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Poker has been fairly meh this weekend, No serious losses or wins (in fact I'm about a hundred bucks up overall, but only $20 up in open play, over a 3,000-hand span), but it's been a grind. I'm beginning to wonder if going for Platinum on Pokerstars is such a good idea --- but, well, I'm so close (if a further 8,000 hands by the end of this month can be considered "close") that it would be almost churlish to turn down the challenge.
Even at Gold star status the FPPs seem to rack up at a fair old rate (a couple of hundred a day or so). I know that going for Platinum is probably negative EV, given the fact that 888 games are softer --- but, hell, I've actually been doing not-too-bad on Stars this month. And, as an added bonus, I have achieved (at least so far this month) my aim of getting the no-showdown profit and profit lines to rise in sync.
++++++++++++++++++++
Anyhoo, because the poker has been meh, and since Sunday nights can be rockfests at all of the sites, I decided to attack the paperwork. It's been piling up badly and, well, the accounts for last year need to be attacked (at least, those bits I do before I send the numbers to Geoff).
Good news. The pile contained, half-way down, my prescription sunglasses. I'd written these off as left in the old car's glove compartment when I exchanged it for the Almera in December, but clearly I am not quite as careless as I thought. It would have been nice to have these in Monte Carlo, but it's equally nice to find them ahead of the trip to Gibraltar next month. I'm also thinking on a few days in Nice, since I liked the place so much. Possibly just before the summer holidays start, possibly just after they end.
Bad news, I got so involved in putting the various bits of paperwork into different piles (phone bills, gas bills, etc) that I forgot that I was roasting a chicken. It cooked for three hours and 10 minutes, about an hour and 25 minutes longer than necessary....
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The personal money sections of newspapers are areas that I tend to skim through, consisting as they generally do of non-financial reporters writing what the interested parties tell them to ("fix your rate now!" say independent advisers....).
But there were a couple of snippets that caught my eye yesterday. The first was that Egg was withdrawing the ATM facility from its Cash Card account, on the grounds that it "doesn't really fit in with Egg being an Internet bank" and because only 3,000 customers actually used the facility.
Well, fair enough, you might think, apart from the fact that, oh yes, it's called a Cash Card Account. However, since it's no longer available to new customers (following the new banking code that no account that might be of any use or value to a customer shall be offered to a customer in any way shape or form, ever) I guess that there's no need for the account to do what it says on the tin.
Then there was a classic from "Green Insurance". Now, many companies that call themselves "X Insurance" aren't insurers at all. They are brokers. They have what is known as a "panel" of underwriters (many of which you might not even have heard of, since they only sell white label cover through brokers such as Green Insurance) and they choose the insurer that offers the best deal for the customer.
Annyhoo, when a couple moved from an inner city area to a leafy suburb, and changed their car cover from "no garage" to "have a garage", one of the couples, unsurprisingly, saw the cost of their cover reduced. Green Insurance, on the other hand, put the price up.
So far, so mysterious. But, believe it or not, these things happen. If a large motor claim hits a single postcode (and all motor insurance is unlimited liability, believe it or not), then this can screw up the system and cause an unfair weighting in an actuarially safe postcode. But what is even more mysterious is that Green Insurance refused to say who the underwriter was.
Green Insurance cited "Data Protection", but this is bollocks. As a customer, you have every right to know who your ultimate insurer is. I've heard some misuses of the phrase "data protection" in my time, but this takes the biscuit.
It transpired that the insurer was Fortis UK, one of those bits still with Fortis Holding. This was quite ironic, because Fortis was one of the biggest sufferers from the unlimited liability rule when, a couple of years ago, a man drove off the road into the path of a train. The entire liability as a result of that crash bore down on the motor policy -- several millions of pounds.
__________________________
Even at Gold star status the FPPs seem to rack up at a fair old rate (a couple of hundred a day or so). I know that going for Platinum is probably negative EV, given the fact that 888 games are softer --- but, hell, I've actually been doing not-too-bad on Stars this month. And, as an added bonus, I have achieved (at least so far this month) my aim of getting the no-showdown profit and profit lines to rise in sync.
++++++++++++++++++++
Anyhoo, because the poker has been meh, and since Sunday nights can be rockfests at all of the sites, I decided to attack the paperwork. It's been piling up badly and, well, the accounts for last year need to be attacked (at least, those bits I do before I send the numbers to Geoff).
Good news. The pile contained, half-way down, my prescription sunglasses. I'd written these off as left in the old car's glove compartment when I exchanged it for the Almera in December, but clearly I am not quite as careless as I thought. It would have been nice to have these in Monte Carlo, but it's equally nice to find them ahead of the trip to Gibraltar next month. I'm also thinking on a few days in Nice, since I liked the place so much. Possibly just before the summer holidays start, possibly just after they end.
Bad news, I got so involved in putting the various bits of paperwork into different piles (phone bills, gas bills, etc) that I forgot that I was roasting a chicken. It cooked for three hours and 10 minutes, about an hour and 25 minutes longer than necessary....
+++++++++++++++++
The personal money sections of newspapers are areas that I tend to skim through, consisting as they generally do of non-financial reporters writing what the interested parties tell them to ("fix your rate now!" say independent advisers....).
But there were a couple of snippets that caught my eye yesterday. The first was that Egg was withdrawing the ATM facility from its Cash Card account, on the grounds that it "doesn't really fit in with Egg being an Internet bank" and because only 3,000 customers actually used the facility.
Well, fair enough, you might think, apart from the fact that, oh yes, it's called a Cash Card Account. However, since it's no longer available to new customers (following the new banking code that no account that might be of any use or value to a customer shall be offered to a customer in any way shape or form, ever) I guess that there's no need for the account to do what it says on the tin.
Then there was a classic from "Green Insurance". Now, many companies that call themselves "X Insurance" aren't insurers at all. They are brokers. They have what is known as a "panel" of underwriters (many of which you might not even have heard of, since they only sell white label cover through brokers such as Green Insurance) and they choose the insurer that offers the best deal for the customer.
Annyhoo, when a couple moved from an inner city area to a leafy suburb, and changed their car cover from "no garage" to "have a garage", one of the couples, unsurprisingly, saw the cost of their cover reduced. Green Insurance, on the other hand, put the price up.
So far, so mysterious. But, believe it or not, these things happen. If a large motor claim hits a single postcode (and all motor insurance is unlimited liability, believe it or not), then this can screw up the system and cause an unfair weighting in an actuarially safe postcode. But what is even more mysterious is that Green Insurance refused to say who the underwriter was.
Green Insurance cited "Data Protection", but this is bollocks. As a customer, you have every right to know who your ultimate insurer is. I've heard some misuses of the phrase "data protection" in my time, but this takes the biscuit.
It transpired that the insurer was Fortis UK, one of those bits still with Fortis Holding. This was quite ironic, because Fortis was one of the biggest sufferers from the unlimited liability rule when, a couple of years ago, a man drove off the road into the path of a train. The entire liability as a result of that crash bore down on the motor policy -- several millions of pounds.
__________________________
