Nice People 12: Nice in Nice

silvercar

michaels wrote: »

Main aim is to get planning permission but negotiations with planners have reached impass where expense and uncertainty of appealing is the only option.

Meanwhile renting agent gave a 'silly' selling valuation which would mean most of the profit could be achieved without planning permission so we are 'flying a kite' by trying to sell at this price. So the question is is one set of viewings enough to ascertain that I was right and agent was wrong about valuation or should we give them another 10 days and 1 more set of viewings at the expense of putting out the tenants. I have already told the tenants that of course they can stay to the 6 month break point in the tenancy and that if we ask them to move out in less than the first year of the AST then we will meet their moving and re-tenanting (contract, cleaning, inventory, credit check etcf) costs in return for their cooperation with letting us do viewings.

Would an open afternoon be less of an intrusion for the tenants?

michaels

silvercar wrote: »

Would an open afternoon be less of an intrusion for the tenants?

So that is what we agreed with the tenants and happened on Saturday, then the tenants told me (when I popped round with a bottle of wine and some choccies to say thank you on Sunday evening) that they had agreed with the agents to do another viewing yesterday and then when I spoke to the agents today they said they were planning more viewings on the 12th, all this was a bit of a surprise to me as I had thought we had only agreed the one session....

michaels

Generali wrote: »

Presumably, house prices don't have to rise at the current rate for long before you make a substantial profit. :beer::T

I am very much hoping that a large CGT bill will soon be a 'problem'

Last rental property we owned for 3 years up until late 2007, this one we are trying to get out of now...not that I claim to be able to call the property market.

zagubov

Generali wrote: »

I used to be basically fluent in French although it's now just reasonable.

I sat next to a Spanish bloke at work for a while. After a few months it suddenly clicked, I could understand pretty much everything he was saying. It was an amazing experience quite honestly.

I almost went on a three year degree course split between Liverpool and Lisbon (it was a PhD research post so not limited to the amazingly short HE academic year length). I spoke to someone about it and the finding had been that when someone monolingual lived in a place for about six months you became reasonably competent in the language by immersion so they'd expect the foreign placement stages to be easier after the first one. Wish I'd done it now. A train strike (remember them?) kept me away from the interview alas).

Liverpool was a real pioneer in these foreign exhanges. Another friend did a degree at Liverpool split for six months with the Humboldt University in (East) Berlin, which was quite an experience for the 1970s.

There used to be a theory we all had a mental module called the Language Acqusition Device which could be activated to scan for and absorb new languages, and was switched on automatically in infants and presumably could be reactivated with more or less efficiency in older people. Don't know if that's still accepted.

LydiaJ

silvercar wrote: »

For cordless phones it has to be Panasonic. We have solid internal walls and get reception 100 foot down the garden, with the base set located at the front of the house. We run 3 extensions off the base with no problem. Call quality is good and the intercom works properly. I chose them because they also sell a booster unit if you need to boost the reception, that I didn't need to buy.

vivatifosi wrote: »

Another vote for Panasonic here. Similar range to silvercar.

zagubov wrote: »

Another vote for Panasonic phones!

That sounds pretty conclusive. A Panasonic it is, then. Thanks people.

LydiaJ

Doozergirl wrote: »

He's very cool. Apart from the beard. Weird beard.

I knew a polyglot at uni - a guy who complained that he'd been disappointed in Mongolian because he'd been promised that it was a really difficult language but in fact it had been easy just like all the others (French, German, Latin, Greek, Welsh (both modern and mediaeval), Anglo-Saxon, Old Irish, Old Norse, Polish and Mandarin).

He had a straggly red beard just like the guy in the clip. I don't suppose there's actually any correlation...

Masomnia

I know a little bit of German, I can hold a conversation, but it's a getting a bit rusty with under-use. I know a little bit of French, but that's just a smattering of what I can remember from school. I should make more of an effort with it really as my great uncle speaks French pretty much fluently and I could ring him any time.

