REGULARS
UK BANKS
A recent article on the BBC website is sure to be of interest to UK expatriates who still retain an onshore UK bank. Banks and their customers are awaiting the start of a High Court test case, which could bring a fundamental change to UK High Street banking. The outcome may decide how much banks can charge millions of account holders who go overdrawn without permission. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is challenging seven leading retail banks and the Nationwide building society. The regulator claims the bank’s overdraft charges are unfair, but the banks say they are entirely legal. “We have always
believed that what we are doing is correct and legal” said a spokesman for the British Bankers Association (BBA). “We are confident and think the hearing is an important
opportunity to bring some clarity to the legal position” she added. The hearing in early January this year is an attempt to resolve the legal issues at the heart of the unprecedented wave of mass litigation that swept the UK over the past two years. Several hundred thousand bank customers are estimated to have won more than half a billion pounds in
refunds from their banks in 2007 after accusing them, often in local court proceedings, of imposing excessive overdraft fees that were unfair and illegal. These fees can amount to more than GBP 30 for going into the red or having a cheque bounced and in some cases customers have been refunded thousands of pounds each. “We are very hopeful the OFT will win” said Phil Jones of the consumer body Which?. “We think they have a strong case and so do consumers in the court of public opinion.” Initially the OFT will not ask the Judge to make a straightforward ruling that the banks charges are unfair. Instead the regulator will argue that the overdraft charges, which the banks have been restyling in their literature as “fees for a service” come under the scope of the 1999 Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulation. The OFT says this gives it the authority to decide itself if the charges or fees are unfair, and also gives the power to do something about it. “This is all about seeing if the regulations apply” said an OFT spokesman. “At this stage we
will not ask for a ruling on fairness,” he added. The regulator will also argue that the bank’s terms and conditions are not written in sufficiently plain English, a factor which would also give the OFT jurisdiction over them. For their part the banks argue that their charges are a fee for a service and not a penalty charge and also that they form a core term of their contracts with their customers. As such they say the consumer legislation simply does not apply. Since the announcement of the test case last summer the cases that had threatened to swamp county and district courts have largely died down. This was a result of a general stay on new cases that has been upheld by judges at the request of the banks and the Financial Services Authority (FSA). But if they lose the High Court argument, the banks will lose a source of income worth about GBP 10 million a day, according to OFT calculations. They might also have to trawl back through the records of all their customers for the past six years to offer compensation to anyone who
has been overcharged, a bill that would run to billions of pounds. One commentator said, “If the banks win then this would give them the green light to charge whatever they want or whatever the market will bear” The banks say that if they lose they could be forced to
make up for lost income by levying new charges on other customers bringing about the end of so called “free banking” in thy UK. “This risks increased charges for those who remain in credit and possibly the withdrawal of services from unprofitable poorer customers, while seeing charges extended to many more people” said a spokesman from the consultancy Accenture. That view is disputed by Which?. “We don’t accept that free banking actually exists or that it would be acceptable for customers to face high extra account charges instead” said Phil Jones. It is now over two years since the huge consumer campaignagainst bank charges took ff. But if the OFT wins this will not automatically lead to compensation being paid to customers whose claim for refunds are currently stuck in the legal system, or who may belatedly realize they are owed money. The issue of compensation, if any, will be dealt with by the FSA and the Financial Ombudsman Service. The High Court is expected to deliver a judgment around
Easter. However whichever side loses is highly likely to appealpossibly all the way to the House of Lords-which means the issue will not be resolved until next year. For further information on this article or for any area of personal finance Please contact: jerry@swissinvestcenter.net
Mag’s Page
