Let's have another housing bubble

We are still suffering the fallout from the biggest asset bubble in modern history, yet the politicians seem hell bent on re-inflating the property bubble in the UK.

We are still living with an over priced property sector, initially fuelled by cheap credit and the idea that property would continue to grow in value at a faster rate than the rest of the economy and now propped up by virtually non-existent interest rates.

 Now, these truths are to me self evident, the idea that there is a "property ladder" without a "property snake" in very easy to sell to people. Property never goes down runs the common perception, and the whole industry is complicit in this lie. This is really appealing as it seems to promise endless growth with no risk. The reality is though that your house doesn't get any bigger (and hence more valuable) so any rise in what is considered value is purely a collective delusion.

What continually astonishes me is that politicians of all persuations in the UK see the only answer to our economic woes. The latest example being George Osborne's ludicrous new plan to get the UK taxpayer to underwrite mortgages for new builds. The idea being that the private sector won't take the risk, therefore the taxpayer has to. Bonkers.

This will just lead to price inflation as part of the risk calculation is removed and people can borrow more than is commercially realistic.

It is a policy that is a legacy from the Thatcher years and the rush to home ownership that she ushered in. Those voters who have gained from the massive house price inflation over the past 25 years need to be placated and pandered too by the political classes. If not they stop voting for them.

 

A life in Advertising

Very painful, but very true

http://www.lindsredding.com/2012/03/11/a-overdue-lesson-in-perspective/

A retrospective on a life in advertising. Mind you, there's a load of bitterness in there that is all about what old men think of their lives and what younger people do.

And hey, don't forget that the world is a different place now and everything really is harder.

Was Lord Farquad really based on Richard III?

Pure speculation on my part here, but was there a connection.

What really brings this into focus is the recent discovery of the bones of Richard III underneath a car park in Leicester.

Having done the DNA analysis to confirm that the bones really were of the reviled English King Richard III, the archaeologists who discovered the remains decided to use the latest facial reconstruction  techniques they set about creating a lifelike model of the medieval king.

After many months of painstaking effort they came up with this:



Now the truth is clear for all to see, Lord Farquad from the Shrek movies is clearly Richard III, or is it the other way round?

Co-incidence? I think not.

Yellow Snow Warning from the BBC?

My favourite piece of reporting about the snowy weather we are having is from the BBC web site which states:

There are also yellow snow warnings for eastern parts of England and Scotland, stretching across the Midlands into north Wales.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21106626

Updating Windws XP in Virtualbox

As everything slows down in Windows it came time to add more resources to my Windows XP running in Virtualbox.

 Memory, not a problem just add some more in the VirtualBox Settings. Don't add more than 4 GB as Windows XP can't use it. Increase the Disk size.

I was running short of disk and wanted to extend the VDI. This is easily managed using

vboxmanage modifyhd "vdi file name" --resize "size you want in mb"

in my case it was vboxmanage modifyhd NewXP.vdi --resize 20480

That increases the size of the disk under VirtualBox, you now need to extend the partition for Windows to make use of it.

My solution was to use Gparted iso image.

Download a GPartEd ISO and save it somewhere where VirtualBox can find it. Boot your WIndows XP machine using the GpartEd iso image as the virtual cd in VIrtualbox. GParted will then let you extend the partition to use all of the disk. Restart into Windows XP to check that you have all the disk accessible. Windows may CHKDSK on reboot, this is normal.

Finally I added an additional cpu core to the VistualBox machine under the machine settings.

Windows can't see use the additional core until it has a multicore kernel and HAL in place. To do this Turn off Driver Signing in Wondows XP by going through

My Computer:Properties:Hardware:Driver Signing and set it to ignore (you can set this back afterwards if you so wish)

Then run (from the command line)

 rundll32 syssetup,SetupInfObjectInstallAction ACPIAPIC_MP_HAL 128 %windir%\inf\hal.inf

A couple of reboots and Bob's you uncle a re-juvinated Windows XP.

Osborne and Cameron Relaxed about Tax Returns

Well they would be wouldn't they. With million pound assets, and the capability of organising their affairs so as to reduce the amount of income that appears on their tax returns they don't have a problem really.

As the beneficiary of an offshore trust (that owns 15% of Osborne and Little) the chancellor could of course just take loans from the trust - which don't count as income.

And let's face it, the whole point of Tax Avoidance is not showing income on your Tax Return surely.

It's getting tight at the top

The run in to the end of the season seems to start earlier and earlier each year.

I'm not really complaining, after all, the excitement is intoxicating and it gives every game an edge and a sense of danger. But I wonder if it takes away from the beauty of the game?

I mean that in a sense it reduces the last third of the season to a nail biting experience where you are fearful of losing and relieved at winning. It's all about a point here and a point there, goal difference and holding ones nerve. And what happens is that the games get scrappier and scrappier.

We lose the beautiful, flowing games where the skill of the team translates into the kind of passing game that we all enjoy and love. Where creativity and fun seem to be as important as winning. Where winning is the just reward for playing well, and the manner of the victory is still important.

Maybe I'm supporting the wrong team, maybe Wenger has got it right and is more interested in playing beautiful football than winning trophies.

Nah, bring on the grinding one nil victory and bring on the Premiership Trophy.

How to defrost a freezer the quick way

Just thought I'd pass on this tip.

Next time you want to defrost your freezer, start by arming yourself with a desk fan. Any size will do,but something like 9" is ideal. Then, when you have emptied everything out of it and switched the power (or pressed the defrost button) put the fan in front of the open freezer, and switch it on.

That's it.

A heavily frosted freezer will take approximately one hour to complete, so make sure you keep on top of emptying your water collection vessel.

The fan keeps pushing warm air into the freezer which melts the ice, without this airflow the air stays cold which keeps the ice cold.

Simple, but very effective.

Is Minecraft the most addictive game in the world?

Apparently, yes.

My three children, 12, 11 and 7 years old, the older two boys, cannot stop playing with it. It starts 1st thing in the morning with the first one up asking to get on Minecraft, then the others one after the other. Bizarre. The threat of taking it away from them is enough to guarantee good behaviour.

They all have their own worlds, but equally play together or on their own. They are constantly building new houses,underground world, flying spaceships, extensive waterworks of canals and pools, cottages, castles, theme parks and mazes.

All of this in the simplest of games, with the simplest of rules.

So, move over Angry Birds Minecraft probably is the most addictive game in the world.