On 04/03/2011 10:41, Huge wrote:
On 2011-03-04, Nightjar"cpb"@"insertmysurnamehere wrote:
On 03/03/2011 14:16, Huge wrote:

That was my thinking, also, which probably means you need investments of
around 20 to 30 million on top of the 20 million house ... So, to live a
millionaire's lifestyle, you need about 40 million.



I read a little while ago that the figure is around 20 million. Not sure
you need to spend 20 million on the house unless you really want to live
in London though.

I would have thought that a decent millionaire's lifestyle requires several
dwellings,

There is a certain attraction to having a house at your destination - no
luggage when you travel and everything as you like it when you arrive.
However, it also means you end up not going anywhere else. On balance I
think I prefer having one house as a base and using hotels when I travel.

at least one of which should be in London.

Despite being born and brought up there, I really would not want to live
in London these days.

Although I suppose
a suite at Claridges would suffice when attending the opera.

There is a Claridges in Verona? :-)

Under a couple of million will buy you a 7 bedroom
house in 6 acres near Cheltenham or a modernised medieval chateau with 8
bedrooms in over 40 acres in Lot et Garonne.

Yes, but that means living in France. Why would I want to do that?

I don't know why you would, but I like the country, if not the food.

Colin Bignell

In article ,
Adrian wrote:
Have you ever seen anyone in the months or years before they actually
die of alcoholism? It's not a pretty sight.

Better or worse than fading away in a care home?

You prefer the 'die young' approach?

I'd guess you're quite young yourself. ;-)

--
*All generalizations are false.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" gurgled happily, sounding
much like they were saying:

Have you ever seen anyone in the months or years before they actually
die of alcoholism? It's not a pretty sight.

Better or worse than fading away in a care home?

You prefer the 'die young' approach?

Having spent seven years visiting the M-i-L in a care home, I can only
say "**** that". One-way to Geneva before that.

I'd guess you're quite young yourself. ;-)

Depends what you count 40 as.

Adrian wrote:
Huge gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

Under a couple of million will buy you a 7 bedroom house in 6 acres
near Cheltenham or a modernised medieval chateau with 8 bedrooms in
over 40 acres in Lot et Garonne.

Yes, but that means living in France. Why would I want to do that?

Apart from the subtle detail that Cheltenham isn't in France, why
_wouldn't_ you?

France is full of French people (WOCABs). And the language is horrible.

In article ,
Adrian wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" gurgled happily, sounding
much like they were saying:

Have you ever seen anyone in the months or years before they actually
die of alcoholism? It's not a pretty sight.

Better or worse than fading away in a care home?

You prefer the 'die young' approach?

Having spent seven years visiting the M-i-L in a care home, I can only
say "**** that". One-way to Geneva before that.

Same here with my mother. But she managed to enjoy life until her late
'80s before Alzheimer's took over. Then, of course, only she knew if life
was still worth living in that little world of her own.

I'd guess you're quite young yourself. ;-)

Depends what you count 40 as.

Still young these days. Plenty enjoy life at twice that age - if they keep
reasonably healthy. Which you can be reasonably sure an alcoholic won't be
since abuse of that damages near every organ in the body.

--
*I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Huge wrote:
On 2011-03-04, Steve Firth wrote:
Adrian wrote:
Huge gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

Under a couple of million will buy you a 7 bedroom house in 6 acres
near Cheltenham or a modernised medieval chateau with 8 bedrooms in
over 40 acres in Lot et Garonne.

Yes, but that means living in France. Why would I want to do that?

Apart from the subtle detail that Cheltenham isn't in France, why
_wouldn't_ you?

France is full of French people (WOCABs). And the language is horrible.

And the bureaucracy is overwhelming. And do they still drink and drive
like they used to in the late 70's? (I've seen colleagues drive away
after having trouble getting the key in the ignition due to inebriation.)
Actually, the general standard of driving terrified me. Drunk or not.

Driving is still a largely macho activity in France. Yes drink driving is
common, especially among truck drivers who sink a bottle of wine with
lunch. In most towns drivers seem to think that Gallic pride would take a
tumble unless the proved themselves superior to any foreigner by getting
ahead of the foreign vehicle - even if it means breaking every traffic rule
in the book. Standards of observation are poor. Tailgating is common.

Not half as bad as Italy though for either bureaucracy or driving.

It's the attitude of many French people that makes the place less pleasant
than the UK or Italy.