During 2005 we ran a few editions of Mags Page that included some advice to farangs claiming British state benefits and pensions while abroad. Since then Yours Truly
has resumed working as an advisor on state benefits, and I have been able to update myself in more detail on what is going on - or not going on - with the appalling messes this Government is currently making with peoples money. You may have caught News reports about the Lost Discs. The scandal broke about 3 months ago, and involved the loss, apparently in the post - of a couple of discs containing personal information on several hundred thousand UK benefit claimants. It was said at the time that those involved were people who were claiming Child Benefit. Strangely enough, just a couple of weeks before this debacle, an article appeared in the Money pages of one of the Sunday heavies about a mistake with State Retirement Pensions for women. This is where you need to sit up and take notice if you are female, British, over 60, living abroad,
and getting your State Pension. OK, maybe not too many of our readers, but I know there are some of you out there. Briefly, what went wrong concerns female Brit pensioners
who took time out to raise children. During this time at home you would have received the Child Benefit payments (or Family Allowance as it used to be called.) These payments covered you for not being able to work on account of the kids, in the sense that they covered you for missing out on paying your National Insurance stamps. The cover was known as ‘Home Responsibilities Protection’ (HRP) With me so far? If not don’t worry because my E-mail address appears at the end of this article, and individual questions can be dealt with later. If you were in this situation any time from April 1978
onwards, the HRP scheme automatically enhanced your National Insurance Contribution Record to a level that made your State Pension up to full rate, just as if you had been working. Except that it didn’t. Unfortunately the Government overlooked this small point, and as a result have underpaid 500,000 women pensioners. According to the news report that I read there was no need for anyone to do anything. Just sit tight and wait for The Powers That Be to work out what they owe you. This might of course take some time, especially if The Powers That Be carry on slinging computer discs into the regular mail. If you would like more information as it becomes available, or want advice on whether you may be one of the pensioners involved, please E-mail me at the address at the bottom quoting ‘Pensions’ as the subject of your message, or post your concerns on the Hua Hin forum on the White Board, again with the subject ‘Pensions’ Please note that general advice and contact numbers/web site
addresses only can be given. Individual Pension calculations or approximations cannot be entered into. To continue on more serious stuff (having vowed to try and avoid all mention of that McCartney woman this year, but did you see that she was voted the most unpopular person of 2007 in an MSN poll?) there is an appeal for information on an old Hua Hin regular who seems to have slipped off the map. Charlie Bayliss used to be in Hua Hin once or twice a year for a few weeks, often around Christmas time. A big jolly chap, Charlie often sported a Father Christmas type beard, and frequented the central area around the temple. His E-mail address has been discontinued. If memory serves he used to stay at Sport Villa. Again, if you have any information on Charlie, please E-mail or post on the Hua Hin After Dark forum. I must say that E-mail is a wonderful thing. It enables people to keep in touch quickly and easily, unlike the old Snail Mail, and we wonder how we ever managed without it. In fact it becomes such a routine part of our lives that we rattle off
messages by the dozen, and become so engrossed that sadly
we overlook the people who fail to reply.
And now for something completely different. Did You Know
that men with long ring fingers are more likely to have a
high sperm count? This is according to research carried
out at Liverpool University. And you thought they were all
growing their hair and studying the guitar didn’t you?
So go on guys, put down the Singha and stick your fingers
up in the air. Left hand first. Now, if your ring finger is the
same length as your middle finger you apparently have lots of
healthy sperm kicking around in there. Now put both palms
together. If the fingers of both hands match in length you’ve
really cracked it! There’s no stopping the little devils.
You can apply the same test to women to check on their egg
production. However, my guess is that women are much less
likely to sit in a bar comparing fingers than men, unless of
course there is jewellery involved.
Happy New Chinese Year all.
Email address for more information/discussion on the
women’s pensions error is mags118@hotmail.com - please
remember to enter ‘pensions’ as the subject.
