Most banks consider a mortgage from the point of view of affordability and not earnings these days. Ie. They will basically look at your bank statements and jusdge if you can afford the monthly payments or not.

Does anyone know if the ERJ family (-135 to -190) have commonality a la A320 family?

It isn’t just a lack of modern aircraft that is hurting Boeing.

An utter unwillingness to create any flightdeck commonality or other commonality is hurting them (the 757/767 cockpits don’t count!). It also took them a decade too long to realise the benefits of fly by wire.

Their next project is make or break and I still don’t know what it will be. 7E7 (let’s agree to call it a 787!) ? Maybe if they can achieve 737NG/787/777 commonaility and establish that range as a family, they might be on the right track.

“Security” has changed everything.

Because of “security” all airport security measures must not be analysed nor improved, anyone with an attractive partner should be arrested, Iraq must be bombed and the government must be allowed to do whatever they want because of the “security situation”.

Airlines should also be able to raise any prices they want to, even inflight dutyfree jigsaws and call it a “security measure”

A client of mine is an Austrian, from Linz. He was in a bad mood about a year ago because a bank in Munich had messed something up. He called me and muttered away for while, then camer out with a gem:

“Zese Germans, zey are all like Hitler”

Which if you recognise Hitler’s origins, is very funny!

Do any of you remember a well known RAF fligth crew who were shot down in the last gulf war?

Lt’s Nicholl and Peters

They were detained, tortured, starved, basically abused by the Iraqis

One day they both happened to be moved at the same time and they caught a glimpse of each other.

Peters to Nicholl:

“You’ve lost some weight, you fat bast*rd!”

Would someone like adonis mind telling me if he bedgrudges Nicholl and Peters for this behaviour?

Do you remember the Falklands vet, Simon Weston – Very badly burned, became famous because of his injury. He used to lie in bed taking the p*ss out of his mate next to him, who had both his legs blown off….so his mate used to insult his chances with the opposite sex in return. I heard Weston himself recount that about 4 years ago when he appeared during a Jim Davidson gig. Those kind of stories are simply hilarious and you should not think that we are mocking Weston by laughing. He’d probably be depresssed if no one laughed out of “respect” for him!

Get a grip, adonis. And others.

Isn’t that a frightening thought!

The implication is that the qualification process for becoming a doctor is shoddy. Would you agree?

Part of being a professional is knowing your abilities and of course lack thereof. As an accountant, there are certain areas I’m good at but some where I have no practical experience, or where I learned stuff for an exam but can’t really remember it. I have to restrict myself appropriately – if I don’t I would be struck off if anyone complained about duff advice I gave, and of course I’d face a huge and unwinnable lawsuit.

The sheer workload should NOT change this principle. If you are overworked, tough. It’s managements duty to hire some more people or else sack you and get someone more efficient.

The urgent nature of the work is not really a justificstion.