The Steeple Times asks fashion entrepreneur Noelle Reno: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom”. What’s your guiding force?
The weather… Or Tolstoy.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
Eleanor Roosevelt: “Women are like tea bags. You never know how strong they are until you put them in hot water”.
The Steeple Times asks actor Jack Shepherd (“Coronation Street’s” David Platt): “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom”. What’s your guiding force?
Patience and optimism.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
This former daytime television presenter is now a novelist who somewhat ambitiously compares herself to Dame Daphne du Maurier. Better known collectively with her second husband as just “Richard and Judy”, Judy Finnigan has been beset by rumours about her love of alcohol for many years. She didn’t exactly help put a stop to such by setting up a wine club whilst co-presenting Channel 4’s Richard & Judy show but having retreated to Cornwall to write, she now also “doesn’t want [to hear] comments about her looks anymore”. Here is an example of someone who would do well to follow the mantra of: “If you don’t like the heat, keep off the publicity trail”.
A five times winner at Le Mans, this British racing icon also won the Daytona 24 three times and the World Sportscar Championship twice. Described as “one of the most liked drivers of his generation”, Bell suffered minor burns whilst working with Steve McQueen on the 1971 film Le Mans and is now a global ambassador for Bentley. He is rightly lauded as: “The greatest Englishman ever to compete in endurance racing”.
A singer, actress and composer who has been a star all her life. Brought up in Epsom, Surrey and best known for Downtown, Petula Clark surprisingly made her radio debut aged just 9 and appeared at the Royal Albert Hall when she was only 11. She now lives between Switzerland and Chelsea and can occasionally be spotted at La Brasserie in Brompton Cross. A lady of simple tastes, Clark modestly states: “The stretch limo with the blackout windows and the bodyguards are fun, but I prefer going out alone with just my bus fare in my pocket and catching a number 19 bus. The scenery’s the same whatever form of transport you’re using”. A Facebook page was created in 2012 as part of a campaign to make this legend a Dame. We back it with enthusiasm.
The Steeple Times asks “Made in Chelsea’s” Jane Felstead: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom”. What’s your guiding force?
My conscience.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
Revenge is a dish best served cold. (more…)
HMRC publish a list of tax evaders but neglect to mention any large corporations
The hotelier and real estate heiress Leona Helmsley stated: “Taxes are only for the little people” before being convicted of income tax evasion in 1989.
Yesterday, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs published a list of names and addresses of nine individuals and companies who they describe as tax defaulters. Amongst the names on the list are a grocer, a hairdresser and a coach operator and the amounts owed range from £29,111 to £447,904.
In response, Richard Murphy of Tax Research called the list of names: “Plain, straightforward hypocrisy”. He went on to state:
“The people named are easy targets. There are clearly different categories of tax crime, with small businesses who put cash in HMRC’s pockets named and shamed; but banks, wealthy lawyers and global corporations offered anonymity. It seems that only little people pay tax and only little people are named and shamed”.
Mr Murphy is quite right. Whilst these people may owe the taxman money, their activities are not in the league of the tax avoidance strategies of Starbucks, Google and Amazon.
If HMRC don’t want to be placed in the same category as Leona Helmsley, they’d do well to change their ways. Instead they’d do better to focus on the true “aggressors” that David Cameron highlighted this week but sadly, that would probably just be too logical a strategy for this monolithic organisation to follow.
View the HMRC list of 9 defaulters at: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/defaulters/defaulters-list.pdf
For a profile of Leona Helmsley, go to: http://thesteepletimes.com/tycoons/leona-helmsley-1920-2007/?position=14
The sale of the home of a circus heir and the revival of Billy Smart’s Circus
Billy Smart, Sr. (1894 – 1966), a travelling showman and father of 10 children (he was himself one of 23), bought a circus in 1946 and quickly became known as an extraordinary entertainer. One of his son’s, Billy Smart, Jr. (1934 – 2005), made his debut at the age of 12 as an assistant ringmaster in Billy Smart’s New World Circus and performed with ponies, horses and eventually elephants. (more…)
Victoria Aitken launches a single for Valentine’s Day
This Valentine’s Day, the electro-house chart topping singer-songwriter Victoria Aitken, daughter of the former Conservative minister Jonathan Aitken, has released her latest single, Kiss Me.
Of what inspired her to write it, Aitken comments:
“Sometimes we are left ‘un-kissed’ and it can just be so depressing! I was inspired by my time with an Italian man, chatting and flirting over cocktails night after night. I then became annoyed, wondering when he was going to make his move. I believe many women and men feel like this: there is a certain vibe and then nothing”.
