Now, even if you live to be 120 you’ll get that £400 a month.

I’ve been hoping that someone (preferably a pensioner, like me,) would add a little more clarification, but it looks as though it’ll have to be me. You won’t get £400, you’ll get £320 (if you’re lucky.)
At retirement age, National Insurance contributions cease, but Income Tax doesn’t; the State Pension cannot be taxed (being an old cynic, I have a deep suspicion that this enables politicians to call their pension a State Pension, so that they avoid paying any tax on it.)
Private pensions have no such provision, but the amount is actually added to the state’s payment, and tax is calculated on the whole amount, meaning that (if you’ve listened to the politicians, and provided for your retirement) you do pay tax on the State Pension, though the money, itself, is deducted from your private pension.
The tax threshold, before you start to pay tax, is higher than when you’re working, but not above the amount you get from the state, which is probably why some say “Sod it,” and don’t bother.
Since my retirement, the threshold was raised, annually, so that it neared the state pension amount, but that was stopped last year, so that this year I receive a whopping increase of £5 weekly, out of which I immediately lose £1, and, with a rent increase of £5 per week………
And, before our Communist sympathiser jumps in, I haven’t forgotten that it was Brown’s bunch that did away with the 10% tax band, ensuring that the lower-paid lost more, in %age terms, than the rich bunch, and they claim to be the party of the working-class. :highly_amused:

I agree BUT the difference is, this IS a planned single parent family-the biological father will NEVER be there.

Which is something the father must have considered, or he would never have made the donation; since he would have known his wife rather better than any one of us, including her qualifications for bringing up a child single-handed, what gives anyone else the right to put their interpretation on the situation? If she should say, “Mind your own business,” it’s no more than you deserve.

Were you definately in the same part of the building?

There are signs, on internal doors, saying that, if the alarm sounds, they will close automatically, cutting off access to the stairs. With the fire (and thick black smoke) outside, people were kept inside, to avoid any chance of smoke inhalation; those who had got outside were brought back into the air-conditioned, warm, dry entrance hall, where there were always several staff, who did their best to keep everyone informed, but there’s no mileage to be gained from that, of course.
There was a rumour that someone, with an Australian accent, was seen with files marked “Burma,” and a box of matches, but I discounted that.

You missed the bit where a U.K. zoo offered to take him, but “regulations” wouldn’t permit even that.

=ZRX61;2111322That bint he married popped up on tv here a couple of times though.

You know, I’m sure, if you tried really, really hard, you could, one day, find something inoffensive, even nice, to say about somebody.

So why is Beckham……? And who is Miami…? I think we should be told.

He’s an ordinary working-class man, who has committed the unpardonable sin of being hugely successful in his chosen profession. He has already started up football academies in this country, and is planning the same in Miami, but, because he doesn’t “know his place,” he attracts calumny and jealousy from certain quarters; he should, of course, have quietly sunk into obscurity, and bought a failing pub, like so many other ex-footballers.

Firstly, what’s wrong with tattoos? It’s just body art…

Can’t speak for others, but, if I want to see moving pictures, I switch on the TV.

however, I don’t think children are as influenced by their parents as people think. At least I never was.

Well, I certainly was, and a brilliant piece of psychology, it was, too. When some of my friends had started experimenting with dried grass, corrugated cardboard, even tarpaulin (no, I didn’t,) my mother’s reaction was, “You can smoke and drink as much as you want to, my boy, but you’re paying for it.” With the cheapest cigarettes at 1/10d, and my pocket money being 2/6d, I much preferred the occasional bag of sweets; when I started work, and could afford it, I was no longer interested.

The biggest problem is that far too many don’t, can’t, or won’t know the difference between “use before” and “best before,” and it’s vast.
Whether the food is in a bin, or not, it remains the property of the store, until it leaves the premises (try walking out without paying,) so the question is fairly academic; rifling through bins, and taking the contents, is theft.