Cricket Discussion and Episode Conclusion

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Selection d is by location Tensions could go over for hours and hours nowours, but as a where to dip your toe in the water, I hope it gets us there. I should explain that far to new listeners. I listened to all the previous podcasts and things like that.'s greato. That's wonderful toar. We British particularly, we like certainty and investing doesn't have certainty. Hello and welcome to the Comingly named the Mart and Lewis podcast I do wonder what that's gonna be about. And this is our Question Time episode, where you our ESQs our extra savvy questioners get to ask me your questions on absolutely anything and everything open bracket livingreies in close brackets. And this week, the questions from our ESQs are, I'm self employed, How do I start a pension Can I ask for money back on a kitchen if it's faulty after five years? I'm a beginner investor, canan help me understand exactly what the risk I'm taking is? After that, it's a caller all about his success on making his travel insurance firm pay out after his complaint. Then you ask me what is my biggest money saving faux par and to finish PPS has a PPS play the theme toobe No no more S everybody. Welcome to our Qestion time edition of the podcast where you can ask me questions on anything and everything open brackets within re and closed brackets Now, Matt is still away so I'm delighted. Well, I'm not really delighted. I'm concerned to have in his place from the big issues podcast PPS podcast producer Simon, and those of you who are into politics will understand my concern here because it has been a week of turmoil and volatility in the political world. The prime Minister's job is under threat. The big top man's job is under threat. By the time you're listening to this on Monday, who knows what would have happened? We're recording on Thursday. And one of the things that sparked that, that sparked the crisis was the resignation of three PPSs. Oh yeah, Parliamentary private secretary. Now I don't have three PPSs. I only have podcast producer Simon, but Simon Should I be worried? A coup is underway? Oh no. you and Rosie and Rosie will have this place. We'll be in charge by Monday We've got the numbers. You out a time, Matt's back The three of you. ye. Oh my word, s Simon andat doing the podcast, Rosie doing the fact checking. Let's be honest though, Rosie's going to be really busy. If you two are aning the question, Rosie is going to be interrupting, giving the eyebrow look she gives me when she thinks I've said something slightly wrong or something, but she's going to be doing her eyebrows are going to be going so fast she could be a helicopter taking off withith the amount of errors the two of you have made, you know what? I'm safe in my position I'm staying. Let's get on with some questions That sound a little bit too aggressive. No no one I thought it was nice Heait Enough of all that nonsense. Let's do a question. What have you got for me? So Ingrid in Rchford has got in touch. She says, I am forty eight and have worked freelance all my life I have always paid national insurance, but I don't have any other pension as I've never earned enough to pay into one Am I too late? I'm about to downsize my house and will have some cash should I start a pension Well, I would think so, yes. I mean, I think that's a very obvious thing to do. So first of all, you say've already paid national insurance and don't have any other pensions. so you're insinuating there quite rightly that you will have state pension contribution. and by the time you hit state pension agent, we willll have some money from that. But the state pension is not about giving you a good living once you are into your retirement, it is about giving you a subsistence living and enabling you to you know, get through it once you're into your retirement. And so it is always good if you can, if you want to live more akin to the style that you've had in your working life to be putting some money into your pension Now the truth is the earlier you start, the better. I often use this hideously scary rough rule of thumb which is take your age when you start putting into your pension and that's the percentage of your salary you want to put in for the rest of your life to have a good retirement. So if you start at thirty, it's fifteen, you start at forty, it's twenty, you start at forty eight, it's twenty four percent You're not going to do that I mean, let's all just be honest, you're not going to do that Saving in a pension is a very efficient way to save for later life because the money effectively And we won't talk about the mechanism here is coming from your pre tax income So if you are a twenty percent taxpayer, it costs you, you lose eighty quid in your paypacket to get one hundred pounds in your pension If you're a higher forty percent rate taxpayer, slightly different in Scotland, but we'll go with it anyway on this basis, then it costs you sixty pounds from your paypacket to put one hundred pounds in your pension. If you're a top rate taxpayer, it costs you fifty five pounds to put one hundred pounds in your pension And you're putting that money in an investment and you're hoping it's going to grow. So that would all work. And forty eight, you've got a long time till retirement You know, there's a long time for that money to be able to grow Now the only and I'm only putting this caveat in as I