Saturday, February 18, 2017

[jules' pics] Skipton

Blogging while drinking coffee, on another foggy morning in Settle. 

When in Japan we liked to boast about the high humidity. My Dad was unimpressed, pointing out that British humidity is often well over 100% -when it is foggy. Our Japanese friends didn't seem to understand the concept of ground level cloud, and I wondered if this explained the low-level cloud problems in MIROC climate model. After a couple of dodgy experiences recently, I have decided that fog, spectacles, and mountain biking (or fell running) are a dangerous cocktail, but the internets told me that contact lenses now cater to most types of eyesight. So, on Thursday I headed to Skipton, our local megalopolis. As well as hosting about 5 opticians, there are too many charity shops to count, a Poundland(!), and the rest of the town is occupied by coffee shops. Oh, and a canal.

Appointment at 8:30am, the day started at "Bean Loved".


Optician appointment completed and two hours until the train home it was time to count coffee beans, all within about 3 minutes walk... not very exciting pictures, but photographic evidence is required...



TripAdvisor suggests I only found about half of them - perhaps the others are down side-streets - and I didn't even start on the tea shops, as that's a whole other world (although they also sell coffee, of course).

A little further away, but worth the extra 2 minutes walk is the one we call the Upcycled Bean - because it has foolishly upcycled decor... it is actually the cafe attached to Coffee Care, a coffee supplier...



And finally, the Canal!!!


To be fair, there are other shops in Skipton, but you have to seek them out. We have had good fish and chips, bought a good bed, and I even found a fabric shop (although it was mostly selling upholstery fabric). 





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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 2/18/2017 10:22:00 AM

10 comments:

guthrie said...

Why the exclamation mark at the Poundland? They are ubiquitous anywhere where normal people shop, because people don't have money to spend elsewhere.

jules said...

Because! It's so ExciTinG! As you probably didn't notice in my last post, we enjoyed the one in Blackpool. Sadly, in Skipton I didn't have time to go in, because I prioritised spending 1.5 UKP in Oxfam over 1 UKP in Poundland(!). Maybe next time!!!

EliRabett said...

Poundland, dollar stores, euroland are great when you are someplace for a couple of months or even a year and need a can opener, a cup, a plate, whatever that you are not going to drag back with you and wont feel guilty about abandoning. OTOH the wine is best avoided.

crandles said...

Don't suppose you would care to sell your no holding in POIL08 at 1 and sell POIL10 at 2 to get double the rate of return at FX?

James Annan said...

Managed to remember the password, the advantage of using a trivial one! Using an old dead email address there. So I seem to have lots of no coupons which should pay a dollar but not until 2020 or so, right?

crandles said...

Yes that is right, and thanks.

I didn't think it made sense for you to buy back your POIL08 unless you also sold POIL10. I thought it possible you would just sell some more POIL10 rather than doing both. Just doing POIL08 did not seem to make sense as a possibility.

James Annan said...

But I can only buy yes at 7p, can't I? Not much of a deal.

crandles said...

I was expecting you to "sell POIL10 at 2" ie increase your no holding there. 2% over 4 years is only .5% pa but it is better than the 0.25% you were holding on to with no position in POIL08 and it is better than 0% for holding FX$ (assuming no opportunity cost loss as you are not active to find better deals).

It seems to be against the rules to suggest transferring FX$ from one account to another so I wasn't trying to suggest that. Instead was suggesting that if you weren't active, 0.5% pa return was better than 0.25%pa.

I would also suggest selling your positive Tran holding as I would expect that will be judged no at the end of the year.

James Annan said...

Oh I see what you mean now. Not enough of a market trader to have thought about such arbitrages! I sort of gave up on ideosphere once it became clear that it suffered from such a time horizon problem (ie it's easy to get your cash tied up with a guaranteed return of 0.x% pa)

crandles said...

Yes, the time horizon certainly affects trading value which makes interpretation of the price more complex. There are things that could be done about that, perhaps allow successful traders to borrow FX$ at some low rate of interest. This might ensure a lower interest rate and make the time horizon much further out.

So having freed up some FX$ from a low rate of return, are you going to leave them earning nothing or invest them somewhere?