That's the retirement plan sorted; now, where did I leave the cottage?
Since no-one in the real world appears to be interested in anything serious or important any more - to the point where the elephants roam freely between any rooms they see fit - the business column decided to throw the head up this week and have a little belated May Day bank holiday fun.
First, the news that one in five of us have apprently ‘lost track’ of one or more pension pots.
Since having one such pot is a major acheivement around here, especially if it has something in it, the desk viewed this report as somewhat akin to a rock or movie star losing track of how many homes they have - a not uncommon complaint apparently.
Anyway, then the desk got to thinking about its own parlous pension postion stretching back to the mid-80s when the ‘career’ began.
Then, we were told that opting out for a personal pension plan was the best thing that could ever have happened to us; that we could carry it everywhere with and it would ‘go and grow’ until we retired as millionaires at age 44.
Okay, they never promised us that bit... but it was going to be good.
As long as your next employer - and and the next and so on - agreed to pay into it which many, including mine at that time, didn’t.
So, many people end up with a totally fragmented pension history. Oh, and then the government decided, somewhere in the middle of losing a parent and the arrival of a second baby that it was actually probably for the best if you opted back in to the state pension...
On a lighter note, there was apparently consternation in London this week at the publication of - wait for it - the 2018 Global Dry Cleaning Index.
This vital piece of research revealed that, despite London’s avowed determination to be the most expensive city in the world for absolutely everything, Oslo, Norway, is, in fact, the dearest place on the planet to get your whistle and flute done at £37.02 a shout.
London, on the other hand, could only manage a slackmouthed 17th place with a paltry £15.06 - less that half the rate extracted by the wily Norwegians.
Needless to say, a combined committee comprising members of the Worshipful Company of Drapers, Haberdashers and Merchant Taylors (sic) has now been established to see how the Scandanavians stitched them up, so to speak...