On 04/03/2011 11:27, Huge wrote:
On 2011-03-04, wrote:
gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

Under a couple of million will buy you a 7 bedroom house in 6 acres
near Cheltenham or a modernised medieval chateau with 8 bedrooms in
over 40 acres in Lot et Garonne.

Yes, but that means living in France. Why would I want to do that?

Apart from the subtle detail that Cheltenham isn't in France,

Crumbs, Adrian, I'd have expected you to be able to get to the end of
a sentence.

why
_wouldn't_ you?

Because I've lived and worked in France before. It's full of French people.

(In their defence, I've lived and worked in Paris. I'm given to understand
that even the other French don't like Parisians.)

I used to have a house in the south of France and when I went to
introduce myself to the Mayor, one of his staff assumed I would
recognise the accent of his secretary and told me that, for a Parisian,
she was very nice.

In general, I found the people friendly and helpful. However, I think
they are easily offended by people they consider to be rude and not
starting off a conversation in French seems to qualify as rude.

Colin Bignell

On 04/03/11 10:36, Nightjar "cpb"@ insertmysurnamehere wrote:
On 03/03/2011 14:16, Huge wrote:
On 2011-03-03, wrote:
On 03/03/11 12:36, Huge wrote:
..

Quite likely, but my point was that you need rather more than a million
pounds to live a millionaires lifestyle these days.

These days, you need not a million in assets, not a million net-worth, not
even a million in the bank, but an annual income of a million (at least) to
live a 'millionaire' lifestyle

That was my thinking, also, which probably means you need investments of
around 20 to 30 million on top of the 20 million house ... So, to live a
millionaire's lifestyle, you need about 40 million.

I read a little while ago that the figure is around 20 million. Not sure
you need to spend 20 million on the house unless you really want to live in
London though. Under a couple of million will buy you a 7 bedroom house in
6 acres near Cheltenham or a modernised medieval chateau with 8 bedrooms in
over 40 acres in Lot et Garonne.

'Millionaires lifestyle' implies a certain amount of conspicuous
consumption and a relaxed attitude to it. If you a very modest and not so
young then you can probably retire and live comfortably on a million. But
that is not a 'millionaires lifestyle'. It is also possible to live a
millionaires lifestyle on less than a million: but not for long!



--
djc

Huge gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

Under a couple of million will buy you a 7 bedroom house in 6 acres
near Cheltenham or a modernised medieval chateau with 8 bedrooms in
over 40 acres in Lot et Garonne.

Yes, but that means living in France. Why would I want to do that?

Apart from the subtle detail that Cheltenham isn't in France,

Crumbs, Adrian, I'd have expected you to be able to get to the end of a
sentence.

And I'd have expected you to read the whole sentence rather than forget
the first half before answering the second... grin

(In their defence, I've lived and worked in Paris. I'm given to
understand that even the other French don't like Parisians.)

Paris != France.

djc gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

'Millionaires lifestyle' implies a certain amount of conspicuous
consumption and a relaxed attitude to it.

I was standing around for about 10-20min this morning, near Monument Tube.

Bentley Mulsanne & Conti DHC.
Rolls Phantom.
Maser Quattroporte & GT.
Several Astons, inc a Virage.
Don't even ask how many S-classes - although the Brabus stood out a bit.

Huge wrote:

Mind you, I used to get the tram to work in Milan, so perhaps I was never
exposed to the true horror of Italian driving?

That one I think. I used to work on Via Rosellini in Milan, and would
get a flight to Linate and a taxi to the office (short trip). One day
the aircraft landed in thick fog, you could just about see your hand at
arm's length. Just.

Got the taxi, took off at about 110km/h and hit 130 on the road into
Milan. I could see the glow of shop windows to left and right. I asked
if he didn't think he was driving too fast in the fog. "It's OK, I know
my way." was the reply.

The Tangenziale around Milan can give the Peripherique a run for it's
money, but for real looney driving you have to head south to Rome or
Naples.

Mind you a friend told me Paris was worse than Rome and Marseilles worse
than Naples. I've had some scary moments around Paris, but mostly I tend
to use the Metro and stop hotels close to where I work. The last time I
worked there was in the offices of a French Telecom company near the Arc
de Triomphe. An odd case of "how the other half live", about a 25h
working week, two hour lunch breaks (in the Michelin starred canteen)
and most meetings filled with tosh such as the "the philosophy of
computer investigation" and "holistic network evaluation". *******.