doubt it would apply. the only caveat when it can't be worth it is those who are very close to retirement who are already putting a small amount in, who wouldn't be entitled to the full state pension and would therefore be entitled to the state pension topic called pension credit if they didn't have other income. And that can be the only time where mathematically financially it isn't worth putting a money into a pension for you But at forty eight, if you're going to put money in now and you're going to put some spare money in afterwards, then that should build you up a decent amount and you're getting the tax relief on it. As for where to do it Well, it depends. If you want to get into investing, you do it through a self invested personal pension, which is basically just like an investment fund where you have a huge choice of different investments, you know, whether it's gold funds or commercial property or shares and global trackers and far more, but then you're managing it yourself. If you don't feel comfortable managing it yourself Then on my tesh recently we had a couple of financial advisors and they suggested much simpler Ready madeade portfolios where you answer a few questions about your goals and attitude to risk and your match to a portfolio that's managed on your behalf. The ones they highlighted were AJ Bell's ready madeade pension, which offers three options cautious, pension builduilder and adventurous, an interteractive Investors managed portfolio which matches you two are ranking would be one to ten on the level of risk that you're taking. And there's also Vanguard managed personersonal pension that offers five risk levels from cautious to very adventurous. So really the question when you're doing that is how much input do you want to have? Do you just want to give it a bit and let them do it for you or do you want to be in control of your investments? And if you don't know what you're doing, well you can always start off with them letting them do it for you Do your reading over the years and once you feel confident you could transfer that into a self invested personal pension and started managing it for yourself But for me Yeah. I mean You're saving that money You save it from tax free income. When you get it out, twenty five percent of it will be tax free and the rest of it will be taxed at your marginal rate and you'll be able to do lots of different things with it. And it's absolutely worth doing. And you can, if you want more help about the specifics because once you stop doing this, you can call up money helelper which is funded by a levy on the financial services industry. It's a non goovernmental organization where you can get free one on one impartial guidance about your circumstances to help you further through it. I wish you the best I wish you the best. I hope that gives you That's a pretty full answer I H you covered it all. I hope so. Well, I mean, pensions you could go up for hours and hours and hours, but just as a where to dip your toe in the water, I hope it gets us there Okay, Simon, so we've had one question Regular listeners will absolutely know, we operate on an odd and even system If it's an even number, it's generally a caller. So I presume we're going into a caller now. although I should put a caveat because I know people like technical details. It's an odd and even number system, but we normally only have a maximum of two callers. So if we were to do a week where we had six questions, I would suspect the six question would be a read. But I'm probably explaining this and getting rid of the fourth wall Do you have a fourth walling radio? Is there a fourth Wning radio?' for fourth Wning TV Is there a fourth wall in radio s in In the world of podcasting? I think that has to be a fourth wall. Yeahah. because is it a fourth wall or is it a thirdall? Be were we're only sort of one dimension of voice. It already ye. It could it be a second wall? Shit anyway, haveave you got a caller? Luckily, Nataline Gosport is with us So we've got a call for the next question, as is the itinerary as I understand it. We're joined by Natalie in Gosport and you have a question about junior Iis. Hello Natalie Hello, Hi, thank you for having me on the show. Ture I do have a question please and I'm wondering if you can help me out. So I have recently opened a junior stocks and shares ISA. a nine year old daughter And I'm currently investing thirty pounds a month I've just done two months at the moment, so I'm going very slow. That's good And you're doing what's you know that's called drip feeding. Do you know about that? Yes I do know about it because Ive followed you, yeah. Okay good. So I'll explain it to everyone else. So when you're investing and you put money into the markets, canither if you've got a chunk of money you want to put in, you can either put it all in at once and then it's all crystallized on that day. So whatever price you're buying the fund at particular day, that's the price you buy it and it could go up and down from that point. So that's slightly increasing your volatility or you can do what they call dollar cost averaging or here in the UK, we'll call it pound cost averaging, which is where You say, well, I'm going to put that same amount of money in, but I'm going to do it over a year. So therefore I sort of smooth out the vagaries. If it goes up and I buy in a high bit and then it comes down, well while I might have lose out on the money I put in last