£35.4m going spare....

I'm still surprised that it flies. It might come as a shock to people
who've met me but I spent several years working on the development of
weapons systems for Tornadoes.

Indirectly, the Falklands skirmish and the subsequent modifications
made to the Sea Harrier paid for my first house purchase. Naturally
enough I squandered said proceeds on fast motorbikes and holidays
abroad.

 

I've just finished reading 'Sea Harrier over the Falklands' and was
astounded when I learned that the radar systems were useless when
operating over land.

 

You can probably fish one out of a bog in Russia for that kind of
money.

Hmm. An FW 190 does appeal as well.

Or even a Black Prince, because they look *properly* sinister (weren't
they used in one of the 1974 films?)

Neither appeals that much - if we're talking pre-war, probably a
Voisin. Post-war? A Facel Vega HK500 or an Alvis TE21 drophead.

 

This always amuses me mildly.

If you inherit money through an accident of birth that's somehow
'wrong'.

If you inherit other benefits (brains, suppotive family, sporting
ability whatever) then that's alright.

Life's a fucking lottery, some win some lose. Inheriting money doesn't
necessarily lead to a happy life.

 

Borrocks. That's supposed to read '1984'.

 

That is because I turned down a job offer from Macaroni to work on them.
If they had just offered more money things might well have been
different.

 

Yes but they are designed this way. Yer modern military aircraft has to
be very manoeuvrable. In order to achieve this they are designed to be
so unstable that human reactions just aren't quick enough to fly them in
a stable fashion so they get computers to do it instead. The pilot is
mostly there to tell the computer roughly where it should be pointing
the thing and the computers do the hard bit of actually making it point
there.

 

It's not enough to do anything really extravagant. The really serious
lifestyles need that per year to feed and water. So one is really
looking at just being able to do the usual stuff, in extreme comfort, 52
weeks a year. Not a bad thing mind.

Yes but big "undeclared" wodges of wonga, normally that you don't want
the IR to notice, do encourage considerable silliness! Hard earned is
something else altogether.

 

AOL

 

What's the plan for keeping it all secret until you dispose of SO
through strictly legal means?

 

Well, 40% of a going business is a sizeable dent. And, if the business
was an estate of sorts then it's likely not to be making a large return
on capital consequently the only way of raising the death duties is
selling part of the estate. Hence the way the large estates shrunk and
finally disappeared.

 

You don't need to. Travelling in and out of the UK through Ireland makes
a nonesense of the 80 day rule.

 

Is it Schwyz that doesn't have cantonal tax? One of our
theoreticians at PSI used to commute from there every day. There's a
commune somewhere down the lower end of Zürichsee that has pretty much no
Gemeinde tax because they have one _very_ rich inhabitant who basically
runs the village on a fraction of a percent of his yearly income.

Yes, I found that out when I was "accidentally" (from my POV)
given permanent resident status. Suddenly I had to fill in all these
forms, including all my assets anywhere in the world. They'd have taxed
me on the value of my bike, except it was old enough to be exempt.
(Previously, as a foreigner earning less than CHF125k/yr, I was taxed PAYE
at a fixed rate, about 17.5%. All other deductions brought the total up
to around 33%.)

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

America obviously!

 

It's beyond consideration -- they've emailed me to buy a new
ticket, so I obviously didn't win last night!

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

Right on, brother. Those gold taps don't pay for themselves.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the
river cleaned out in a day.

 

I'm all for avoiding it, not evading it as such. Avoidance is perfectly
ok in my book; if the tax authorities leave a loophole or two I see
nothing wrong with taking advantage of that.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the
river cleaned out in a day.

 

Not sure I'd want to do the Harvey Nicks girl thing. Imagine spending
all that money and suffering from 'performance anxiety'.

 

Poisonally, I wouldn't trust a nearly 70 year old airframe. I'd much
prefer a near-perfect full-scale copy with modern improvements.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the
river cleaned out in a day.

 

Or not ...