Steve Firth ) wibbled on Friday 04 March 2011 21:46:

An odd case of "how the other half live", about a 25h
working week, two hour lunch breaks (in the Michelin starred canteen)
and most meetings filled with tosh such as the "the philosophy of
computer investigation" and "holistic network evaluation". *******.

Strewth - I'll have some of that.

--
Tim Watts

Donwill wrote:

On 04/03/2011 06:20, Andy Cap wrote:
On 3 Mar 2011 18:34:16 GMT, wrote:


shrug So stand as an indie.

Our democracy is little more than a sham to keep the masses quiet. It
makes no real difference to how anything operates and there is no way any
independent can
make a difference ? Party MPs are pretty impotent too. We are
ulitimately ruled by big business and those happy to suck up to it.


Oh dear and there's me thinking that we are ruled by Charities and soft
minded do gooders who seem to have permeated every political party in
Britain, all vying to give our money away "YES OUR MONEY" (not the
politicians)
on every hard luck story in the World. I had thought that Cameron would
change all this but he is just as bad as the last lot.
Don
(End of Rant, subject not really appropriate for this group)

in 2009, the UK devoted 0.52% of its GDP to aid - 11.5 billion US dollars
(£7.75 billion) - with the total projected to rise to 0.7% this year.
That's £500 from every household

By comparison, France spent 0.46% of national income on aid, Germany 0.35%,
the US 0.2% and Italy just 0.16%.

Yet we cant seem to afford to rebuild our own schools that are falling to
bits,

-

Huge wrote:

On 2011-03-04, Steve Firth wrote:

get a flight to Linate

Aaaeeeiiiii!!!! That name still makes little cold feet run up and down my
spine. The worst airport I've ever used.

Yeah, but it is/was a damned sight quicker to get to/from than Malpensa.

Andy Burns wrote:
Huge wrote:

On 2011-03-04, Steve Firth wrote:

get a flight to Linate

Aaaeeeiiiii!!!! That name still makes little cold feet run up and down my
spine. The worst airport I've ever used.

Yeah, but it is/was a damned sight quicker to get to/from than Malpensa.

And Malpensa is actually worse than Linate, which takes some doing.

On 02/03/2011 23:11, geoff wrote:
In message , Dave
writes
On 02/03/2011 11:56, John Rumm wrote:
On 02/03/2011 07:50, Roger Chapman wrote:
On 01/03/2011 23:45, Doctor Drivel wrote:

He would have probably lost £2,940,000 in tax! (given it was probably
during the 70's when the 98% tax rate applied to "unearned income"
such as royalties from inventions etc).

A pity they never exteded that to land instead.

I am sure Investment bankers would be united in their support for
Dribble if they knew there was a chance of introducing a tax system
that
would leave them paying next to no tax.

Are you suggesting Dribble is some kind of banker? ;-)

I don't think so, but the word does rhyme :-)


A DIY lister called drivel
made joints that didn't just dribble
The joints that he made
with his cheap hacksaw blade
gushed and flowed all over the place and flooded half of milton keynes
before they came and turned off the supply and took him away in a
straitjacket still ranting over the advantages of having two condensing
boilers instead of one

Well you didn't really expect it to rhyme, did you?

No, but I enjoyed it all the same :-))

Dave

Huge wrote:
On 2011-03-05, Steve Firth wrote:
[snip]

And Malpensa is actually worse than Linate, which takes some doing.

Never flew to Malpensa.

Sound decision. Sadly it's the place that BMI and Sleasyjet fly to and when
I flew out of Brum it was the only option. Unloved ex-military airport
with decaying terminal buildings and the vilest catering ever. Also miles
away from Milan.

Linate is also the only airport I've ever used where the taxi driver
couldn't find it.

That's quite impressive failure on the part of the driver.

Although a French taxi driver once refused to take me to the correct
terminal at Roissy.

Par for the course there. Drivers seem to have bizarre rules that make "I
don't go sarf of the river" look reasonable.

In message , Huge
writes
On 2011-03-04, Steve Firth wrote:
Huge wrote:

Mind you, I used to get the tram to work in Milan, so perhaps I was never
exposed to the true horror of Italian driving?

That one I think. I used to work on Via Rosellini in Milan, and would
get a flight to Linate

Aaaeeeiiiii!!!! That name still makes little cold feet run up and down my
spine. The worst airport I've ever used. At least until I went to India.

Sheltered life?

Linate and Delhi pale into insignificance compared to Kabul


--
geoff