month, I'm now buying at a cheaper price this month and it smoothed it all out. So it's a great way to start. Do you carry on with your question cake So I realize with the amount I've got invested at the moment that the value can go up and down But my question is the shares value goes down Will it impact only my investment percentage or will it impact the total I've invested, the entire investment I'm not quite sure I understand your question. Forgive me. canan you explain what you're thinking a bit more Yeah, absolutely. So If put I've put in thirty pounds a month for three months, I've got sixty pounds in there at the moment. And I have had a little check and it's up p sixty three pounds total, which is fantastic. It's gone up As I know, investments can go up and down Not only can will they will go up and down on the short term All right W I lose the the sixty pounds that I've put in or would I lose would I potentially lose the entire thing, which could be a whole sixty three Okay So once your money goes into a fund, the value of this fund is its value. What you paid for it is irrelevant So there's no division of the sixty and the sixty three, if you like. The fact you put sixty in is irrelevant, you now have an asset worth sixty three pounds Now, when you're investing The value can go up and down So If you had a single share, if you bought a share in one company, let's say Well, that company could go bust and if it went bust, you would lose all your money. simple. So the whole sixty three pounds would go Equally, if you bought in a single share, it could suddenly be the next stock market darling and go up one hundred times in value, so your sixty three pounds would suddenly become worth six thousand three hundred pounds But I'm hoping if you've been listening to me as a beginner investor for your child have A share you have a fund Sorry, that's my terminology. as a fund. Can you tell me what your fund is Do you want me to name the the provider? just just the type's good generally. you know, is it It's a vanguard Something thank God. I know. Is it a global tracker or a UK track A global one. Perfect. Yeah. I had a feeling it would be because it sounds like you've listened to the podc. So I'm presuming that you're actually in the MSCI World Index, which was not recommended by me as regulatory reasons means I can't do that by our independent financial advisor we had on the podcast, which was Ed Marshall And that has about thirteen hundred constituent firms from around twenty three countries, though it's heavily weighted in America. So you've got that spread, that diversity of different shares across the world While nothing is impossible, it is absolutely incredibly unlikely for you to lose all of the money becausecause You've got two thousand two hundred shares in there. and what your fund is doing is it's basically giving you a balanced average of what's happened to all of those shares Now the advantage of that is unlike you buy an individual share, the company can go bust. Well, even if one of those companies went bust, you wouldn't lose all your money. And in fact, because it's an index, if one company starts to shrink, as it's measuring the biggest companies that would just drop out of the index and a new company would go into the index. And it's you know just computerized trying to manage it The other side to that is You're never going to get that sort of tenfld in five week stock market darling, everything's gone up type of return. You've done something to spread the risk So technically the answer is All of your sixty three pounds is at risk because that's just the markets. But because you've got a broad spread of fund, what you've done to mitigate that risk is you've diversified You've got your lots and lots of tiny little eggs in that basket. And so if one of those broke, it's not such a big deal because you hope some of the others are going to grow anyway So the technical answer is All the money in there at any point is at risk But risk can also mean growth too So I hope I've explained it. Are you understanding? got I've got through the point Yes, absolutely. I wasn't quite sure, but I think the way you laid it out and explained it now to in my mind Can I Thank you. Can I give you another tip? Your daughter's nine? So this is money that you're locking away for at least nine years, which is perfect time period. So it's money you can afford to lose, not that I hope you do. And it's money that you're lookingc away for at least nine years I wouldn't be looking at the price that often There lies madness, right? Because as I always say with investing There are only four things that matter. The price you buy at, any income it gives you and that type of global return, you'll probably get some income each year. put those and they'll be reinvested and'll buy you more shares. The price you sell at and inflation So if you look day by day, this is what I said earlier, it will drop in price. There will be days it drops in price. there will be months it drops in price. But what you're looking at is over this near ten year period, if we track this back over the last ten years, well, if you'd put that money in ten years ago, you would have three times what you put in now And what we're hoping is you'll have something similar over the next ten years, but during specific months of that, You may end up with less money than you did the previous month And so you sort of, that can play on your mind a little