It's more boring than I wanted so I find myself going to and from London a lot because there's not a lot to do in Zurich over the weekends and I have loads of pre-existing social commitments back home. Luckily ZRH to LCY is really quick. My gf seems less happy in Zurich than she was in London despite being from Switzerland, but I think she'd grown very used to living in London and it's not been easy for her to adjust to the non-24/7 pace of a city that isn't London or NY. I expected a step down, but not this big. However, (and it's a big one) we both earn 3x what we did in London so it's worth it, at least for a while.
I think the main problem is that we're fairly isolated from our social circle who are all in London and Swiss people are notoriously difficult to socialise with, especially because I speak standard German rather than their oddball version.
I had a friend who ran the Reuters office there for a few years. I think he found the same to some extent, but he was a keen skier and that was a big compensation.
I'm not a huge winter sports fan, neither is my partner but our place does have a swimming pool and a we've just got a decent gas fired BBQ so roll on summer.
It's tough to imagine grilling steaks with mesquite added for more smoky flavor, cedar plank salmon, or a rack of ribs in Zurich. What do they bbq there?
I'm hoping that by next week, Jeremy's Marxist mate will have persuaded him to ban mobile phones and return to the good old days of waiting five months for a phone to be stuck on your hall wall......
You joke, but if energy is partially nationalised, and water, trains, and the mail fully nationalised in time, then why would it stop there? Wouldn't BT be a target too?
I hope so. BTW the telegraph system was nationalised in 1870 under Gladstone.
Water should be nationalised. Some of the Chinese-owned water companies in Britain try and scam people into paying for five months of water in advance.
I'm not a huge winter sports fan, neither is my partner but our place does have a swimming pool and a we've just got a decent gas fired BBQ so roll on summer.
The other thing which some people like very much about Zurich is that it is within easy reach of some wonderful places in Bavaria and Italy, so it's great for weekend breaks.
I think Basel is better for that because the trains go to Germany, France and Italy from there. I contemplated moving to Basel a few years ago when my partner and I were going through a difficult patch because her workplace relocated her back to Basel for 9 months but thought better of it and then she decided to leave anyway to come back to London and do her PhD at UCL.
Max, I'm afraid you're going to have to get married and start a family. Soon.
"This is of course all reflected in the polls. Upto GE2015 LAB could largely take the working class vote for granted but now large swathes of it have disappeared.
From what I can gather everything that was predicted about Corbyn’s leadership in a general election is actually happening. He is proving a massive negative and his supporters are left trying to find even more excuses."
Except that the headline VI now seems to show Labour doing little or no worse than in 2015. ICM excepted, all of the recent surveys now have Labour on 30-32% GB-wide.
All the more reason to suppose that said surveys are, in fact, bollocks.
This notion that Labour is doing as well as it got under Miliband in the polls is a complete myth and I don't understand where it is coming from.
In 2015 Labour got a bit over 31% of the GB (not UK) vote. Lets round down to 31% to keep it easy.
According to UK Polling Report of the 11 surveys completed in May, Labour has matched the 31% once (ORB) and scored less than 31% in 10 out of 11 surveys. There has not been a single survey where Labour outperformed 31%.
Labour is polling worse now than it achieved under Ed. That is without taking Labour's historical (including 2015) tendency to underperform polls into account.
There were two surveys over the weekend - ORB and Opinium - putting Labour on 32%. Moreover if 2015 methodologies were still being used the polls would be showing a range of 30% - 34%.
We don't call you Justin Kill'Em Short Straws for nothing...
"This is of course all reflected in the polls. Upto GE2015 LAB could largely take the working class vote for granted but now large swathes of it have disappeared.
From what I can gather everything that was predicted about Corbyn’s leadership in a general election is actually happening. He is proving a massive negative and his supporters are left trying to find even more excuses."
Except that the headline VI now seems to show Labour doing little or no worse than in 2015. ICM excepted, all of the recent surveys now have Labour on 30-32% GB-wide.
All the more reason to suppose that said surveys are, in fact, bollocks.
This notion that Labour is doing as well as it got under Miliband in the polls is a complete myth and I don't understand where it is coming from.
In 2015 Labour got a bit over 31% of the GB (not UK) vote. Lets round down to 31% to keep it easy.
According to UK Polling Report of the 11 surveys completed in May, Labour has matched the 31% once (ORB) and scored less than 31% in 10 out of 11 surveys. There has not been a single survey where Labour outperformed 31%.
Labour is polling worse now than it achieved under Ed. That is without taking Labour's historical (including 2015) tendency to underperform polls into account.
There were two surveys over the weekend - ORB and Opinium - putting Labour on 32%. Moreover if 2015 methodologies were still being used the polls would be showing a range of 30% - 34%.
