20 each.

The free £329 hotel room won’t be used for anything more than bedd and breakfast.  Then an Uber to AFC Wimbledon tomorrow.

It’s a time of year when the most unlikely towns can get really excited about their football team.

As The Cancer Hospital Caught Fire My First Concern Was For the Rats

It’s pretty much accepted that Manchester’s Christie Hospital is fantastic.  While for some it’s been a place to have your hand held as cancer leads you off life’s mortal coil, for others it’s been a life saving beacon of hope that has turned into the reality of full and ongoing remission from the evil that is cancer.

As well as treating patients it’s also a research institute.  It became relevant to me recently when they successfully treated a lung cancer patient whose disease had spread to the lymph nodes with a new trial drug.  While my spread is more severe than that it’s something I’m hoping becomes more widely available as and when my afatinib drug fails me.

When the Christie caught fire the other day my logical human instinct should have been “I hope the patients and staff are safe”.  My actual instinct was “I hope the research is safe”.  A bit wrong really, but hopefully you understand why!

I have no idea whether cute furry lab rats occupy the institute.  Sat there in their cages with coughs and crumbling bones being monitored as they progress through a course of the latest saveyourlifeatinib drug being tested.  But whatever research they’ve been doing there sounds highly relevant to me and others with lung cancer.  And yes, it concerns me that even a short delay in getting things up and running again could be the difference between early death and longer term survival for me.

Theres a fundraising campaign to help get things back on course.  I’d urge everybody to give to this one if they can.  The faster they’re up and running again, the more chance I’ve got of seeing my pension.

I Think Adelaide Has Finally Fallen Into Place