Arts & Culture – Alvar Aalto
The final segment of our look at some of the leading architects past and present features three Europeans – a German, a Frenchman and an Italian, all of whom have been responsible for some of the landmark buildings of our time, notably in the arts and sporting worlds. Architecture is sometimes easily overlooked because of the scale it is conceived and presented in, but these three architects and the others we have featured in this series have contributed greatly to the look of the world we live in – we hope you have enjoyed finding out more about them. FREI OTTO: Frei Paul Otto, born 31 May 1925, is a German architect and structural engineer. Otto studied architecture in Berlin before being drafted into the Luftwaffe as a fighter pilot in the last years of World War II. It is said that he was interred in a French POW camp and, with his aviation engineering training and lack of material and an urgent need for housing, began experimenting with tents for shelter. After the war he studied briefly in the United States and visited Erich Mendelsohn, Mies van der Rohe, Richard Neutra, and Frank Lloyd Wright. He began private practice in Germany in 1952. His saddle-shaped cable-net music pavilion at the
Bundesgartenschau Kassel in Stuttgart brought him his first significant attention. He earned a doctorate about tensioned constructions in 1954. Otto is the world’s leading authority on lightweight tensile and membrane structures, and has pioneered advances in structural mathematics and civil engineering. Otto’s career bears a similarity to Buckminster Fuller’s architectural experiments: both taught at Washington University in St. Louis in the late 1950’s, both were architects of major pavilions at the Montreal Expo of 1967, both were concerned with space frames and structural efficiency, and both experimented with inflatable buildings. The works of both men go far beyond traditional methods of calculating structural stresses. Otto founded the famous Institute for Lightweight Structures at the University of Stuttgart in 1964 and headed the institute till his retirement as university professor. Major works include the West German Pavilion at the Montreal Expo in 1967 and the roof of the 1972 Munich Olympic Arena. The International Architecture Symposium “Mensch und Raum” (Man and Space) at the Vienna University of Technology (Technische Universität Wien) in 1984 received international attention. As an architect and engineer, Otto is still active. One of his more recent projects was his work on the Japanese Pavilion at Expo 2000 with a roof structure made entirely out of paper. RENZO PIANO: Italian, Renzo Piano was born on 14 September 1937 in Genoa. He is a world-renowned Italian architect and Pritzker Architecture Prize winner. Piano still maintains a home and office (Building Workshop)
in his home town. He was educated and subsequently taught at the Politecnico di Milano. From 1965 to 1970 he worked with Louis Kahn and with Makowsky. He worked together with Richard Rogers from 1971 to 1977; their most famous joint project is the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1977). He also had a long collaboration with the extraordinary engineer Peter Rice. He has a long interest in elegantly expressed structure. This is evident in early works such as the Centre Pompidou, IBM travelling pavilion, through to the Kansai International Airport, Osaka (1988). Renzo Piano was responsible for the master plan for the reconstruction of the Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, and also designed a portion of the new construction on the site. Today, he is well known for his museum designs: the Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Menil Collection in Houston (1986), the Beyeler Foundation museum in Basel, Switzerland, a museum dedicated to Swiss painter Paul Klee in Bern, Switzerland, as well as completed museum projects in Dallas (the Nasher Sculpture Centre) and in Atlanta (the High Museum of Art). 2002 marked the completion of his state-of-the-art Auditorium-Parco della Musica (3 halls which can accommodate 2800, 1200 and 700 people respectively, an outdoor cavea and a large surrounding park) in Rome, Europe’s largest music venue of its kind. In 2003 his Padre Pio Pilgrimage Church in San Giovanni Rotondo (Italy) was completed. Piano has also designed football stadia, bridges, liners and automobiles.One of his most recent designs is the approved Shard London Bridge skyscraper (also known as the London Bridge Tower or Shard of glass) in London. His latest project is the natural history museum at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. In early June of 2006, he tentatively agreed to design an 850’+ tower that is part of the San Francisco Transbay Terminal project, and the Kimbell Art Foundation recently announced that the Renzo Piano Building Workshop has been selected as the architect for the addition to the Kimbell Art Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago’s Modern Wing which is currently under construction, slated for completion in 2009. ROGER TAILLIBERT: Roger Taillibert was born in 1926 in Châtres-sur-Cher (Loir-et-Cher) France. He is the architect, notable for designing the Parc des Princes in Paris and the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Canada. He was appointed commander of the Légion d’Honneur, of the Ordre National du Mérite of Palmes académiques and of Arts et Lettres by the French Government.
