The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

vivatifosi

Wasn't it from 2016 that people had to pay NI on their private pensions contributions?

PasturesNew

Due to being terminally confused, when I did my tax return and got nowhere near having to pay tax or NI ... when it offered for me to buy a year's lot I opted into that and paid it anyway.... I figured, for the small amount it was, it was better to have "thrown it away" now, than regret it in 10-15 years' time when it turned out I could've bought in but didn't realise.

LydiaJ

PasturesNew wrote: »

Due to being terminally confused, when I did my tax return and got nowhere near having to pay tax or NI ... when it offered for me to buy a year's lot I opted into that and paid it anyway.... I figured, for the small amount it was, it was better to have "thrown it away" now, than regret it in 10-15 years' time when it turned out I could've bought in but didn't realise.

That was probably very wise.

PasturesNew

FMP free today until the 8th.

https://www.findmypast.co.uk/suffragettes/

Births, marriages, deaths, census records.

EDIT: Typical "misleading" headlines. I wanted to check a baptism in 1818, but I can't access the record without paying.

They do that .... give flakey explanations of what's included/not, then you get hit by the paywall when you try to access records.

I'd have expected a baptism to be included.... but clearly not. A baptism isn't a birth I guess. They call that "church records" or something.
Semantics!

EDIT 2: Ah, it appears that the records on offer are only suffragette ones .... which, for me, would be completely irrelevant.

Suffragettes were mainly two groups: London women and/or wealthier women living in big houses. Few "peasants" as the peasants were at their houses running their baths and stoking their fires, no time for marches!

SingleSue

I'm being a massive proud mum this morning. Joe just got the result back from a programming assignment that caused him so much angst and loss of sleep and which he was expecting to barely scrape a pass.

He got 94%!

It was an absolute dog of an assignment for him, things went wrong and in an effort to sort it at one stage went 60 hours straight without sleep as he reworked the code to get it working as it should (plus include some AI).

The feedback has several mentions of the words exceptional and excellent and they were particularly impressed with his additions over and above the brief.

This is all the more amazing (well to us anyway, others may not be as impressed), as this was a completely new language to him and one he knew nothing about until about October.

LydiaJ

SingleSue wrote: »

I'm being a massive proud mum this morning. Joe just got the result back from a programming assignment that caused him so much angst and loss of sleep and which he was expecting to barely scrape a pass.

He got 94%!

It was an absolute dog of an assignment for him, things went wrong and in an effort to sort it at one stage went 60 hours straight without sleep as he reworked the code to get it working as it should (plus include some AI).

The feedback has several mentions of the words exceptional and excellent and they were particularly impressed with his additions over and above the brief.

This is all the more amazing (well to us anyway, others may not be as impressed), as this was a completely new language to him and one he knew nothing about until about October.

Thrilled for you both... but not surprised. "Exceptional" has been a word I've associated with Joe for quite a while now.

PasturesNew

SingleSue wrote: »

...over and above the brief.

I've always struggled with understanding where the level was.

You're asked to do something, but you don't know how high you're aiming, so you assume your efforts aren't good enough ... and so you include a shed load more. Then think that's "too much/irrelevant" so strip it out, then you look back at what's left and think it's not good enough .... and stress, stress, stress, submit it - and end up with the highest marks in the class.

It's knowing where the level is that's simply not conveyed. You can't see what others have done in the past, so you can see if yours looks "about right" .... and maybe most of those are what you'd call lightweight...

In the past I've typed some dissertations for students - and was gobsmacked at how "simple" and "boring" and "low level" what I was typing up appeared to be!

If you've no experience of viewing the level/work of others, you don't know where you're supposed to pitch. You end up breaking a world distance ball throwing record because you didn't understand that all they wanted to do was check you could toss a ball to another person

ivyleaf

Oh Sue, how lovely. I feel quite teary now! Bless him, he works so hard and as Lydia says is definitely exceptional :T

SingleSue

Yep, that was his issue. He wasn't sure if his was any good compared to others so he made sure he included all the bits they mentioned plus a few extra ones as a just in case to cover himself in case he lost points elsewhere.

michaels

PasturesNew wrote: »

Due to being terminally confused, when I did my tax return and got nowhere near having to pay tax or NI ... when it offered for me to buy a year's lot I opted into that and paid it anyway.... I figured, for the small amount it was, it was better to have "thrown it away" now, than regret it in 10-15 years' time when it turned out I could've bought in but didn't realise.

PN, you are the ideal candidate for the pay 2880 into a pension every year and take out 3600 because the govt gives you 720. That is £720 pa of free money that you should be getting - if you aren't then please ask someone to help you with this.