bit. This is a long term thing putting in thirty pounds a month. It's money you can afford to lose, not that I hope you will And therefore there's a bit of there's a bit of just close your eyes for a while If you're not to me Yes, I know. I'm going to isit the temptation to look anymore. I mean, listen, hopefully things will be good and it will go up, but there's no guarantees and of course You know, I talked about this on my TV show recently and it is an important point. If the markets crashed Right, Well, first of all, because of the way you're drip feeding in, it's only the money that you'd got in that would drop and any future money you put in, you'd then be buying at another level, a low eleven, it could go up. But if the market's crashed In the short run, it would look horrible. But if the markets then recover which we hope over a ten year period and over most ten year periods they would have done, then at the end you will still be better off. And it's all never any guarantees. And it's all that this is when people and I love the fact you've done this because you sound like someone who's was nervous about investing and has gone for it hearing that actually For a long period, I should be having a little bit of a risk, but it makes you nerv, doesn't it It certainly does, which is why I'm starting off with such a deam fair low amount at the moment. because I get my confidence with more. But the thing is we in life and we British particularly, we like certainty and investing doesn't have certainty and that puts people off. And I think it is not necessarily for all of your money depending on your attitude to risk, but some exposure to risk can be very helpful. And it sounds like you've started the perfect way. Congratulations on your investing journey. My fingers cross for you because that's all I can do because there's no guarantees that this will work out really well. And thank you for calling Thank you very much for your help. And although Natalie Martin says, don't look at the investments every day, you can look at your email signature now, which I hope says Nataline Gosport Esquire. Yes. You are now an Esquire And you're going to get your badge Natalie. Once we've made the badges we haven't made the badges yet. Once we've made I've heard about these badges and I'm looking forward to it. yeah. And Simon, I'm just checking. you are making a list while Mat's a Yeah I've got a word document that I'm going to send over to him. So yeahave you send me your Be because let's just be hon his call. this dereliction of duty by Professorir doctor Matthew Burnham Esquire in the questQuestion Time podcast I mean, just as we announce that our callers are now called ESQs esquires, extremely savy questioners and that they're going to get a badge, then he goes off on holiday without having ordered the badges as far as I'm aware So I think you know this is putting a huge delay on when the badgies will come in. Words will be had when he returns. Much like investments, Faith in Matthew Burnnon can go up as well as D C it.ite right, I love bit Yes, past performance is know indicicture of future Brilliant. Thank you so much for calling Thank you then by. cheheers you nailed that, Natalie You're great, Natalie. Thank. Well done. Be I you still listening. Yeah I I know you're going to hear it a cou of times, but you are Really? fantastic. yeah. An something you want to say to Martin Yeah. what P probably say now now it's not I'm getting so much braver with what I'm doing I wish I'd done it years before I really do. I realize how quickly time goes and I think, o, I could have had. Ill show ext three years I've done it and I'm delight to hear it and I'm so pleased to know that I've helped. That is genuinely why I keep doing this. I listened to all the previous podcasts and things like that. It's great. It' really. That's wonderful to hear. Thank you Teko.yee By Are you sitting there thinking, Oh, I know what I wanted to ask him? Well, this is your opportunity. If you've got a question, then just send them in to Martin Lewis podcast at bbc. co. uk And please do start them Dar Martin. No, dear M Dear Martin, them O Simon Maybe Simon. Right, Simon. so I presume you've got another question for me. Otherwise, what would be the point of the podcast? I'm here to justify my role. Chris has got in touch. Hi Martin I recently listened to your podcast where you where you shared a success story about a woman who had used Sad Fart to get her daughter's mobile phone replaced. I should explain Sad Fart to new listeners So Sadfart is my way of remembering what your consumer rights are when you buy an item When you buy something It must be of satisfactory quality As described, thats Jasad it. urpose And I cheating slight when I did that Last a reasonable length of time, satisfactory quality as described, fit for purpose and last a reasonable length of time. That is sad fart. If an item fails in any of those, then it is faulty. If you return it within thirty days, you're entitled to a full refund If you return it after that, you're entitled to either a partial refund, a repair, or a replacement. Carry on with the question, Sir. Well so Chris goes on to say it has made him wonder whether he should be pushing back more firmly on a long running issue with his kitchen Just under five years ago, we bought our first home, a new build with a brand new fitted kitchen. After only two to three years, the kitchen units began to deteriorate. The