We don't call you Justin Kill'Em Short Straws for nothing...
I'm hoping that by next week, Jeremy's Marxist mate will have persuaded him to ban mobile phones and return to the good old days of waiting five months for a phone to be stuck on your hall wall......
You joke, but if energy is partially nationalised, and water, trains, and the mail fully nationalised in time, then why would it stop there? Wouldn't BT be a target too?
I hope so. BTW the telegraph system was nationalised in 1870 under Gladstone.
Water should be nationalised. Some of the Chinese-owned water companies in Britain try and scam people into paying for five months of water in advance.
I'm hoping that by next week, Jeremy's Marxist mate will have persuaded him to ban mobile phones and return to the good old days of waiting five months for a phone to be stuck on your hall wall......
You joke, but if energy is partially nationalised, and water, trains, and the mail fully nationalised in time, then why would it stop there? Wouldn't BT be a target too?
I hope so. BTW the telegraph system was nationalised in 1870 under Gladstone.
Water should be nationalised. Some of the Chinese-owned water companies in Britain try and scam people into paying for five months of water in advance.
It's more boring than I wanted so I find myself going to and from London a lot because there's not a lot to do in Zurich over the weekends and I have loads of pre-existing social commitments back home. Luckily ZRH to LCY is really quick. My gf seems less happy in Zurich than she was in London despite being from Switzerland, but I think she'd grown very used to living in London and it's not been easy for her to adjust to the non-24/7 pace of a city that isn't London or NY. I expected a step down, but not this big. However, (and it's a big one) we both earn 3x what we did in London so it's worth it, at least for a while.
I think the main problem is that we're fairly isolated from our social circle who are all in London and Swiss people are notoriously difficult to socialise with, especially because I speak standard German rather than their oddball version.
I had a friend who ran the Reuters office there for a few years. I think he found the same to some extent, but he was a keen skier and that was a big compensation.
I'm not a huge winter sports fan, neither is my partner but our place does have a swimming pool and a we've just got a decent gas fired BBQ so roll on summer.
It's tough to imagine grilling steaks with mesquite added for more smoky flavor, cedar plank salmon, or a rack of ribs in Zurich. What do they bbq there?
Sausages mostly, but Manor Food has everything I'd want to BBQ. Without Manor Food I would probably have given up by now, the grocery sector is very underdeveloped compared to the UK and Lidl/Aldi have just made things worse as the traditional big two have cut back on quality and range in order to be price competitive. Shopping in Manor Food feels like shopping in the Finchley Road Waitrose.
I'm hoping that by next week, Jeremy's Marxist mate will have persuaded him to ban mobile phones and return to the good old days of waiting five months for a phone to be stuck on your hall wall......
You joke, but if energy is partially nationalised, and water, trains, and the mail fully nationalised in time, then why would it stop there? Wouldn't BT be a target too?
I hope so. BTW the telegraph system was nationalised in 1870 under Gladstone.
Water should be nationalised. Some of the Chinese-owned water companies in Britain try and scam people into paying for five months of water in advance.
There is a Chinese owned water company?
The Lee Ki water company
Your coat, sir.
There's also the Indian water company - Mahatma Kote
I'm not a huge winter sports fan, neither is my partner but our place does have a swimming pool and a we've just got a decent gas fired BBQ so roll on summer.
The other thing which some people like very much about Zurich is that it is within easy reach of some wonderful places in Bavaria and Italy, so it's great for weekend breaks.
I think Basel is better for that because the trains go to Germany, France and Italy from there. I contemplated moving to Basel a few years ago when my partner and I were going through a difficult patch because her workplace relocated her back to Basel for 9 months but thought better of it and then she decided to leave anyway to come back to London and do her PhD at UCL.
Max, I'm afraid you're going to have to get married and start a family. Soon.
I'm hoping that by next week, Jeremy's Marxist mate will have persuaded him to ban mobile phones and return to the good old days of waiting five months for a phone to be stuck on your hall wall......
You joke, but if energy is partially nationalised, and water, trains, and the mail fully nationalised in time, then why would it stop there? Wouldn't BT be a target too?
I hope so. BTW the telegraph system was nationalised in 1870 under Gladstone.
Water should be nationalised. Some of the Chinese-owned water companies in Britain try and scam people into paying for five months of water in advance.
There is a Chinese owned water company?
Yes. Li Ka-Shing is the name you should look up. Based in Hong Kong, he is said to be the richest person in Asia. The vehicle is called CK Hutchison Holdings, which owns the phone networks called "3", some water interests in Britain (though it has sold some), and did I mention it is the biggest port operator in the world and owns the facilities at both Harwich and Felixstowe, in the latter case on land owned by Trinity College, Cambridge?