Tailliberts portfolio includes sports facilities in Chamonix France, Parc des Princes in Paris, the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Canada, the Olympic Velodrome, Montreal
(now called the Montreal Biodome), the Olympic Pool (Montreal) and the ASPIRE Academy in Qatar. In 1963, Taillibert created his own architecture agency, in Paris. At that time, its activity was essentially to develop sport facilities and hotel complexes. Until 1972, the agency mainly built in France. Later expanding to international projects there major project being the Olympic Complex in Montreal. Since 1980, the agency has been working in African countries (Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Somalia, Cameroon, Libya and Morocco), in the Middle East (Jordan, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates) and in Asia (South Korea and Taiwan).
THE DEPTH OF ‘NOTHINGNESS’
A watercolor paintings exhibition by Malaysian artist, Pheh It Hao, 1-28 February 2008 NEGATIVE SPACE: the Depth of ‘Nothingness’ is Malaysian artist Pheh It Hao’s 6th solo exhibition since 1999 and his first in Bangkok Thailand. Pheh It Hao will be showing his large watercolor paintings which are known for their powerful negative spaces and beautiful subdue color combinations. His current exhibition will focus on mainly Thai architecture and street scenes. Pheh It Hao’s goal has always been to
produce straight-forward artistic pieces that showcase the power of Negative Space.
Negative Space is deep with meaning in its nothingness. An architectural structure that
is imposed on this ‘nothingness’, whether it be an unpretentious old shop-house or a stylistically intricate Thai temple, European cathedral or mosque, immediately gains
significance due to the ability of Negative Space to draw attention to anything that comes within its reach. It is a space that acts as a contrast to an object, and in a perfectly symbiotic spirit, brings out its essence. There is thus something in nothingness that helps ignite the human imagination. Pheh It Hao was born in Penang in 1972 and currently residing in Kuala Lumpur. In 1999, he pursued his Degree in Fine Art at The Surrey Institution of Art and Design, University College, England. After graduation, he worked as a gallery curator at Elle Six Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur for 4 years. He currently works as a full-time artist. The Rotunda Gallery & the Garden Galleries are at the Neilson Hays Library, 195 Surawong Road, Bangkok (Tel. 02-233 1731) and it’s opening hours are: Tuesday-Sunday 9.30 am - 5.00 pm.
Useful Telephone Numbers for Hua Hin
Railway station
032-512 770, 032-511 073
Bus station of Hua Hin
032-511 654, 032-512 543
Bus station of Prachuabkirikhan
032-601 901
Bus station of Pranburi
032-621 443
Hua Hin Hospital
032-520 401
Dog Rescue Center
0-1981 4406
Wild life Rescue Center (Tayang)
032-458 135
Department of Land Cha-am office:
032- 430 846-7
Department of Land Hua Hin office:
032-536 164, 032-512 407
Department of Land Prachuabkirikhan:
032-611 211
Department of Land Pranburi
032-622 199
Local Government (Hua Hin)
032-521 340, 532 471
Local water supply
032-511 677
The Power Board of Hua Hin
032-512 215, 032 513 165
Observer office:
032-531 078
Red Cross.
032-512 567
San Paolo Hospital
032-532 576-85
Polyclinic International
032-516 424, 032-516 425
Shell Cooking Gas
032-511 144, 032- 515 620
The Communication Authority of Thailand
(Hua Hin)
032-511 351
Rotary Club of Hua Hin
0-1916 6637
Meeting every Thursday 8.pm
at Hua Hin Grand Hotel & Plaza
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