I tried learning a bit of Bulgarian but it's a bit of a nightmare. All I can really remember is 'Kraseeva si', which means 'you are a beautiful woman' and 'Na zdrave!' which is 'cheers!' ('to your health', literally, I guess). It's very similar to Russian, as you might expect. In any case, I think those two phrases are all you really need

Worrying a bit about my mum as she's being 'urgently referred' to hospital after going to the doctor with a lump and pain in her left breast. She's a very negative thinker so I'm trying to be as positive about it as possible. I don't think there's any point in worrying when you don't know what the score is, and there's no reason to expect the worst as she seems to (there is family history, though it may be coincidence). Hoping for the best anyway.

zagubov

Doozergirl wrote: »

He's very cool. Apart from the beard. Weird beard.

I dunno - this guys got another talent and the same beard (pretty much).
:T

neverdespairgirl

zagubov wrote: »

I almost went on a three year degree course split between Liverpool and Lisbon (it was a PhD research post so not limited to the amazingly short HE academic year length). I spoke to someone about it and the finding had been that when someone monolingual lived in a place for about six months you became reasonably competent in the language by immersion so they'd expect the foreign placement stages to be easier after the first one. Wish I'd done it now. A train strike (remember them?) kept me away from the interview alas).

I remember them - we had a couple in London earlier this year!

I lived in a small town in Poland for 9 months, and really, really struggled with Polish, even though I tried pretty hard. I am absolutely rubbish at languages.

zagubov wrote: »

Another vote for Panasonic phones!
Any NP got gifts like this guy?
Gen must speak some French.

Not me, not at all. OH's grandfather was like that, though - he spoke a large number of languages entirely fluently, although he didn't sound native in all of them.

His first languages were Polish and Yiddish. He later learned German (attending university in Germany), Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, French, English (he worked in England after the war, as a dentist), Italian, Hebrew and Arabic.

I don't know how good they all were, but he spoke 5 of them well enough to attend university or work as a dentist in those languages. In his very late life, the last 2-3 years (when he was in his mid 90s) he couldn't quite work out which language he was speaking in. He would ring OH up, chat to him in Russian or Yiddish and if OH said something like, "speak English, Grandpa" he would say (in English) "I am, you stupid boy!" and then carry on, sometimes in English, sometimes in any other language that came to mind.

My uncle studied the highly vocational "Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic" for his degree, and later learned French and Czech well enough to work in them both, but didn't quite get to the levels in the link.

Nikkster wrote: »

Back when I was a lurker (probably even before the inaugural NPT) it always felt like you (lir), Gen and NDG were siblings Just something about the way you interact and communicate in general.

I feel like that about lots of NP, in an entirely positive way. I like siblings, after all!

Nikkster wrote: »

Which of us isn't flawed? In some way or another.

Edit: I mean, I'm painfully aware of a long list of my flaws (I'm sure my list doesn't even scratch the surface though). There are many NP I'd happily put up on a pedestal, but I'm pretty sure they feel they have flaws too. I think our flaws are just as important and fundamental to ourselves as the bits we like. Or at least that's what I tell myself to get myself from day to day.

I have so many flaws that I must be extremely interesting, then. But I do try to eliminate them if I can. It's just a work in long-term progress, that's all.

michaels wrote: »

Selling not going so well, 6 viewings, 3 said upstairs too small (true), 3 didn't respond to agents post viewing messages. Agent has a few more lined up but I am loathe to bother the tenants again. Thoughts?

Seems pretty tough on your tenants, don't you think?

neverdespairgirl

Masomnia wrote: »

I tried learning a bit of Bulgarian but it's a bit of a nightmare. All I can really remember is 'Kraseeva si', which means 'you are a beautiful woman' and 'Na zdrave!' which is 'cheers!' ('to your health', literally, I guess). It's very similar to Russian, as you might expect. In any case, I think those two phrases are all you really need

Worrying a bit about my mum as she's being 'urgently referred' to hospital after going to the doctor with a lump and pain in her left breast. She's a very negative thinker so I'm trying to be as positive about it as possible. I don't think there's any point in worrying when you don't know what the score is, and there's no reason to expect the worst as she seems to (there is family history, though it may be coincidence). Hoping for the best anyway.

All the best to Masomnia-Mama, here's hoping all's well.

Those bits of Bulgarian sound just like Russian, to my ear - there are lots of words which are similar across a number of slavic languages, such as "pee-vo" (beer).