I decided to treat Drain and myself to a week in Manhattan. It was really a treat for her as she attempted to double the city's GDP overnight because I don't see the attraction of a dirty, crowded, aggressive beggar-on-every-corner infested metropolis. Taxis available at any hour of the day (unless it's pissing down) is handy, and a lot of places are open at stupid hours, so if that's your thing you've arrived. I did get to start my experiment in force feeding Drain sushi like a goose at a foie gras factory, so the relative inexpense of doing so might yet pay off (See "Japanese Restaurants"). Remember to bring a wad of dollar bills. This isn't for a cheap night at the local strip clubs, which there were aplenty (apparently), but for every lazy sod whose basic salary is supplemented by the paying public. I guess this still covers strippers.
Be careful of taxi drivers always looking to make an extra buck. I had one Jew - for the purpose of satisfying the race relations act, he could have been any nationality or religion (except American for some reason), but just happened to be Jewish judging by his name and appearance - try to rip me off. The audacity! First attempt: switch off the machine and lie about the amount. Failed because I saw the amount before he did that. Second attempt: Tries the quick change scam (something like I give him 10, he gives me 5 change if I give him 3). Done quickly, the uninitiated would assume he/she has paid 7 when in fact they've paid 8. Failed because I passed GCSE maths. There was no third attempt, but all this narked me because I had already included a tip. Greedy git.
That was child's play compared to a previous incident on a different occasion in New York. The driver was driving quite normally (i.e. like a maniac). Well, he just skipped a whole line of cars up a slip road by mounting the pavement. It was quite good for time saving until it was apparent he had just cut up and subsequently pissed off an Italian-American in a giant SUV. I guessed his heritage, but he looked and behaved like Jimmy Goodfella. First he started a drive by spit which was a bit off target. I wound the rear passenger windows up. Pesci did not reckon on our Indian driver's ability at such a practice and landed one on our Italian friend quite wonderfully. Somehow he managed to propel a globule of self-made saliva across the empty front passenger seat, up a 1 in 4 gradient to Pesci's person. Obviously this didn't have the effect of defusing the situation. Don't think anyone would be too happy being sprayed by sub-continent flem. So eventually Pesci entraps our vehicle with police like manoeuvres, gets out of his car. Meanwhile, Shortround is on the phone to the cops after bolting the doors. Rocky Balboa comes round to the driver's side and whacks his window with his fist. Then proceeds to kick it repeatedly. The window was holding up remarkably well for such punishment. Must be special issue for yellow cabs. Fellow road users half heartedly objected to this guy's behaviour, and well, it kind of fizzled out after a bit. Next time we'll walk...
Saturday 30 June 2012
Sunday 24 June 2012
Residential Landlords
I am in the innocuous position of being a landlord and a tenant. I own a house I have not been able to sell since moving out in the belief it would shift. Of course rather than let it lay empty for half of Eastern Europe to set up home (actually it's not that big, so perhaps 20 Lithuanian thugs), I rent it out. Fortunately, tenants have been generally house proud. Even that couple who stopped their direct debit after the first rental payment at least hoovered the place when I doorstepped them like clockwork. There's nothing like travelling 25 miles in the pretence of dropping by so not to antagonise them and collecting a post dated cheque, mainly because his fly tipping business wasn't such a cash cow as he had hoped. They left on their own accord strangely enough and (before the days of Tenancy Deposit Schemes) I kept their deposit to cover the rent remaining, and a few hundred quid for miscellaneous expenses (mostly the contract the sods had broken). The latter incurred the wrath of the ex-tenant until it was pointed out to him by the otherwise unscrupulous agent that I could sue them for the remaining rent.
