Club News
June meeting (31st May): Chairman, Roger Gourd, welcomed 13 members including the speaker, our own Ian Payne. Low attendance was thought to be due to having to move to a Tuesday. This July meeting is a Thursday, but due to Purley Sports Club being unavailable on first Thursday in August, the Committee have decided to CANCEL AUGUST MEETING. Andrew Kellard had been unwell
but is hoping to be with us in July as is Bill Ainsworth following his cataract operation.
The Chairman’s Charity raised £26 and the raffle £17.
Outing to Chatham Dockyard 26th July 2022. There are 40 bookings including other Clubs and guests. Coach leaves Tudor Rose, Old Coulsdon at 9.15 am and returns by 5 pm.
We will again combine our Ladies Lunch and Christmas Lunch this year. 1st December at Purley Sports Club. Why not invite your guests now and get it in their diaries.
Please notify lunch changes by 10.30am the prior Tuesday for Thursday 1st Sept meeting to chris@moniz.co.uk T: 020 8660 6063. Please notify Member News to Almoner, Andrew Kellard T: 01737 554055. Please email editor@coulsdonprobus.co.uk with articles/news for the Newsletter
Speaker today: John Birkett (Croydon RSPB): ‘Garden Birds’.
1st September: Brian Biggs: ‘My Life on Tug Boats’
Speaker: Ian Payne — Language is a-changing
‘How do you do’ is a greeting requiring the answer ‘How do you do’. ‘How are you?’ is a question requiring the answer ‘Well’ but not, as incorrectly said nowadays, ‘Good’. This led Ian to the difference between adjectives and adverbs which should end in ‘-ly’. Nowadays, we hear ‘Do it quick’ and ‘He plays the flute beautiful’.
Language is changing all around us with new words like ‘woke’ and many new technological words. Pronunciation changes too. Ian deplores ‘di-sect’ (sounding like ‘bi-sect’) instead of ‘dis-sect’. Both come from Latin ‘sect’=‘cut’ proceeded by ‘bi’=‘two’ or ‘dis’=‘apart’. He also prefers mar-gǝ-rine to mar-jǝ-rine because ‘g’ should be hard before ‘a’. People get their ‘I’s and ‘me’s wrong when proceeded by ‘you’. ‘I’ is always the subject and ‘me’ is always the object. Try leaving out the ‘you’ to see if it should be ‘I’ or ‘me’.
Ian talked about the development of alphabets and writing, leading to a question as to how a script in an unknown language can be deciphered. Egyptian hieroglyphics was thought to be a picture script before Champollion showed that it was alphabetic and deciphered it. He used the Coptic language as a key. Egypt had been overrun by the Arabs in 640 CE but Coptic survived in their liturgy. There’s a Coptic Church in Coulsdon.
Caxton replaced eth (ð) and thorn (þ) by ‘th’ and GBS invented a 48 letter alphabet so that tough/plough/cough/brought/though /through etc. could be spelt as they sound. But without many more letters or using diacritics, we’ll have to stay as we are. But texting and icons and emojis are changing how we write.
Ian ended with a speech error called a Mondegreen derived from hearing ‘They have slain the Earl of Moray and Lady Mondegreen’ instead of ‘and laid him on the green’.
BAR ROOM REMENICENCES
“A long long tale a winding” (Fifteen years a Landlord)
There is always talk of investment. Where to put any spare cash you may have, be it hard earned, inherited or a lucky day at the races. If you are not inclined to burn through it whilst you can still enjoy it then it is a race against the ever rising tide of inflation. The man at the bar was beaming about his bricks and mortar investments being the only way to go. Apparently, the security and capital appreciation leave all other options standing, indeed even ‘buy to let’ is worthwhile.
I was intrigued and encouraged him with another round of drinks which raised his mood still more which allowed some gentle enquiries as to the life of the landlord. I kept it simple “just suppose you inherit a small flat, do you just stick up a sign and go on the internet and the tenants queue up?”
“Well, you could but you need to have a proper contract ready and credit checks made to avoid a clever freeloading squatter”. “Yes, but surely that is not that difficult, buy a pad of contracts and pay for a credit reference check?”
“Yes, but you can’t just pick and choose your tenants. If one appears good but you think they may not be, shall we say desirable, you may wish to politely decline them. It is not that simple, there is a raft of anti-discriminatory law waiting in the wings. You could finish up with a claim before the rent starts!”
“What about safety certificates, gas, electric, fire doors and glass doors which children might run into/through and individual certificates for washing machines and cookers”. “Yes, you’re right but they can be allowable deductions and you have to remember to keep them in date. Not to mention landlord’s liability insurance”.
“So not as easy as the tenant imagines?” “Then there is wear and tear and heating failures and best of all, water coming in
from the flat above when they will not answer the door or have just gone on holiday!”
“We take it as given that the rent gets paid, but this could be subject to Covid and may never be recovered. Maintenance of the block such as new roofing etc is your financial responsibility and the tenant can complain if the flat is not as Let.”
“So Mr. Scrooge, (that was not his name), but it will do, is it all worth it?” “Well you could leave it with an agent but this will add a significant amount to the cost and you are still basically responsible for your little enterprise.”
“Yes of course it is!! But what about fire cladding, what if it has to be replaced?” “I hear owners of blocks have been saying it is your problem, surely that could wipe out a few years of rent?” “I am not sure where I stand on this at the moment.”
“Scrooge’s mood had darkened and he admitted he had sold off a flat recently and of course capital gains took a slice and no less than two recorded delivery letters and six phone calls averaging over an hour’s call waiting time each to sort out ‘mislaid paperwork with HMRC’.”
By this time, he was on his fourth whiskey, and remembered when the police came round as a friend of one of his tenants thought her friend may have been murdered in the flat as she had not been seen for a while. Could we go and look? They went but in the absence of any more evidence did not actually enter as neither he nor the constable wanted to risk being accused of theft!! It turned out the report was made by a person inclined to think in those terms and inform the authorities as appeared appropriate.
It had been a long haul this landlord game, perhaps it was time to sell the other flat but what would he DO WITH THE MONEY?Memoirs of a chat with Scrooge.