Produced by Marc JB, who has remixed seventy #1 UK dance chart hits for artists such as Lady Gaga and Rihanna, the single features a cover by the up-and-coming British visual artist Zoobs. In it, Aitken wears a headpiece and eye veil by Jane Taylor, a milliner who has created headwear for amongst others Paloma Faith and The Duchess of Cornwall.
The French romantic writer Victor Hugo once stated: “A compliment is like a kiss through a veil” and Victoria Aitken in Kiss Me certainly explores this further.
To listen to Kiss Me, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3P2AW6S5UI
Gina Miller investigates the links between Saint Valentine and transparency in investing
According to the wise font of all knowledge, which can be extremely accurate or extremely inaccurate, Wikipedia, Saint Valentine (in Latin, Valentinus) is a widely recognised third century Roman saint commemorated on February 14th and associated since the High Middle Ages with a tradition of courtly love. Nothing is reliably known of Saint Valentine except his name and the fact that he died on February 14th.
But many of the current legends that characterise Saint Valentine were invented in the fourteenth century in England, notably by Geoffrey Chaucer and his circle, when the feast day of February 14th first became associated with romantic love.
Whatever the truth is, most people today associate Valentine’s Day with romance. When one thinks of romance it is normally in the old fashioned Mills and Boon books or the more modern 50 Shades of Grey with some dashing man seducing his future conquest but once the charming good looks are pierced, below the surface they are often found to be pretty shallow and unedifying and after a while, maybe the real cardinal sin, boring. I say this as someone who once dated a famous model who was known across the UK for taking his jeans off in the laundrette revealing a great body but sadly not a lot of substance beneath.
Where is the connection with the world I work in, investments? Well a surprising amount when you consider it. The world of investment relies on seduction but the seduction is used for all the wrong reasons and normally with all the wrong results. There is a fine line between seduction and deception. Every day countless savings and investment managers cross this line.
When you meet your wonderfully charming or slick fund manager they try to seduce you with flowery words and jargon with no meaning or deliberately assembled to impress you with its complexity; but designed to prevent you from understanding how your money is really invested or how much your money is really costing. The smoke and mirrors are crafted to beguile and reassure that by being so complex, they must be amazing to do what they do and charge what they charge. Of course more often than not investing does not really need to be so complex or expensive to get sold returns.
If you think of most great inventors or inventions they are often based on a simple design or a simple concept. In investment the living Saint of investment is widely held to be Saint Buffet of Omaha, Nebraska. He has an annual convention where thousands flock to his temple to hear and learn from every word he says since he has probably the longest and best known and maybe most successful track records of anyone. He does not make things complicated or flowery he talks of common sense and old fashioned virtues that have stood the test of time and which people can understand. He simply tries to buy companies which he trusts, thinks are great franchises that can stand the test of time; and which for whatever reason are available at the right price. He does not hide from his investors how he invests, what he invests in or his charges for the services he provides. He works alongside his clients because he is managing his own money in the same way.
When you meet your fund manager or wealth adviser or whatever other name they call themselves, don’t be seduced by the initial lavish language or entertaining or lavish date because normally this does not last and it is you who ultimately is paying for it anyway. Often the more lavish the entertaining, the more likely that they are ‘after’ something and that something is to erode more of your returns in fees.
In economics there is a term called giffen goods. These are goods by which the more that is charged the more that it is demanded, these are luxury goods. If your XXX handbag was available for £10 rather than £1,000 it would quickly lose its panache or lustre. Investment managers try and make their services desirable through charging more in the knowledge that most clients wrongly think: “If I pay more I must be getting a better product or a better performance”. However the research shows the precise opposite and that if you pay more, it simply means more money has been deducted from your savings and in turn they are then worth less.
We have been working extremely hard via a True and Fair Campaign to force by law, the investment industry to stop this deception and reveal to customers exactly how much, in total, investments are really costing and how they are really invested. The scale of this deception is truly shocking.
Maybe, just like a good relationship, there needs to be substance and openness and trust or the relationship is not a real relationship but just an empty dalliance, fun at the time but not particularly rewarding thereafter. I implore you to trust your instincts, keep to your principles and do not be seduced by the flannel. Instead, do plan today for your tomorrows and the life you dream of as you grow older and go off into the sunset of retirement.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
For more information about the True and Fair Campaign, go to: http://www.trueandfaircampaign.com