vinyl coating on several doors started peeling away from the MDF backing, seemingly due to normal exposure to water around the sinks Recently, I contacted the kitchen manufacturer to ask about replacing the doors. Their response, as expected was that I was now outside there two year warranty period So they wouldn't help at the time I accepted this and started looking at alternatives res spraying, which cost two to three thousand pounds, replacing the door six K or a full kitchen for ten thousand pounds. So your advice has the potential to save us a lot of money. So my question is using SadFAat, should a kitchen reasonably be expected to last longer than five years? And if so, what's the right wording I could use to challenge the manufacturer and push for a repair or replacement? Thanks for the invaluable advice you share and fingers crossed, this might be one for the podcast. Well, if nothing else we've delivered that it is one for the podcast and you become an ESQ an extremely savvy questioner I think it's worth opening the door on this, the kitchen door, sorry although I think youre it's certainly it's greatay it's gray edges. it's cuss for me. You are certainly still within the time when you can complain about this That's the first thing I would say. You know you within the statute of limitations, you within the six years, you can put in a complaint about this to the retailer. and that's absolutely fine and I'll do it as soon as possible. How long they should last and the proof that this is down to the way that they were built because we need to go into this. the key bit of this is last a reasonable length of time. That's it's the arty of the fart that is crucial in this bit And a reasonable length of time is a subjective thing. The subtle definition here is that the item was built in a way that it would last a reasonable length of time. So clearly, if you had taken an axe to it, well, it would have lasted a reasonable length of time for the treatment that it got. So there is always a subjective element of how much of this is normal wear and tear and how much of this is the item not being built in the right way I would certainly if I were you to the retailer I would Either do it in writing because it's easy to express yourself in writing or I would go informally if you feel comfortable I would from point one on this, I would be explaining that you're doing this under the Consumer Rights Act which is where Sadfart comes from And I would say under the Consumer Rights Act, as a retailer, you are responsible that the item has lasted a reasonable length of time as of satisfactory quality. I don't believe mine has. I would then be and obviously you write it better than that. I would then Think what you want. So for example, you've said that resraying would cost two to three thousand pounds That would seem quite a decent start point to say, So having looked at the available remedies for this to be repaired, it seems to me The cheapest and most efficient one is respraying, and I would like you to either sort out pay for the respraying as I don't believe that this has been of satisfactory quality and lasted a reasonable length of time. I bought an expensive kitchen from you. I would expect it to last longer on this basis. Now, what I can't do because I have no expertise in it is tell you whether the vinyl coating on the doors peeling away from the MDF backing that seemingly due to normal exposure is is something that should happen or we don't want it to happen, but it is normal to happen or not. So nothing I am doing in my answer is making a value judgment on whether you are right or wrong I am just and whether it has lasted a reasonable length of time or not as I don't feel I have the expertise to do that It is about how I would approach this to give you the maximum chance of the retailer coming back in order to give you some of the money Ultimately, if they say no onlyn option is to go to court. You could go to money claim online, which is the small claims court version, but you have to think, I mean, even though it could be put into a higher court, it generallyly wouldn't be. you have to think whether you're willing to do that. And I think it'd be far better, you know if you and the retailer could come up with some compromise solution on the back of this, that would of course be better for all of you But they may say no and you may go to court and you I think there is a perfectly legitimate chance that you would lose this. So I'd start softly softly and see if there's a nice halfway house that you could go through. If there is anyone listening who has more expertise on kitchens than me and wants to say whether they think this is a reasonable length of time or isn't a reasonable length of time, We'd love to hear from you. maybe we'll mention in future pot. And Chris get in touch and tell us how it works out. Please do And it's our even number now. So that has to be a caller, Simon. Not just a caller. I'm delighted to say it's a success story. Love a success. L of success. Abel from Moseley is whereos now. Habble hello on Jan Ai I had to visit a doctor abroad So I had to use my traveling server. So I made a claim. And they they us for my bank details Okay, until then then the day, the weeks passed on and They never pay Okay, so what I did That's remembering one of the podcasts that They should be As point into the ombudsman if they are not resolving any complaints So I file a complaint I was telling