Ever since I came back from the local auction house with tales of "Guitar Hero: Rock Band" selling for £20, the boys have said they wanted to go and pick up such legendary bargains.
This Friday, I remembered to go to the viewing. Matt was away at a friend's and Karen didn't fancy the outing. Harry also wasn't keen but once he got there he was very taken with ... many things, mostly entirely impractical.
Amongst more realistic options, I decided we could look out for a toaster for Matt (apparently the boathouse needs one), a backpack for Harry and perhaps a new breadmaker for Karen.
On the morning of the auction, we all went down although the boys lacked patience to stand around and wait for the auction to reach the required stage.
Karen agreed to keep me company. For the most part we were simply watching. Over time, you understand the protocols and the subtleties of the format.
We were a bit reluctant to bid for anything, and of course were careful not to scratch our noses or point at things !
Eventually, the sale came around to the section where our target items were on display but before we could get to that, we suddenly found ourselves bidding for some BT cordless phones. Karen is always on the lookout for the perfect handsets.
£18 seemed a relative bargain. In fact I decided to bid and buy a second set of phones although, when some other phone lots went for as little as £6, they didn't seem quite as cheap.
Having overcome the initial anxiety about bidding, it seemed rather easier to get involved with other lots.
In due course, we landed a huge glass vase, a hoover, a juicer, 2 breadmakers and a draining board ! We failed to secure any of the toasters or the bag that we came for.
Although we started tentatively, by the end the auctioneer knew our bidding number and we were known as "in the hat". Our bidding signals - very bold in the early rounds - became more subtle as we were acknowledged as serial buyers !
So, in the end we had committed to about £100 of hammer-price items and had of course mentally forgotten about 15%+VAT premium and 15% of VAT.
Still, the checkout process was very efficient: we couldn't even remember what we'd bought but 10 minutes after we had left the floor we had an itemised bill and were all sorted.
Of course I had to go and get the car and a boy to help with the loading. The roads were somewhat chaotic around the auction site - we took the safe option of parking a distance away so as not to add a £60 parking ticket to the auction costs.
On the face of it, our items were bargains. £135 all in for face-value of about £500+ and it all looked in good order.
We have become more aware of what caveat emptor means though as most of the boxed items that looked new have revealed themselves to be probably returned stock with some faults.
In the case of the juicer, the fault is remedied by a quick tweak here and there. In the case of the £12 hoover (RRP: £99) it seems it may be going straight to the tip - no signs of life in it !
Karen is cooking test loaves today in the breadmakers and the phones are on charge. The vase definitely works although it turns out to be more of a bargain than we bargained for: it is HUGE !
The Simple Human draining system was probably the biggest disappointment: they retail at over £50 and Karen wants a new one. This one was ours for just £4 (plus 15% and 15% of 15% and another 15% of course !) but on purchase it turns out to be a well-used one in a brand new box - a bit sneaky that one.
Perhaps we should stick to towels, flowers and chairs next time but it was good fun I think !
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Thursday, 1 October 2009
The eX-files
Recently I have been sorting out paperwork in my office. This can be quite a big task, as I like to do a very thorough job – looking at every piece of paper in each file to see if it should be kept. I keep all kinds of documents, and “paperwork” in this sense also includes the folders full of instructions manuals, and boxes of “memories”.
I try to be reasonable about what I hold onto, but a lot would fail the “if you haven’t used/needed it for X years” test. Of course some has to be kept by law (for tax), and some other material is plainly useful or sensible to retain.
But a lot of it is just “interesting” – like documents for the sale & purchase of our 3-ago house, statements for accounts closed in 2001, University notes, O-level papers, or someone else’s school tie.
We’re not short of space, so I could keep even more stuff in theory but I enjoy the actual process of sifting through the files. On each round of processing (every couple of years, maybe) each file is reduced a little more. What I retain becomes more and more the “core” documents even though some interesting context is lost each time.
The process of checking through each file also reminds me of what’s there, and brings back memories.
Sometimes I do think it would be interesting to keep EVERYTHING. Yesterday for example, I threw out notebooks from my time on sabbatical from Bear. This was the period when I was still employed, but was taking a 3-month break. As we now know, this time was the start of the credit crisis and there were some rocky times for the business.
I had to make some calls during that time and my notes were scrawled in these books. They were not much more than phone doodles to be fair although there was enough there (names, dates, specifics of deals and so on) for me to recall the events. Actually finding the notes (in this case, at the back of what looked like an empty notebook) was in reality more interesting than the notes themselves. No one else would have been able to make anything of them.