Ka-Shing's eldest son was once kidnapped by a top Chinese gangster. After he paid the ransom, it was all smiles and the gangster called Ka-Shing and asked him for advice on where to invest it.
I'm hoping that by next week, Jeremy's Marxist mate will have persuaded him to ban mobile phones and return to the good old days of waiting five months for a phone to be stuck on your hall wall......
You joke, but if energy is partially nationalised, and water, trains, and the mail fully nationalised in time, then why would it stop there? Wouldn't BT be a target too?
I hope so. BTW the telegraph system was nationalised in 1870 under Gladstone.
Water should be nationalised. Some of the Chinese-owned water companies in Britain try and scam people into paying for five months of water in advance.
There is a Chinese owned water company?
Yes. Li Ka-Shing is the name you should look up. Based in Hong Kong, he is said to be the richest person in Asia. The vehicle is called CK Hutchison Holdings, which owns the phone networks called "3", some water interests in Britain (though it has sold some), and did I mention it is the biggest port operator in the world and owns the facilities at both Harwich and Felixstowe, in the latter case on land owned by Trinity College, Cambridge?
Ah thanks! How does the scam operate? That you have to pay upfront for five months before being allowed to get water?
I'm not a huge winter sports fan, neither is my partner but our place does have a swimming pool and a we've just got a decent gas fired BBQ so roll on summer.
The other thing which some people like very much about Zurich is that it is within easy reach of some wonderful places in Bavaria and Italy, so it's great for weekend breaks.
I think Basel is better for that because the trains go to Germany, France and Italy from there. I contemplated moving to Basel a few years ago when my partner and I were going through a difficult patch because her workplace relocated her back to Basel for 9 months but thought better of it and then she decided to leave anyway to come back to London and do her PhD at UCL.
Max, I'm afraid you're going to have to get married and start a family. Soon.
I'm hoping that by next week, Jeremy's Marxist mate will have persuaded him to ban mobile phones and return to the good old days of waiting five months for a phone to be stuck on your hall wall......
You joke, but if energy is partially nationalised, and water, trains, and the mail fully nationalised in time, then why would it stop there? Wouldn't BT be a target too?
I hope so. BTW the telegraph system was nationalised in 1870 under Gladstone.
Water should be nationalised. Some of the Chinese-owned water companies in Britain try and scam people into paying for five months of water in advance.
There is a Chinese owned water company?
The Lee Ki water company
Your coat, sir.
There's also the Indian water company - Mahatma Kote
"This is of course all reflected in the polls. Upto GE2015 LAB could largely take the working class vote for granted but now large swathes of it have disappeared.
From what I can gather everything that was predicted about Corbyn’s leadership in a general election is actually happening. He is proving a massive negative and his supporters are left trying to find even more excuses."
Except that the headline VI now seems to show Labour doing little or no worse than in 2015. ICM excepted, all of the recent surveys now have Labour on 30-32% GB-wide.
All the more reason to suppose that said surveys are, in fact, bollocks.
This notion that Labour is doing as well as it got under Miliband in the polls is a complete myth and I don't understand where it is coming from.
In 2015 Labour got a bit over 31% of the GB (not UK) vote. Lets round down to 31% to keep it easy.
According to UK Polling Report of the 11 surveys completed in May, Labour has matched the 31% once (ORB) and scored less than 31% in 10 out of 11 surveys. There has not been a single survey where Labour outperformed 31%.
Labour is polling worse now than it achieved under Ed. That is without taking Labour's historical (including 2015) tendency to underperform polls into account.
There were two surveys over the weekend - ORB and Opinium - putting Labour on 32%. Moreover if 2015 methodologies were still being used the polls would be showing a range of 30% - 34%.
At the time I wrote that they were not included in UK Polling Report's list. A few more have been added to that list and it shows that since the start of May there have now been 19 polls. In those 19 polls Labour have underperformed 2015 on 14 occasions, met that figure 3 times and beat it twice. So that still indicates they're doing worse than 2015.
As for if the methodology hadn't changed, I fail to see how that is relevant. The methodology has changed and the reason for that is because the methodology was broken.
To make a like for like comparison it is surely necessary to use a constant methodology. We have the choice of either contemplating what Labour's ratings would be today on the basis of the 2015 methodologies used - or of considering what the poll results generated in the 2015 campaign would have looked like had 2017 methodologies been used at that time.One way or another an adjustment would need to be made. Edit - I note that you were referring to the 2015 outcome - rather than the polls conducted during the campaign. On that basis , what you say is fair enough.
I can't help feeling that, if Labour supporters want to claim the moral high ground, they would be well advised not to make jokes about children tortured to death.
RICHARD....Can you please refrain from being such a pompous, self righteous, pain in the arse, prig....just for a millisecond...thanks in advance. Kind regards Tyson....
