We Introduce You

Oh, its been a tough one…..

Toiling against a new laptop, a US keyboard, a dodgy mouse, an unreliable WIFI connection and to top it all, that beast of a new operating system, namely Windows Vista.

Why oh, oh why didn’t I wait until they released a service pack with all the bug fixes. Well the reason is those nice chaps in the local PC store didn’t give me an option of having Windows XP on my new laptop.

So the old days of installing software and working with it have been replaced by.

Install Software

Install Bug Fixes

Install Bug Fixes to the Bug Fixes

Browse the Internet for alternate solutions

Go Mad

But finally, after weeks of messing around I’ve managed to get my new laptop into a state where I can more or less update my website and blog in the same way I could on my old trusty PC.

For the second time.

ITS GOOD TO BE BACK

Well, what happened?

Several months of near daily updates and then an eerie silence.

What happened was a move overseas - to Leiden in the Netherlands to be exact. The land of Ham, Cheese, Shoarma, keeping to the right, Rembrandt, Tulips, dodgy tobacco, Canals, Van Goch, tall people and bicycles.

And talking about bicycles, and if you live in Holland it’s a National pasttime to do so, during the war the Germans flattened Rotterdam, killed hundreds of people, made hundreds of thousands homeless, invaded and what do the Dutch hold most against the Germans? Yes, you may have guessed it - the regular stealing of their bicycles by the German soldiers.

Go into any bar in the Netherlands and any visiting German will oft be asked by the Dutch elderly - “Where’s my bike?”

So how am I doing? Not too bad considering the change in life and culture. The first few weeks were spent trying to learn the lingo, the following ones realising it was a bad idea, the next few on the toilet after struggling with the change in diet and the the last few weeks have been dedicated to, at the very least, learning the Dutch written on Food packets.

And how’s the Secured Loans business? Well, its not too bad really, things have been swimming along decently and more news of that will follow.

It’s good to be back!

As the first slurred booms of Auld Lang Syne begin tonight, the Bank of England will transfer £42million to the US Federal Reserve.

Although this probably won’t be too widely reported, it will mark the last chapter in the story of Britain’s alliance with America in the Second World War. The transfer of funds represents the last repayment against a loan taken out in 1946.

For most of the Second World War the US supported Britain through a Lend Lease programme. This delivered millions of dollars of military equipment, general goods and food in return for leases on British military bases around the world. Without it Britain’s war effort would almost certainly have been doomed to failure.

Shortly after VJ-Day in August 1945 the Americans suddenly and unexpectedly announced the end of the Lend-Lease system leaving Britain, who had spent 10 of the last 30 years engaged in war, in a very desperate financial situation.

Attlee’s new Labour government had won an election by promoting ambitious plans of creating a welfare state, giving free healthcare and nationalising Britain’s main industries. In September 1945 the cabinet instructed John Maynard Keynes, the economist and negotiator, to go to Washington to negotiate a $5billion ‘moral obligation’ grant, but all he returned with was a $3.75 billion loan fixed at 2% over 50 years.

The entire affair strained the relationship between Britain and the US, even more so when the Americans used the loan as a vehicle to force Attlee to make pound sterling freely convertible by 1947.

In a world crippled by war, most countries duly converted their sterling to the mighty dollar and this contributed to more years of hardship and rationing for ‘victorious’ Britain.

But thanks Uncle Sam and, on behalf of fellow Brits, we’re sorry we failed to stick to the 50-year loan term.