Well, advice from that is, get rental insurance. http://www.simplelandlordsinsurance.com does a combined building and renter's insurance in one - I'm with them, but I have never needed to claim so do your own due diligence. Second thing I learned was, don't opt for paying an upfront tenant finder's fee rather than a percentage of rent unless you're sure you'll have tenants making it worthwhile. The estate agent I dealt with couldn't give a monkey's about the poor tenants they supposedly vetted. They got my money so why bother? In fact the lead tenant had a nice little trick to avoid credit history checks uncovering mountains of debt. He had his own (financial) Drain to maintain I guess. The trick was to delibrately misspell his name on the ID form. His aliases were Nile, Neon, and Noel when his name was actually Neil. Subsequent mail confirmed the imposters. So he had parallel credit history in all those names. Use and abuse one, move to the next. I can't believe the agency didn't spot that (let money not get in the way of duty) and I was naive/imbicilic to accept a credit report with Nile penned out with Neil.
As a tenant, this brings its own problems. What the hell do you put when a car insurance form asks if you're a tenant or a home owner? Am I not legally allowed to be both I ask myself since that option is never available. So there comes the dilemma. Choose the one that charges you less you might say. But then, what do you do when banks ask you this when applying for a credit card? Is it more advantage to be a home owner? To be up to your eyeballs in debt securitised by a building made of bricks, mortar and crap the builders chucked between the walls that wouldn't be discovered until they had long gone? Or a tenant who pays his rent on time and has no outstanding secured loans (unless you do a search on Experian that is)? Well, as it happens I don't think it has ever really mattered so I randomly select one or the other. I await a knock at the door at 4am by the anti-fraud police.
So, 2 years have passed and the faceless landlord through a faceless property manager, neither of whom I have ever met hence the 'faceless' bit, are wanting to increase the rent. As it was put to me, "other rents have gone up with RPI" as though my rent is linked to other people's poor negotiation skills. Well, my salary hasn't increased by the Retail Price Index (poor negotiation skills) let alone the government preferred and lower Consumer Price Index for the past 2 years. But I relented to a 3.1% increase and signed up for just another 6 months. This will bring us to the winter months where property should in theory be cheaper to rent or buy. I feel dirty having agreed to this, but I think it'll pay off.
Well, advice from that is, get rental insurance. http://www.simplelandlordsinsurance.com does a combined building and renter's insurance in one - I'm with them, but I have never needed to claim so do your own due diligence. Second thing I learned was, don't opt for paying an upfront tenant finder's fee rather than a percentage of rent unless you're sure you'll have tenants making it worthwhile. The estate agent I dealt with couldn't give a monkey's about the poor tenants they supposedly vetted. They got my money so why bother? In fact the lead tenant had a nice little trick to avoid credit history checks uncovering mountains of debt. He had his own (financial) Drain to maintain I guess. The trick was to delibrately misspell his name on the ID form. His aliases were Nile, Neon, and Noel when his name was actually Neil. Subsequent mail confirmed the imposters. So he had parallel credit history in all those names. Use and abuse one, move to the next. I can't believe the agency didn't spot that (let money not get in the way of duty) and I was naive/imbicilic to accept a credit report with Nile penned out with Neil.
As a tenant, this brings its own problems. What the hell do you put when a car insurance form asks if you're a tenant or a home owner? Am I not legally allowed to be both I ask myself since that option is never available. So there comes the dilemma. Choose the one that charges you less you might say. But then, what do you do when banks ask you this when applying for a credit card? Is it more advantage to be a home owner? To be up to your eyeballs in debt securitised by a building made of bricks, mortar and crap the builders chucked between the walls that wouldn't be discovered until they had long gone? Or a tenant who pays his rent on time and has no outstanding secured loans (unless you do a search on Experian that is)? Well, as it happens I don't think it has ever really mattered so I randomly select one or the other. I await a knock at the door at 4am by the anti-fraud police.
So, 2 years have passed and the faceless landlord through a faceless property manager, neither of whom I have ever met hence the 'faceless' bit, are wanting to increase the rent. As it was put to me, "other rents have gone up with RPI" as though my rent is linked to other people's poor negotiation skills. Well, my salary hasn't increased by the Retail Price Index (poor negotiation skills) let alone the government preferred and lower Consumer Price Index for the past 2 years. But I relented to a 3.1% increase and signed up for just another 6 months. This will bring us to the winter months where property should in theory be cheaper to rent or buy. I feel dirty having agreed to this, but I think it'll pay off.