Thank you, I'll continue as I am. If you don't like me thinking that it is tasteless beyond all the outermost limits of acceptability to make jokes about children, whose parents and siblings are still alive in some cases, being tortured to death, or to equate Ian Brady with foxhunters, then I'll have to try somehow to live without your approval. I expect I'll manage.
Not just foxhunters, Tyson has expressed similar sentiment towards anyone who eats meat.
Tender hearted Tyson has no problem with late ( very late ) abortions.
None at all..... what the hell is the problem with terminating late stage human pregnancies especially when there are so many billions of us on the planet causing irrevocable harm? We are hardly an endangered species.
On that rhetorical note, good night all...
I don't think you'll find many people who think aborting very late term (viable, healthy) foetuses - where the mothers life isn't in danger - is acceptable.
I'm pretty strongly pro choice - but that choice comes with a countdown timer.
I'm not a huge winter sports fan, neither is my partner but our place does have a swimming pool and a we've just got a decent gas fired BBQ so roll on summer.
The other thing which some people like very much about Zurich is that it is within easy reach of some wonderful places in Bavaria and Italy, so it's great for weekend breaks.
I think Basel is better for that because the trains go to Germany, France and Italy from there. I contemplated moving to Basel a few years ago when my partner and I were going through a difficult patch because her workplace relocated her back to Basel for 9 months but thought better of it and then she decided to leave anyway to come back to London and do her PhD at UCL.
Max, I'm afraid you're going to have to get married and start a family. Soon.
We're engaged! Looking at a summer 2018 wedding.
Get some special sausages to grill on the occasion!
I'm not a huge winter sports fan, neither is my partner but our place does have a swimming pool and a we've just got a decent gas fired BBQ so roll on summer.
The other thing which some people like very much about Zurich is that it is within easy reach of some wonderful places in Bavaria and Italy, so it's great for weekend breaks.
I think Basel is better for that because the trains go to Germany, France and Italy from there. I contemplated moving to Basel a few years ago when my partner and I were going through a difficult patch because her workplace relocated her back to Basel for 9 months but thought better of it and then she decided to leave anyway to come back to London and do her PhD at UCL.
Max, I'm afraid you're going to have to get married and start a family. Soon.
I'm not a huge winter sports fan, neither is my partner but our place does have a swimming pool and a we've just got a decent gas fired BBQ so roll on summer.
The other thing which some people like very much about Zurich is that it is within easy reach of some wonderful places in Bavaria and Italy, so it's great for weekend breaks.
I think Basel is better for that because the trains go to Germany, France and Italy from there. I contemplated moving to Basel a few years ago when my partner and I were going through a difficult patch because her workplace relocated her back to Basel for 9 months but thought better of it and then she decided to leave anyway to come back to London and do her PhD at UCL.
Max, I'm afraid you're going to have to get married and start a family. Soon.
It's more boring than I wanted so I find myself going to and from London a lot because there's not a lot to do in Zurich over the weekends and I have loads of pre-existing social commitments back home. Luckily ZRH to LCY is really quick. My gf seems less happy in Zurich than she was in London despite being from Switzerland, but I think she'd grown very used to living in London and it's not been easy for her to adjust to the non-24/7 pace of a city that isn't London or NY. I expected a step down, but not this big. However, (and it's a big one) we both earn 3x what we did in London so it's worth it, at least for a while.
I think the main problem is that we're fairly isolated from our social circle who are all in London and Swiss people are notoriously difficult to socialise with, especially because I speak standard German rather than their oddball version.
I had a friend who ran the Reuters office there for a few years. I think he found the same to some extent, but he was a keen skier and that was a big compensation.
I'm not a huge winter sports fan, neither is my partner but our place does have a swimming pool and a we've just got a decent gas fired BBQ so roll on summer.
It's tough to imagine grilling steaks with mesquite added for more smoky flavor, cedar plank salmon, or a rack of ribs in Zurich. What do they bbq there?
Sausages mostly, but Manor Food has everything I'd want to BBQ. Without Manor Food I would probably have given up by now, the grocery sector is very underdeveloped compared to the UK and Lidl/Aldi have just made things worse as the traditional big two have cut back on quality and range in order to be price competitive. Shopping in Manor Food feels like shopping in the Finchley Road Waitrose.
No Migros where you are then?
Fortunately in Geneva it was only a short skip across the border to Carrefour.
"This is of course all reflected in the polls. Upto GE2015 LAB could largely take the working class vote for granted but now large swathes of it have disappeared.
From what I can gather everything that was predicted about Corbyn’s leadership in a general election is actually happening. He is proving a massive negative and his supporters are left trying to find even more excuses."
Except that the headline VI now seems to show Labour doing little or no worse than in 2015. ICM excepted, all of the recent surveys now have Labour on 30-32% GB-wide.
