UFO Info Week-End

In one recent report by a financial regulator average premiums are put at pounds 112

In one recent report by a financial regulator, average premiums are put at pounds 112 a month, so the average extra “take” would be lower. They are actually bettered by a few pension companies, including some in the table below. This means life offices with high persistency rates, like NPI and Standard Life, take higher average amounts in charges than their charging levels might suggest.Is it possible to estimate whether companies charge more than they should from the policies they sell? One way is to construct a hypothetical “benchmark” plan, with charges of only an initial 5 per cent bid/offer spread and an annual fund management charge of 1 per cent.Such charges are reasonable. The table also shows an “average” plan from a previous survey which would bring an average take of pounds 2,100. The average company “take” for such a benchmark plan would be pounds 1,470. With companies like Allied Dunbar, Skandia, Scottish Equitable and Sun Life, investors who halt contributions into their plans after two years would get very poor annual returns of around 3 per cent.What companies actually take from their planholders on average will also depend on their “persistency rates”, the percentage of people who “persist” with a policy over given periods of time.The table shows that three-year “persistencies” range from 89.6 per cent with Standard Life (this means only 10 per cent of plans have lapsed after three years) to 58.9 per cent with Sun Life (almost 40 per cent of plans lapse after three years).It is worth noting that the income received by companies from the policies they sell generally increases with the number of years they are kept up (though Allied Dunbar’s plateau out early).

An old restaurant, probably the campest in London, with fabulous starters and formal knife-and-fork main courses. Get a table upstairs if you can, where a nice man will serenade you with torch songs.. Planning for retirement is an essential part of every individual’s overall financial strategy. Private pensions, or stakeholder variants of them as proposed by the current Government, are one way of achieving this. But research carried out for The Independent shows policyholders may be paying up to pounds 400m a year more than they should into poor-value plans.
This is caused by the whopping charges many companies impose on the private pensions they sell. In particular, those who are forced to halt contributions into their schemes in the early years can be left with minimal lump sums with which to buy an income at retirement.The table alongside this story illustrates what returns policyholders might get, and what companies may take in charges when premiums are halted early on in the life of the policy and when they keep going until maturity.For example, with Equitable Life you could count on a return of over 8 per cent on your premiums whenever you stopped them, assuming annual investment growth of 9 per cent.As one moves down the list, charges become heavier and generally more front-end loaded – that is, levied at the start of a policy rather than throughout its life.

Where your average curry is a kind of comfort food for slouching in front of the telly with, this is grown-up gear that really deserves sitting up to table and concentrating on: shellfish that’s juicy not just rubbery, meat that melts, choices of rice that don’t just look different but taste different too, some of the best breads in town Of course, it comes at at grown-up prices, too. Cheapskates can try a lunch buffet at pounds 15 a head, but expect to pay something between pounds 40-50 in the evening. Great for snacky things, busy late at night as it also functions as a popular bar – though the weekend live music might not suit everyone.Star of India 154 Old Brompton Rd, SW5 (0171-373 2901) or “Asterisk of India” as it’s locally known, due to the supernova emblazoned on its facade. Deservedly popular Sunday lunch buffet: book in advance, as you’ve not a chance of walking in off the street.Cafe Lazeez 93-95 Old Brompton Rd, SW7 (0171-581 9993) “Modern” Indian brasserie with minimalist decor and the odd touch of ornately carved wood; grilled foods to die for. Staff are punctilious and well-turned-out, food a bit on the rich side, but very “occasiony”.Malabar 27 Uxbridge St, W8 (0171-727 8800) Plain decor, small tables, posh clientele; good for indecisive parents, as the thalis (small quantities of mixed foods) are excellent. But it’s worth it.La Porte des Indes, 32 Bryanston St, W1 (0171-224 0055)CURRYING FAVOURFour other Indian restaurants suitable for impressing visiting parents. Expect little change from pounds 40 a headRed Fort 77 Dean St, W1 (0171-437 2115) Despite its positioning in the middle of chromeland, this plushy red-and-pink palace with its ornate gilded wall decorations is pleasantly restful.

They will love it: from the wonderfully draped lady who greets you at the door, through the absurdly ornate frieze-covered bar (with excellently deadening acoustics), up the fashion-parade stairs where water trickles over a wall of black-and-white marble two storeys high, through the cupola’ed dining-room to the orchid pressed into female hands at the coat check, they will be wide-eyed with delight.And they won’t be wrong. La Porte des Indes, a very swish restaurant in the southern reaches of Marylebone, specialises in Franco-Indian cuisine.
This is the kind of place to take your parents to show off just how sophisticated you’ve become since your mum used to spit on Kleenexes and rub your face with them. The Brits, genetically programmed to be suspicious of unfamiliar foodstuffs, would still be languishing in Brown Windsor Hell if it weren’t for the Indian sub-continent: our array of foreign eateries can be traced back to chips with curry sauce

Curry is as British as football hooliganism Or not. We tend to forget that the French had an equally long and noble history of subjugating other races, and had their own presence in India, though the wide-flung and relatively tiny territories they held – Chandernargor, Yanaan. Pondicherry, Mahe and Karikal – would suggest that they were as much there to annoy the British as anything else.

The Raj has had a far-reaching effect on the British way of life, even if it’s rather different from the one originally envisaged. The heroine is not a drippy Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, but a feisty thistle. And the story opens not with “once upon a…”, but with a startlingly lyrical “Long, long ago, before time was caught and kept in clocks…” The beautifully fragile and delicate illustrations perfectly complement the other-worldliness of the tale.Illustrations, left to right: one boy and his balloon by Jez Alborough; an angel from Bible Stories for the Very Young by Sally Grindley; multi- coloured dream world in More by Emma Chichester Clark; and detail from The Paradise Garden by Colin Thompson. An enchanted garden and a romantic fairy story, as moving and as memorable as any of the classics There are some welcome differences, though. Can you? Of course you can, which is why this warm and amusing story will be enjoyed by children of all ages. Mossman has a great eye for character, too (not easy in a monkey): the put-upon uncle, the dorkish brother.