Chit Chat and All That...

Is the mortgage situation that bad in the UK?
It depends... remortgaging here has never been cheap, even just considering the setup fees (and potentially early redemption fees depending on the context of the deal).

Recently one UK lender re-introduced the 100 percent mortgage. Not too sure of the product details but the loan to value to salary rates now are eye-watering.

It was never easy to get on the property ladder but I genuinely feel for the younger generation starting out. The cost of my first house was just short of 3.5 times my salary back then. Today the average cost must be around 10 times that. Brutal.
 
TikTok has some new volume options that I am just in love with.

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Maybe they think (or hope) that the rioters -- who are pretty young -- will somehow work (and pay) for their old-age pensions?
Hahaha you made me laugh! That was the old political motto used in Spain to make people accept a ton of illegal inmigrants... that they "would pay for our pensions".

The reality turned out to be us paying for their social "benefits" and all sort of subsidies illegal immigrants receive even when they are illegally in Spain.

A new turn of the screw is that useless Von der Leyen announcing the EU will FINE countries that do not accept illegal immigrants and charge them 20.000 euros per immigrant. Total nonsense...
 
Hahaha you made me laugh! That was the old political motto used in Spain to make people accept a ton of illegal inmigrants... that they "would pay for our pensions".

The reality turned out to be us paying for their social "benefits" and all sort of subsidies illegal immigrants receive even when they are illegally in Spain.

A new turn of the screw is that useless Von der Leyen announcing the EU will FINE countries that do not accept illegal immigrants and charge them 20.000 euros per immigrant. Total nonsense...
It's all one big mess all right. However, I do have much sympathy for the poor Ukrainians who are being bombed out of house and home. I fully agree that we should accept them with open arms. But let's say a Russian appears on the doorstep, says he's a conscientious objector and doesn't want to fight in Putin's war. Duh, move over Joeseph Stope, Move over Juan. Make room for another n+1 people looking for cheap accommodation, unskilled jobs, medical attention right down to a place in the bus-queue.

I don't have the answer. Especially now that climate change is setting in, soil erosion and desert spreading, temperatures going beyond 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) and that's in the shade.

And all the world can think of now is war.

Note that I'm not assigning any blame. That belongs to another chapter. :coffee:
 
It's all one big mess all right. However, I do have much sympathy for the poor Ukrainians who are being bombed out of house and home. I fully agree that we should accept them with open arms. But let's say a Russian appears on the doorstep, says he's a conscientious objector and doesn't want to fight in Putin's war. Duh, move over Joeseph Stope, Move over Juan. Make room for another n+1 people looking for cheap accommodation, unskilled jobs, medical attention right down to a place in the bus-queue.

I don't have the answer. Especially now that climate change is setting in, soil erosion and desert spreading, temperatures going beyond 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) and that's in the shade.

And all the world can think of now is war.

Note that I'm not assigning any blame. That belongs to another chapter. :coffee:
The main problem is Europe receiving hundreds of thousands of economic migrants disguised as fake "refugees".

UK newspapers also talk about concerns on the amount of illegal immigration; it's a problem that goes outside EU borders. I read an article comparing the current situation in the UK to the state of affairs like 30 years ago. Apparently the amount of illegal immigration received now in a single year is equivalent to the whole immigrant population staying illegally in the country 30 years ago. In Spain we are receiving like 1.000 illegal immigrants PER WEEK!

Even though Russia is to blame for the war in Ukraine, to me it is ironic that Ukrainians are trying to present themselves as some sort of saints that never did anything wrong. And the reality is that, in terms of corruption, the most corrupt country in Europe is Russia and the second most corrupt country is Ukraine. And the EU and the US are sending weapons to the second most corrupt country in Europe, with no way of tracing where these weapons end up.

A few months ago a cargo plane linked to Ukraine had an accident and it turned out that the plane was carrying weapons, and heading east, outside Europe...

It is also unsettling that the Nordstream sabotage was done by Ukrainians and it ended up harming the EU, who is in turn supplying weapons to... Ukraine.

Of course I do not have any answers and I do not take sides, but there many unanswered questions. The main one is "should Europeans taxpayers continue funding this nonsense?"
 
The main problem is Europe receiving hundreds of thousands of economic migrants disguised as fake "refugees".

UK newspapers also talk about concerns on the amount of illegal immigration; it's a problem that goes outside EU borders. I read an article comparing the current situation in the UK to the state of affairs like 30 years ago. Apparently the amount of illegal immigration received now in a single year is equivalent to the whole immigrant population staying illegally in the country 30 years ago. In Spain we are receiving like 1.000 illegal immigrants PER WEEK!