All the more reason to suppose that said surveys are, in fact, bollocks.
This notion that Labour is doing as well as it got under Miliband in the polls is a complete myth and I don't understand where it is coming from.
In 2015 Labour got a bit over 31% of the GB (not UK) vote. Lets round down to 31% to keep it easy.
According to UK Polling Report of the 11 surveys completed in May, Labour has matched the 31% once (ORB) and scored less than 31% in 10 out of 11 surveys. There has not been a single survey where Labour outperformed 31%.
Labour is polling worse now than it achieved under Ed. That is without taking Labour's historical (including 2015) tendency to underperform polls into account.
There were two surveys over the weekend - ORB and Opinium - putting Labour on 32%. Moreover if 2015 methodologies were still being used the polls would be showing a range of 30% - 34%.
At the time I wrote that they were not included in UK Polling Report's list. A few more have been added to that list and it shows that since the start of May there have now been 19 polls. In those 19 polls Labour have underperformed 2015 on 14 occasions, met that figure 3 times and beat it twice. So that still indicates they're doing worse than 2015.
As for if the methodology hadn't changed, I fail to see how that is relevant. The methodology has changed and the reason for that is because the methodology was broken.
To make a like for like comparison it is surely necessary to use a constant methodology. We have the choice of either contemplating what Labour's ratings would be today on the basis of the 2015 methodologies used - or of considering what the poll results generated in the 2015 campaign would have looked like had 2017 methodologies been used at that time.One way or another an adjustment would need to be made. Edit - I note that you were referring to the 2015 outcome - rather than the polls conducted during the campaign. On that basis , what you say is fair enough.
I'm hoping that by next week, Jeremy's Marxist mate will have persuaded him to ban mobile phones and return to the good old days of waiting five months for a phone to be stuck on your hall wall......
You joke, but if energy is partially nationalised, and water, trains, and the mail fully nationalised in time, then why would it stop there? Wouldn't BT be a target too?
I hope so. BTW the telegraph system was nationalised in 1870 under Gladstone.
Water should be nationalised. Some of the Chinese-owned water companies in Britain try and scam people into paying for five months of water in advance.
There is a Chinese owned water company?
Yes. Li Ka-Shing is the name you should look up. Based in Hong Kong, he is said to be the richest person in Asia. The vehicle is called CK Hutchison Holdings, which owns the phone networks called "3", some water interests in Britain (though it has sold some), and did I mention it is the biggest port operator in the world and owns the facilities at both Harwich and Felixstowe, in the latter case on land owned by Trinity College, Cambridge?
Ah thanks! How does the scam operate? That you have to pay upfront for five months before being allowed to get water?
No - when you sign up they bill you for five months, and if you call them to query it they say that's just because of what month of the year it is, and that's the amount you've got to pay. That was my experience, when I signed up in October, so I am not sure of what the maximum number of months is that they try to get away with. There is a statutory instrument which on a crazy reading can be interpreted to mean that they are entitled to charge for water a year in advance and that payments made during the year are part of a "payment plan". They don't talk about "bills" now other than annual ones. I am sure that if a case-law authority existed to support that interpretation they would have cited it. They push everything to the max, almost the way that car park scammers do who send out "parking charge notices" to con people that they have statutory force or that private companies can issue enforceable fines. Water companies and other privatised utilities do everything they can to make the customer feel like a debtor if they don't allow direct debit. I told them I wasn't going to pay for any period in advance and that if they required me to pay for five months in advance they could come and cut me off. Of course they backed down.
I am an extremely atypical customer. How much money do the banks make out of people who are intimidated into paying for water many months in advance with money they haven't got?
I can't help feeling that, if Labour supporters want to claim the moral high ground, they would be well advised not to make jokes about children tortured to death.
RICHARD....Can you please refrain from being such a pompous, self righteous, pain in the arse, prig....just for a millisecond...thanks in advance. Kind regards Tyson....
Thank you, I'll continue as I am. If you don't like me thinking that it is tasteless beyond all the outermost limits of acceptability to make jokes about children, whose parents and siblings are still alive in some cases, being tortured to death, or to equate Ian Brady with foxhunters, then I'll have to try somehow to live without your approval. I expect I'll manage.
Not just foxhunters, Tyson has expressed similar sentiment towards anyone who eats meat.
Tender hearted Tyson has no problem with late ( very late ) abortions.
None at all..... what the hell is the problem with terminating late stage human pregnancies especially when there are so many billions of us on the planet causing irrevocable harm? We are hardly an endangered species.
On that rhetorical note, good night all...
I don't think you'll find many people who think aborting very late term (viable, healthy) foetuses - where the mothers life isn't in danger - is acceptable.
