While King Street, Hammersmith, could not be mistaken for the Champs-Élysées, 8th arrondissement Paris, Hammersmith and Fulham council do a good job looking after the tree-lined streets of our mostly Victorian borough. It’s just their idea of planting a twenty-three storey tower block outside my bedroom window that seems ill-conceived.
It would be the tallest building in the borough and could generate significant income for the council to spend on me. On the other hand it could be a commercial flop, generate no income for the borough and be a lasting memorial to the Council’s short-sightedness. History repeats itself.
“The best advice I’ve heard is “when you hear someone say structured products, run for the hills”. In the 1980s Hammersmith council didn’t heed this and dipped more than a toe into the complex and opaque world of structured products via interest rate swaps. In theory the council exchanged floating interest rates with a bank, for the “security” of a “fixed“ rate. In fact it was a one-way bet on the direction of interest rates that went very wrong.“ (Drinks by the Pool)
On Tuesday I was an unlikely recipient of government money. To be clear, this is money contributed by UK tax payers and passed on to me. I already get the winter fuel allowance and might have got a free TV licence but that’s been binned. On Tuesday, after a leisurely lunch at the Savile, I was told that £40 had been knocked off the bill. “No, no Nanette, don’t do that, add on £40“, I expostulated with more than one glass of wine under my belt – struggling to contain my tummy. The government in the UK gives us £10 a head to go out to lunch Mon – Wed (terms and conditions apply).
If I may digress, I had dinner recently with old friends but my host introduced, as he put it, fresh meat. Lucy was the fresh meat and although we could have chatted about anything she recounted her intimacy, of some three years, with the Maxwell family; topical as Ghislaine had just been put in the hoosegow.
At the Savile on Tuesday there was another Lucie – fresh meat for me. I have seldom warmed to someone so quickly. She came with her soon to be husband and her interesting life was only briefly touched upon when I asked if I’d played backgammon online with her. It was a monicker she might have used but she’s not the fifth Beatle.
Yes, invaluable pieces of advice given but not necessarily taken. Definitely, structured finance when it comes to investments, and “architect designed” when it comes to property, though having become acquainted with CB’s house of late, I am revising my caution on the latter.