It’s also good in these filing exercises to check that certain “important” items are still in my possession. I was able to find my 23-day plan for example. This was a single page of A4 notepad on which my revision plan for degree finals was scrawled. 23 days was all there was left by the time I realised that I was really running out of time to get the work done. It turned out to be just enough, history tells us.
The files themselves are interesting in some cases. Most of the actual documents have been re-filed a few times over the years and original envelopes, say, have for the most part been dispensed with at some point. But many of folders are still Oxford University folders that I vividly remember buying at the student union shop.
I seem to have retained exam papers from all the important milestones. I have most of the O level, A level and degree papers as well as scholarship exams for Oakham and Oxford entrance papers. I even have the ones from the banking exams. In all these cases I can recall the events of those times fairly clearly. In some cases, I still remember some of the questions (although not the answers).
Looking through them made me recall very fondly my time at school and University. Clearly these items are not “necessary” in any way but I could never get rid of them now.
Some other documents from that time are even less important, yet more interesting. I have, for example, a TELEX exchange between me and Jack Sakkab from Oakham (he’d gone back to Jordan by then) in which we let each other know our A-level results. Hard for the iPhone generation to understand that !
I wonder if the TELEX network still operates ? Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised. There was a TELEX machine chattering away at Bear Stearns for years after it was really needed for anything.
Also from the TELEX era, I have a timestamped page from the TELEX room to prove that I made it onto the FX trading floor at Natwest earlier than anyone else after a late night out other dealers, leading to a bet that I couldn’t do it. “Tweedie” still hasn’t paid up. 18 years later I haven’t forgotten (although I have written the £50 off !).
Looking through does also make me think of a number of items that I wish I had kept but I will need to be satisfied with just the memories of those !
I try to be reasonable about what I hold onto, but a lot would fail the “if you haven’t used/needed it for X years” test. Of course some has to be kept by law (for tax), and some other material is plainly useful or sensible to retain.
But a lot of it is just “interesting” – like documents for the sale & purchase of our 3-ago house, statements for accounts closed in 2001, University notes, O-level papers, or someone else’s school tie.
We’re not short of space, so I could keep even more stuff in theory but I enjoy the actual process of sifting through the files. On each round of processing (every couple of years, maybe) each file is reduced a little more. What I retain becomes more and more the “core” documents even though some interesting context is lost each time.
The process of checking through each file also reminds me of what’s there, and brings back memories.
Sometimes I do think it would be interesting to keep EVERYTHING. Yesterday for example, I threw out notebooks from my time on sabbatical from Bear. This was the period when I was still employed, but was taking a 3-month break. As we now know, this time was the start of the credit crisis and there were some rocky times for the business.
I had to make some calls during that time and my notes were scrawled in these books. They were not much more than phone doodles to be fair although there was enough there (names, dates, specifics of deals and so on) for me to recall the events. Actually finding the notes (in this case, at the back of what looked like an empty notebook) was in reality more interesting than the notes themselves. No one else would have been able to make anything of them.
It’s also good in these filing exercises to check that certain “important” items are still in my possession. I was able to find my 23-day plan for example. This was a single page of A4 notepad on which my revision plan for degree finals was scrawled. 23 days was all there was left by the time I realised that I was really running out of time to get the work done. It turned out to be just enough, history tells us.
The files themselves are interesting in some cases. Most of the actual documents have been re-filed a few times over the years and original envelopes, say, have for the most part been dispensed with at some point. But many of folders are still Oxford University folders that I vividly remember buying at the student union shop.
I seem to have retained exam papers from all the important milestones. I have most of the O level, A level and degree papers as well as scholarship exams for Oakham and Oxford entrance papers. I even have the ones from the banking exams. In all these cases I can recall the events of those times fairly clearly. In some cases, I still remember some of the questions (although not the answers).
Looking through them made me recall very fondly my time at school and University. Clearly these items are not “necessary” in any way but I could never get rid of them now.
Some other documents from that time are even less important, yet more interesting. I have, for example, a TELEX exchange between me and Jack Sakkab from Oakham (he’d gone back to Jordan by then) in which we let each other know our A-level results. Hard for the iPhone generation to understand that !
I wonder if the TELEX network still operates ? Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised. There was a TELEX machine chattering away at Bear Stearns for years after it was really needed for anything.
Also from the TELEX era, I have a timestamped page from the TELEX room to prove that I made it onto the FX trading floor at Natwest earlier than anyone else after a late night out other dealers, leading to a bet that I couldn’t do it. “Tweedie” still hasn’t paid up. 18 years later I haven’t forgotten (although I have written the £50 off !).
Looking through does also make me think of a number of items that I wish I had kept but I will need to be satisfied with just the memories of those !
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