I'm pretty strongly pro choice - but that choice comes with a countdown timer.
I agree. If you're going to allow it at 36 weeks you might as well allow it six months after a baby has been born. Of course there has to be a time limit, which must be before when there is any reasonable possibility that a foetus is viable. Otherwise you are legalising murder.
No - when you sign up they bill you for five months, and if you call them to query it they say that's just because of what month of the year it is, and that's the amount you've got to pay. That was my experience, when I signed up in October, so I am not sure of what the maximum number of months is that they try to get away with. There is a statutory instrument which on a crazy reading can be interpreted to mean that they are entitled to charge for water a year in advance and that payments made during the year are part of a "payment plan". They don't talk about "bills" now other than annual ones. I am sure that if a case-law authority existed to support that interpretation they would have cited it. They push everything to the max, almost the way that car park scammers do who send out "parking charge notices" to con people that they have statutory force or that private companies can issue enforceable fines. Water companies and other privatised utilities do everything they can to make the customer feel like a debtor if they don't allow direct debit. I told them I wasn't going to pay for any period in advance and that if they required me to pay for five months in advance they could come and cut me off. Of course they backed down.
I am an extremely atypical customer. How much money do the banks make out of people who are intimidated into paying for water many months in advance with money they haven't got?
I think I remember having to pay upfront when I moved into student digs with South West water. It might be a more widespread practice than just Chinese-owned companies. As long as they aren't overcharging you, I don't think it is a scam.
I told them I wasn't going to pay for any period in advance and that if they required me to pay for five months in advance they could come and cut me off. Of course they backed down.
Actually, now I come to think of it, I said I would pay only one month in advance, and I sent them a document with the dates on which I'd pay and the amounts. After much correspondence they accepted it, but probably hardly anyone else does this.
It's more boring than I wanted so I find myself going to and from London a lot because there's not a lot to do in Zurich over the weekends and I have loads of pre-existing social commitments back home. Luckily ZRH to LCY is really quick. My gf seems less happy in Zurich than she was in London despite being from Switzerland, but I think she'd grown very used to living in London and it's not been easy for her to adjust to the non-24/7 pace of a city that isn't London or NY. I expected a step down, but not this big. However, (and it's a big one) we both earn 3x what we did in London so it's worth it, at least for a while.
I think the main problem is that we're fairly isolated from our social circle who are all in London and Swiss people are notoriously difficult to socialise with, especially because I speak standard German rather than their oddball version.
I had a friend who ran the Reuters office there for a few years. I think he found the same to some extent, but he was a keen skier and that was a big compensation.
I'm not a huge winter sports fan, neither is my partner but our place does have a swimming pool and a we've just got a decent gas fired BBQ so roll on summer.
It's tough to imagine grilling steaks with mesquite added for more smoky flavor, cedar plank salmon, or a rack of ribs in Zurich. What do they bbq there?
Sausages mostly, but Manor Food has everything I'd want to BBQ. Without Manor Food I would probably have given up by now, the grocery sector is very underdeveloped compared to the UK and Lidl/Aldi have just made things worse as the traditional big two have cut back on quality and range in order to be price competitive. Shopping in Manor Food feels like shopping in the Finchley Road Waitrose.
It's more boring than I wanted so I find myself going to and from London a lot because there's not a lot to do in Zurich over the weekends and I have loads of pre-existing social commitments back home. Luckily ZRH to LCY is really quick. My gf seems less happy in Zurich than she was in London despite being from Switzerland, but I think she'd grown very used to living in London and it's not been easy for her to adjust to the non-24/7 pace of a city that isn't London or NY. I expected a step down, but not this big. However, (and it's a big one) we both earn 3x what we did in London so it's worth it, at least for a while.
I think the main problem is that we're fairly isolated from our social circle who are all in London and Swiss people are notoriously difficult to socialise with, especially because I speak standard German rather than their oddball version.
I had a friend who ran the Reuters office there for a few years. I think he found the same to some extent, but he was a keen skier and that was a big compensation.
I'm not a huge winter sports fan, neither is my partner but our place does have a swimming pool and a we've just got a decent gas fired BBQ so roll on summer.
It's tough to imagine grilling steaks with mesquite added for more smoky flavor, cedar plank salmon, or a rack of ribs in Zurich. What do they bbq there?
Sausages mostly, but Manor Food has everything I'd want to BBQ. Without Manor Food I would probably have given up by now, the grocery sector is very underdeveloped compared to the UK and Lidl/Aldi have just made things worse as the traditional big two have cut back on quality and range in order to be price competitive. Shopping in Manor Food feels like shopping in the Finchley Road Waitrose.
Did you use to live in that part of the world?
For a couple of years, we rented a tiny and expensive flat in Swiss Cottage then she went back to Basel so I moved back in with my parents. It feels like a previous life now.