Even though Russia is to blame for the war in Ukraine, to me it is ironic that Ukrainians are trying to present themselves as some sort of saints that never did anything wrong. And the reality is that, in terms of corruption, the most corrupt country in Europe is Russia and the second most corrupt country is Ukraine. And the EU and the US are sending weapons to the second most corrupt country in Europe, with no way of tracing where these weapons end up.

A few months ago a cargo plane linked to Ukraine had an accident and it turned out that the plane was carrying weapons, and heading east, outside Europe...

It is also unsettling that the Nordstream sabotage was done by Ukrainians and it ended up harming the EU, who is in turn supplying weapons to... Ukraine.

Of course I do not have any answers and I do not take sides, but there many unanswered questions. The main one is "should Europeans taxpayers continue funding this nonsense?"
Well, off the top of my head I would "translate" your above question above to:

"What's the best use of public money"? or "Is there some better way other than providing the new arrivals with food, welfare, cheap housing and low skilled jobs & language classes.

I would venture the answer of "Yes, there is".

If the money was spent on building alternative energy so as the slow down climate change, desertification etc.

They say that it's now more economical to use solar and wind instead of fossil fuels, so go for it.

In the case of the mass caravans of people from Central America trying to flee the the gangs and drug cartels, give them training in military and surveillance techniques so that they would be able to take back their country from the drug cartels and warlords and make the place safe again.

{Duh! Alternatively you could let all of Central America across the Rio Grande into ummmm... Texas and California}.
 
They say that it's now more economical to use solar and wind instead of fossil fuels, so go for it.
We have plenty of that in Spain and still electricity prices rocketed.

The communist government we have now (general election is on 23rd July and I hope the disaster we have as "president" is kicked out) routinely talks about green energy and renewables and blah blah... but the truth is when they were in office last time they offered "incentives" to investors in renewables and then they did not deliver, and investors were left stranded and lost a ton of money in Spain.

So this time the communist government of Pedro Sánchez has used the same siren calls but no one was listening... and still he keeps trying to peddle the renewable deal that no one wants because no one trusts him (obvious, taking into account what happened last time).
 
Delicious handfulls of this year's raspberry straight from the cane.

What I love about the cycle of the garden is that it doesn't give a sh*t about tinnitus, it just keeps on doing its thing.

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Not a bad view for day-of Centre Court tickets to the women's semi-finals. It was a dream of my wife's to one day attend Wimbledon. I'm glad I got myself to the point where I could help make that a reality. My former reactivity would have crushed me, but today's reactivity was barely a whistle. The icing on the cake is that it was a quiet tinnitus day. I have to cherish a day like today. Tomorrow my ear will be screaming.
 
The weather was really nice and got to see the ocean again and feed the seagulls.
I had a pleasant day by Brighton seafront yesterday eating fish & chips. It's not my usual spot for having my lunch, because the seagulls have been known to swoop down and snatch food right out of your hands. Something unsuspecting tourists quickly learn. Nevertheless, the sun was out and I felt like basking in the glorious weather. Within a few moments I was joined by not one but six seagulls.

They were keeping a safe distance at first, perhaps checking me out whether I'm a friend or foe. Slowly they moved towards me, their eyes fixed on every morsel of food I placed in my mouth. I don't mind saying that I felt a little uneasy, so relented and offered some of my food which was devoured in seconds.

In the distance, part of the Royal Albion hotel, which overlooks the seafront, is being demolished, due to a fire that broke out last weekend. It's still not known what caused the fire.

Michael

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Trailer for building the log cabin on.

Logs have been redone as the cambium layer had to come off. Now this week we will install the floor joists and put the floor on. Then the 1st two logs go on.

I've been on a 3 week hiding spree. First day back, wishing all of you are surviving.

Elmer
 
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Trailer for building the log cabin on.

Logs have been redone as the cambium layer had to come off. Now this week we will install the floor joists and put the floor on. Then the 1st two logs go on.

I've been on a 3 week hiding spree. First day back, wishing all of you are surviving.

Elmer
I was only thinking about you just the other day and wondering how the build was going. Would love to see some pics of the floor joists coming together.
 
Ears are OK with the chirps. The battle is that the birds keep eating the raspberries :--)
We have 6 cherry trees this year, they produced a nice crop. Unfortunately the birds got into them. I had the pleasure of eating 4 off 6 different trees. The little thieves.
I was only thinking about you just the other day and wondering how the build was going. Would love to see some pics of the floor joists coming together.
You sure will. We are going to take pictures of the complete build.

The cost of putting it together this far is at 5,570 EUR, trailer itself 4,200 EUR.

If the damn ringing in my ears would settle just a bit, might be able to concentrate.

Then when we put logs up, the chainsaws are running 20 minutes a log. Probably not enough protection to help.
 
Today 1 litre of olive oil costs 9,99 euros in the supermarket in Spain (world's largest producer of olive oil).

With those crazy prices I thought this was a supermarket... in Norway hahaha. But no, it was Spain.
 

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