Nice People 12: Nice in Nice

Masomnia

Nice one GDB

I have no candles so am sending positive vibes.

Masomnia

Feeling tired tonight. Going to do a couple of job applications and then try to get some sleep.

I need to document 35 hours per week of job seeking activity on my Universal Jobmatch account. I've got about 12, so have to do another 23 by Tuesday. They're quite flexible about it really. The example they give has someone writing something to the effect of 'Adapted my covering letter and applied for job (1 hour).' So going off that I'm counting each application as an hour's work. 'Searched for jobs (3 hours).' is another of the examples. So you can pad it out quite easily. The way I'm operating is doing a bit, applying for one, then coming on here to faff about, reading the news, then doing a bit more job searching, then coming back here throughout the day. It feels like a lot less of an onerous task if I do it that way; even if I'm not sitting down and working on it for five straight hours.

silvercar

Location x3 is getting worse. Tonight's couple wanted a house in St Albans. So they showed them a house in Chesham and 2 in Tring - to give them more value for their money. And they fell for it.

Then the pole dancer wanted a house with character, so they showed her a 3 year old town house. She rejected it.

Nikkster

I've spent more time than I'd like to have done in Harefield. Would be happy to never go back.

Missed Spirit time, but was glancing at the clock and thinking of her. Spent the evening drinking wine and chatting with my mum. Which seemed kind of appropriate. Amongst many other things we talked about going to Stonehenge to greet a solstice, which I think Spirit would appreciate.

Sending vibes and lots of love to all who would like them x

SingleSue

At Spirit time, a friend of mine was replacing a wheel on my car as it had developed a puncture (blooming great hole, probably caused by a large screw according to my friend) before we went to speedway.

Luckily I had a brand new spare tyre in the boot (a proper one, not a space saver), otherwise I would have been completely beggered for the morning.

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

Location x3 is getting worse. Tonight's couple wanted a house in St Albans. So they showed them a house in Chesham and 2 in Tring - to give them more value for their money. And they fell for it.

Then the pole dancer wanted a house with character, so they showed her a 3 year old town house. She rejected it.

They do make some bizarre choices on a lot of these programmes - then when the potential buyers point out the blinding obvious the presenters will speak in a patronising tone and tell them that their budget doesn't got that far in wherever ..... as if the buyers are asking for the impossible.

I saw one where it was a single mum with a babe/toddler - and the first house she took her to was (in a seaside town, maybe Devon) along a narrow road, then up 5-6 steep/granite/old/narrow steps, then through a passageway between/under the houses (narrow/unlit/rough path), to some house at the back without road access... any fool could see: "mum, baby, buggy, shopping, rain, wind, in the dark" ...

Or the one where a couple with very young kids wanted something so they took them to some ultra modern conversion, that started with a spiral staircase and ended up in a single open plan room based entirely around the open spiral staircase. Yeah, right...

Or, on Phil Spencer Secret Agent Down Under this week - where he took the couple to a place 70 miles north of where they were looking (presumably where their jobs were).... right... that's sensible then!

PasturesNew

BBC2 just started - Traders: Millions by the Minute.
On again if you missed it before: following the lives of traders - and showing regular people who want to be traders - as now technology makes it more accessible if that's what you want to do. Online trading platforms. "Odds are stacked against individuals - only 10% make a consistent profit"
Follows some people who want to become traders from home.

Jane, mum of 3, in Devon rented house. Looking for financial independence and thinks trading might be the answer. She saw somebody at the school with a posh car and said to her friend "how did she get that?" and was told "she's a trader.... stocks and shares".She has been trading 9 months in a demo account. She's got £1.6million of pretend money in there. She's using spread betting, so not actually trading. She failed her maths ) level 3x, she's not good at maths. She's doing it with currencies, difference between them.

90% of traders lose money.

Charlie Burton - Newbury, Berks. Trades from home. Been trading for 17 years. He's got his own trading room kitted out. £200/month it costs him. He's a millionaire.

Justyn, trades from his bedroom at his parents' house.He's got a 6 screen setup. He started 4 years ago. He went on a course in London and found home users have access to less info that professionals. He works on the basis that markets repeat themselves, he just looks for patterns.

Retail traders can't go direct to the market, they have to go through a broker. 40 Bank Street, Canary Wharf - provides a platform where anyone can trade
Mostretail traders are trading on global currencies, the Forex. Retail traders do 200 billion dollars/day. Paid news feeds cost up to £1000/month.

Another fella, Renee - disabled from a motorbike accident 20 years ago - he's been doing this 7 years now. He lost £2k in his first week, had no idea what he was doing. He trades with just £1-2/point. In the last 2 months he's up by about £10. He started trading with £10k and he's now got £4k (I think they said).

Sabom - a club for old gits who trade. John was Financial Officer at Boots for over 20 years. They meet once a month in a pub to discuss how their trading's going. Originally set up as an investment club, buying shares for the long-term.They then decided to move into more active trading. There's no fun in investment; there's fun in trading. They are looking for fun. Stan wants to buy shares in Rio Tinto. He can only spend £6k on each trade as it's the members' money but only two of the members can actually do the trading.

Jane got a real account and got the money together to start. Day 1, £99; day 2, £105... then she lost £350 on day 3.

ukmaggie45

Masomnia wrote: »

I need to document 35 hours per week of job seeking activity on my Universal Jobmatch account.

That's crazy. :eek: Could you do some sort of course that could count for some hours? That might "improve employability"... I guess they want to make looking for a job as onerous as having a job, though much worse paid of course. Barstewards.

Generali

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

That's crazy. :eek: Could you do some sort of course that could count for some hours?ployability"... I guess they want to make looking for a job as onerous as having a job, though much worse paid of course. Barstewards.

I guess the idea is to stop people that don't want to work sitting on their Aris all day.

That's the trouble with people abusing the system: it messes things up for genuine people.

neverdespairgirl

I've slipped behind - a busy few days and you get lost!

I was in court on Monday, locally, and went to see my best mate on Tuesday. She lives about 80 minutes' travel from me, with her husband, their 5 year old daughter, and their son, who was born the day after Kermie. I've not seen her since our babies were both born, and it was fantastic to see her. Wednesday I went to Manchester, which was stressful - OH had Kermie and Isaac for the day, I had to leave home at 6am, and sort out lots of milk / bottles / complications / take cold packs with me etc. And fend off, "why on earth?!" comments from my mother.

Hope all NPs are well and happy. Isaac, Kermie and I are off to Kent for the weekend to be[STRIKE] agricultural slave labourers[/STRIKE] have bonding time with grandparents.

Kermie and mate's baby:

Generali wrote: »

Always start the week with a dozen in whatever you take to a meeting.

My business cards are, as barristers' cards must be, extremely dull. They have the world's most discretely-boring font, which just has my name, the word "barrister" and the phone / address of my Chambers.

Nikkster wrote: »

Still wouldn't want any 'business contacts' on there. Friends from work - yes. Anyone I'd give a business card to - nope.

Yup, it's an important dividing line for me. I don't have any work / client contacts on facebook at all.