@isam Labour is essentially going through the Tony Benn counterfactual at the moment, except Jeremy Corbyn is a political pygmy compared to Benn.
Another similarity is that the Russians thought Benn was too stupid and too much of a liability to be worth supporting, they concentrated on infiltrating the unions. Oh, hold on, Corbyn now has three people working for him (Milne, Murray, Howell) who during the Cold War were involved in Straight Left, the newspaper of a faction that was too pro-Soviet for the Communist Party of GB and eventually split from it.
One can't help feel relieved that someone truly evil is gone... But given the body of Keith Bennett remains on those Moors and now Brady has taken that location to his grave the relief is tempered somewhat... Because he kept that final power he had over his victims to his death...
Truly evil, or criminally insane?
I recall the latter was the verdict of the court.
It wasn't. The verdict was guilty. Having been insane at the time of a crime is a defence. Neither of them offered that defence. If that's what the jury decides, then the verdict is not guilty. Brady was only diagnosed as mentally ill in the 1980s. I don't know anyone who doesn't agree that a person who commits such crimes is utterly sick by the nature of the crimes, and that the authorities were right to throw away the keys.
Both pleaded not guilty, but I'm not sure whether their barristers made a serious attempt to argue that the jury should acquit them.
Thank goodness that no videos were filmed and published of them expressing their point of view, as the US authorities allowed to be made of Charles Manson.
No - when you sign up they bill you for five months, and if you call them to query it they say that's just because of what month of the year it is, and that's the amount you've got to pay. That was my experience, when I signed up in October, so I am not sure of what the maximum number of months is that they try to get away with. There is a statutory instrument which on a crazy reading can be interpreted to mean that they are entitled to charge for water a year in advance and that payments made during the year are part of a "payment plan". They don't talk about "bills" now other than annual ones. I am sure that if a case-law authority existed to support that interpretation they would have cited it. They push everything to the max, almost the way that car park scammers do who send out "parking charge notices" to con people that they have statutory force or that private companies can issue enforceable fines. Water companies and other privatised utilities do everything they can to make the customer feel like a debtor if they don't allow direct debit. I told them I wasn't going to pay for any period in advance and that if they required me to pay for five months in advance they could come and cut me off. Of course they backed down.
I am an extremely atypical customer. How much money do the banks make out of people who are intimidated into paying for water many months in advance with money they haven't got?
I think I remember having to pay upfront when I moved into student digs with South West water. It might be a more widespread practice than just Chinese-owned companies. As long as they aren't overcharging you, I don't think it is a scam.
One of their employees told me over the phone that I "owed" them the advance payment for five months that they were demanding. They apologised when I complained. If they'd let it stand it would have been fraud.
Water companies probably try it on millions of students each September or October.
Water companies probably try it on millions of students each September or October.
Privatisation is piratisation - a racket. Highly lucrative for the City firms that advise on it too. Look at the railways. Huge sums paid in advice fees, and then if I recall correctly the three leasing companies were sold on at a multiple of what they were bought for within months; Railtrack went bust; and within a few years the sector was receiving far more in state subsidy than when it was in state hands! It was a heist, like in Russia.
I can't help feeling that, if Labour supporters want to claim the moral high ground, they would be well advised not to make jokes about children tortured to death.
RICHARD....Can you please refrain from being such a pompous, self righteous, pain in the arse, prig....just for a millisecond...thanks in advance. Kind regards Tyson....
Thank you, I'll continue as I am. If you don't like me thinking that it is tasteless beyond all the outermost limits of acceptability to make jokes about children, whose parents and siblings are still alive in some cases, being tortured to death, or to equate Ian Brady with foxhunters, then I'll have to try somehow to live without your approval. I expect I'll manage.
Not just foxhunters, Tyson has expressed similar sentiment towards anyone who eats meat.
Tender hearted Tyson has no problem with late ( very late ) abortions.
None at all..... what the hell is the problem with terminating late stage human pregnancies especially when there are so many billions of us on the planet causing irrevocable harm? We are hardly an endangered species.
On that rhetorical note, good night all...
I don't think you'll find many people who think aborting very late term (viable, healthy) foetuses - where the mothers life isn't in danger - is acceptable.
I'm pretty strongly pro choice - but that choice comes with a countdown timer.
I agree. If you're going to allow it at 36 weeks you might as well allow it six months after a baby has been born. Of course there has to be a time limit, which must be before when there is any reasonable possibility that a foetus is viable. Otherwise you are legalising murder.
I've always been in favour up to the 30th trimester.
Water companies probably try it on millions of students each September or October.