them It's been interal months Since I wrad my my request for refunding the medical expenses, It was a prove And I got anser So I threatened to go to the Ombussman. The result, the very next day after breaking the And I got a call from Vura. And it said, okay, sorry about that We are going to you find your medical expenses right now We are going to pay you ninety percent interest And we are going to pay you a compensation. In the end. I got pay like one hundred and twenty percent more than the oriready now claim value, getting their compensation loan Oh How wonderful, I'm so pleased to hear it. So yes, you are abel, but you are also very able. to do that and to get a result. So this is a really important lesson for everybody to understand. You know, The first thing I always say when it comes to any form of complaint and even better in a regulated complaint like this, which is in the financial services Always work out what resolution you want, knowow what you want, know how you want it to be fixed. Quite easy in this case, you want to be fixed by giving you the compensation that you should be due in your travel insurance, making your claim go forward If you don't get that, and again, I don't want to encourage people on spurious claims, but if you think you're being unfairly treated, it is worth you understanding that if you go to the financial ombudsman, then effectively it can cost a firm up to six hundred fifty pounds just because you went to the Ombudsman And what that means is In many cases, if you let them know you're going to go to the Ombudsman and they know that this is borderline. It's often cheaper for them just to sort it out with you than to pay the cost of you going to the Ombudsman which is why my second stage once they've said no to you It's often rather than going straight to the ombudsman, it's of worth saying to them This is what I want. this is my final resolution, and I am going to go to the Ombudsman if you don't do it Because firms try sort of effectively through legal ees say, we're absolutely right, but you can go to the Ombsman because they have to, but can go to the Ombudsman if you need to And what you need to say is I know my rights I'm going to the Ombudsman and I know it's going to cost you if I do go to the Ombudsman, so you might really want to settle it in that case. And that is exactly what you have done. And I'm so delighted that you did it because of listening to the podcast Thank you so much. Yes. Thanks to you. And also I wanted to say something about your previous year New Year resolution Which one Pantandes. Oh Santand Okay. It was a strong ost that the end of the world. I know, I know I do know this. Just just is a mental hiccup. So where are you from? Where's the accent from originally? frompan. Okay, you're Spanish. Okay, so you say it again for me.. Sometim that But if I can't say it like that because it looks like I'm doing an impressive if say like that. So let me try and do it with an English way and see what Santander. Yeah quite better, quite better. Okay dg it in there. All right, I'll take it. I love it. Thank you so much for calling and for the language lesson, it's much appreciated. Right, Simon. now at this point in the podcast, we tend to have a question that's either funny or as skew or a scance or not on the money saving topic. This is the As me anythingthing bit brackets within Reason Close brackets. So do you have something for me? Yeah, well I knew you'd be a fan of a funny question. So had to search through the inbox. Yeah. And we got this one from Chris in Liverpool. Hi, Martin, open brackets, I'm Matt. but I'll let it slide Chris. It's fine to say I'm Matt. We would love someone to do An Matt and Simon at some point during Simon's stint. But then you're not actually with us next week. so forget that. No, I'm going to two weddings this year and they're both next week. Oh wow, That's fine, right. So Chris's question, what would you say is your biggest money saving faux somethingomething we'd all be shocked to hear you do. Imagine if it was the money saving expert who was on the energy price cap or didn't max out his ISR allowance. You're good, but you're not perfect. So what money saving crimes are you guilty of? Thanks for everything you do. I can't wait for the autobiography and the nights hood when the time comes., Thankk you, Chris I did notice the other day that by accident I have been on the energy price cat for the last three months. No, of course I haven't, that'd be ridiculous You should have seen Rosie's face to that I was Oh, I was too glad to have a coronry on the back of here. I have not. I am not on the energy price gap and I have maxed my ISR allowance out. so you can all rest as certain Oh my goodness, what am I going to say? Well, obviously if I've ever had a really big money saving phuxot, I'm I mean I just can't admit it and I also can't think of it, but I'm sure there probably has been something. so I have a ponchant for expxensive hot chocolate. I think I'm prepared to admit that. do like that is my treat. although I'm more worried about spending calories on that particularly. so I do go for like an almond or a haze not with slightly lower calories else. So I actually How let I have to phrase that different way. I actually told this story when I was getting my baFter the other day because it has to be said like that. because they were asking me, comeome on, you must have spent something on impulse that you didn't get