Japanese Restaurants
So, I went to a Japanese restaurant last night. Not the first time might I add. Although, there was a time when consuming the sliced up meat of raw dead fish stuffed in the middle of a hollowed out cylinder of vinegary white rice held together with sticky seaweed paper didn't appeal to me. You just don't know until you try is what I say. However, sushi of course is the stereotype meal. They also do Fwied Wice. Hang on, might need to consult Prince Philip about that. But who wants to read about the good things in life? That doesn't sell newspapers (not that this is trying to be the next News of the World - why would anyone want a blog to be that?).
My first rhetorical question about Japanese restaurants is, why do they give them random names? Typically, they will choose an English word borrowed from the Japanese language so both the English (who can barely speak their own language properly let alone understand something as alien as kanji) and the Japanese recognise the word as, well, Japanese. Tsunami - a great thunderous wall of water crashing into shores decimating miles of land and buildings, killing and maiming people in its wake - was the name of a rather pleasant eatery Drain (as in 'Financial': wife, who keeps local economies thriving where ever she might be) and I ate. Now, having done some investigative work, so you don't have (won't) to (do), I found a nice little Wikipedia link listing all Japanese words borrowed by the English language. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Japanese_origin There, I've saved you 20 seconds Google searching. Compare that to all the Japanese restaurants in England, most of the words are used up. If you fancy going into the sushi business, you better hurry before Hentai (Cartoon porn) and Urushiol (ingredient of Poison Ivy) are taken.
My second non-rhetorical question as I'm actually quite curious is, why is Japanese food so expensive compared to America? Go to Nobu in Central London and you might want to consider auctioning a few items on Ebay (the car you arrive in would be a good start). However, fly into Las Vegas, go to Hard Rock Cafe hotel, get a table at the Nobu there and you'll have enough money left over to fritter it away on a game of Craps (or 'oh crap' as you realise that wasn't monopoly money you just threw down). In fact, you can safely assume a reasonable Japanese restaurant in New York City will be no more expensive (if not actually cheaper) than other similar quality food parlours (did you notice I did that writer's trick of not to repeat 'restaurant' to make myself look very important). Therefore, if ever Drain and I are in New York, I will overdose her on sushi for the entire time we're there so she'll be the proverbial overexposed McDonald's worker who turns down free junk food when we're back in market forces Britain. Now, will the same principal work with money...? hmm.
My first rhetorical question about Japanese restaurants is, why do they give them random names? Typically, they will choose an English word borrowed from the Japanese language so both the English (who can barely speak their own language properly let alone understand something as alien as kanji) and the Japanese recognise the word as, well, Japanese. Tsunami - a great thunderous wall of water crashing into shores decimating miles of land and buildings, killing and maiming people in its wake - was the name of a rather pleasant eatery Drain (as in 'Financial': wife, who keeps local economies thriving where ever she might be) and I ate. Now, having done some investigative work, so you don't have (won't) to (do), I found a nice little Wikipedia link listing all Japanese words borrowed by the English language. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Japanese_origin There, I've saved you 20 seconds Google searching. Compare that to all the Japanese restaurants in England, most of the words are used up. If you fancy going into the sushi business, you better hurry before Hentai (Cartoon porn) and Urushiol (ingredient of Poison Ivy) are taken.
My second non-rhetorical question as I'm actually quite curious is, why is Japanese food so expensive compared to America? Go to Nobu in Central London and you might want to consider auctioning a few items on Ebay (the car you arrive in would be a good start). However, fly into Las Vegas, go to Hard Rock Cafe hotel, get a table at the Nobu there and you'll have enough money left over to fritter it away on a game of Craps (or 'oh crap' as you realise that wasn't monopoly money you just threw down). In fact, you can safely assume a reasonable Japanese restaurant in New York City will be no more expensive (if not actually cheaper) than other similar quality food parlours (did you notice I did that writer's trick of not to repeat 'restaurant' to make myself look very important). Therefore, if ever Drain and I are in New York, I will overdose her on sushi for the entire time we're there so she'll be the proverbial overexposed McDonald's worker who turns down free junk food when we're back in market forces Britain. Now, will the same principal work with money...? hmm.
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