Privatisation is piratisation - a racket. Highly lucrative for the City firms that advise on it too. Look at the railways. Huge sums paid in advice fees, and then if I recall correctly the three leasing companies were sold on at a multiple of what they were bought for within months; Railtrack went bust; and within a few years the sector was receiving far more in state subsidy than when it was in state hands! It was a heist, like in Russia.
Surely all that matters is the efficient provision of water in a cost effective, environmentally friendly, way. Whether that is achieved by the public or the private sector is surely best worked out through A/B testing rather than dogma.
within a few years the sector was receiving far more in state subsidy than when it was in state hands!
In real terms the total subsidy was about £2.5bn in 1994, and is now about £3.5bn and falling (if you strip out £1.2bn on Crossrail and HS2). But actually not many of the privately-owned operating companies are subsidised, the main recipient is the state-owned Railtrack (although you can argue there's an indirect subsidy there). I guess you also have to take into account the changes in reliability, safety and passenger numbers, but noone would pretend that rail privatisation was done particularly well.
Just one last thought on the reports of Donald doing the Big I Am with Kislyak and Lavrov.
Where did this story come from?
If its true, it's sourcing may well be an important signal of how much trouble Trump is in.
If no-one was in the room with him, how do they know what was shared? Are they eavesdropping on the President?
Of course, the President by definition cannot be tried for leaking classified information - his word is the last word on what is and what is not classified. However, if this was truly third country intel spilled, it will complicate sharing going forward. (My guess is that it was Israeli intel).
Just one last thought on the reports of Donald doing the Big I Am with Kislyak and Lavrov.
Where did this story come from?
If its true, it's sourcing may well be an important signal of how much trouble Trump is in.
If no-one was in the room with him, how do they know what was shared? Are they eavesdropping on the President?
Of course, the President by definition cannot be tried for leaking classified information - his word is the last word on what is and what is not classified. However, if this was truly third country intel spilled, it will complicate sharing going forward. (My guess is that it was Israeli intel).
I wondered that. Its possible that Trump may have told officials what he said as he didn't realise or care that he shouldn't have shared the information. Presumably those officials then needed to inform/apologise to the third party govt, discuss with colleagues how to respond etc and by then a whole bunch of people know who could leak.
At this stage administration denials have no credibility and Washington Post is pretty reliable. So I think likely to be true.
Water companies probably try it on millions of students each September or October.
Privatisation is piratisation - a racket. Highly lucrative for the City firms that advise on it too. Look at the railways. Huge sums paid in advice fees, and then if I recall correctly the three leasing companies were sold on at a multiple of what they were bought for within months; Railtrack went bust; and within a few years the sector was receiving far more in state subsidy than when it was in state hands! It was a heist, like in Russia.
Water companies are pretty heavily regulated... I'm not sure nationalising them is worth the hassle and there's also the very real risk it will turn out badly...
Perhaps I'm out of touch but my sense is most people don't have any where near the same frustrations with them as with rail companies or energy companies. Rail is the obvious place to start IMO.
Comments
Ka-Shing's eldest son was once kidnapped by a top Chinese gangster. After he paid the ransom, it was all smiles and the gangster called Ka-Shing and asked him for advice on where to invest it.
Ka-Shing is a Tory party donor. (Source.)
Edit - I note that you were referring to the 2015 outcome - rather than the polls conducted during the campaign. On that basis , what you say is fair enough.
I'm pretty strongly pro choice - but that choice comes with a countdown timer.
Fortunately in Geneva it was only a short skip across the border to Carrefour.
They've already said they would reverse the extra £100k "homes allowance" which only came in last month.
If they are halving what couples can leave presumably they are stopping the transfer of allowance on first death from husband to wife and vice versa.
In that case, the new allowance will be just the £325k.
Whereas at the moment it's a total of £850k for couples - ie (£325k + £100k) * 2
I am an extremely atypical customer. How much money do the banks make out of people who are intimidated into paying for water many months in advance with money they haven't got?
Just one last thought on the reports of Donald doing the Big I Am with Kislyak and Lavrov.
Where did this story come from?
If its true, it's sourcing may well be an important signal of how much trouble Trump is in.
Both pleaded not guilty, but I'm not sure whether their barristers made a serious attempt to argue that the jury should acquit them.
Thank goodness that no videos were filmed and published of them expressing their point of view, as the US authorities allowed to be made of Charles Manson.
Water companies probably try it on millions of students each September or October.
Of course, the President by definition cannot be tried for leaking classified information - his word is the last word on what is and what is not classified. However, if this was truly third country intel spilled, it will complicate sharing going forward. (My guess is that it was Israeli intel).
At this stage administration denials have no credibility and Washington Post is pretty reliable. So I think likely to be true.
Perhaps I'm out of touch but my sense is most people don't have any where near the same frustrations with them as with rail companies or energy companies. Rail is the obvious place to start IMO.