When I sold Money saaving Expert back in twenty twelve, I got that question so often, What are you going to spend? You must splurge on something that I deliberately bought two things primarily so I could answer that question They were a vandergraft generator Do you know want one of those is, Simon Not a clue You did it in physics at school. It's this big metal ball that static electricity charges up on and it can give you a static electric shock and it can make your hair stand on end. That's why I wouldn't know about it. Yeah. So it's called a Vander Graf generator. I bought it off eBay. I think it was it was very substantially less than one hundred quid And I bought a thehermine. Do you know what a themine is? Now I have heard the word thereamin. So this is the electrical musical instrument. It's like a stick and you put something there it it makes a sound. and' while it isn't actually the music of Star Trek, it is sort of like the It does that type of thing, but theermamine's now gone because it didn't work very well and I couldn't do anything with it. So I splurged on those, both very substantially des than and one hundred quid My other thing I will have to admit and she does listen to it is When my daughter was born I said Third You know, to teach her about money, I would buy her everything she needs but not necessarily everything she wants. Unfortunately, she has superpowers with eyes that look at me And I may be just a little bit weaker in my discipline with my daughter than I thought I would be when she was a baby in my arms. But hey, I bet you can forgget me for that Okay now we're at the end of the podcast and you've asked me the funny one. but I remember we had a chat last week and thinking while you're here You know, Matt and I we have our thing You know, the sort of Bickering big brother little brother thing What is going be your thing while you're in doing question T? And then it came in an epiphanyow PPS We've already talked about PPS in one way, but PPS of course, is also the additional postcript after your first PS. The final thing, the PPS, the extra at the end. So I called you the other day and said, I think you should come up with something extra on the end that is yours What is your PPS PPS? Well, I thought with my little extra time, I would this podcast is all about you answering people's questions. Yes. but I thought we could carry on a theme of exploring some of the loves of your life. Okay. lastast week, one of the big loves of your life, your family. we had Laba on. It was very nice. Another big love for your life, Me and Rosie. We're on. get to speak to us every week a real joy to you, I'm sure. a joy you. A third love of your life lo it. C I like it. The third love of your life is, of course, cricket. I love cricket. One of the perks of working at F fiveive Live is occasionally thereough. cricket is bobbing about. England fast bowler Mark Wood was in the office the other day. So I got him to ask you a question. Hi, Martin, England, cricket, I'm Mark Wood here one for you, who is the best England cricketer that you've seen live And it' see a fzball Just M So let me say this categorically. Thankk you, Simon for that question. Categorically I can say one hundred percent, my favorite cricketer that we have ever had on the Question Time podcast is Mark Wood. And here's a fast boulder So and I mean that from the bottom of my heart, and I am a fan. I mean, you're amazing But I need to answer if I'm going full on When I was young it would have been both them Now it's it's between stokes and root It's gott to be between stokes and roots I mean, I love Ben Stokes' spirit. I mean what he can do at the end of a match, you know, he is a genuine match winner based on his And when you watch him live, you can kind of see the force of nature. Yeah, the kind of command he can have of a whole stadium. Yeah. and that's what does it. But he wins matches based on his attitude and the way he can just bring everybody across. But then you've got Rot Root is a beautiful player I mean he's a beautiful player and he's scored the most runs ever by an English cricketer and his's very second most ever by anybody. I mean, that's hugely impressive. and I also am always impressed by the way he holds himself and the way when he talks to the public, He seems to be an incredibly nice man and a thoughtful man Sts are root, steps are root R Move on. He gets a big up. Well also I'm not having to go at Rosie or Matt here. They don't seem to keep records as much as I'd like. To my knowledge, Matt Wood is the first person to have won the Cricket World Cup and be awarded in the SQ He is. Yeah, Matt would Eat SQ. I think we know which is more valuable. Yeah Yeah.. We we don't need say out loud. Does he get a badge? Well, he's eligible to one, I think. is. I think they'll have to discuss that with Matt. And that, everybody seems a very good way to end this podcast. Thank you so much, Simon. Thank you so much to Silent Rosie. If you don't know who Silent Rosie is, we've mentioned her in previous pods, you'll need to go back and do your research And thank you to everybody, all the ESQs who have got in touch I'll you next week And that's it for this week' Question Time. Don't forget to subscribe so you know when we release a new episode. We put out a new Question timee episode each Monday alongside the bigig topopic podcast with Adrian on Thursdays Aren't you lucky? two doses of money saving tips and tricks a week