...further to my previous post, I forgot to mention one funny thing. We went to one restaurant here in Manchester which specializes in Baltic and Polish cuisine. There, we have had Kanapinis beer. It is unfiltered, and it tastes slightly 'weird'. Well, we, the Czech beer snobs, thought that maybe it's just how beer is made in Lithuania, or that the beer suffered some taste loss because it had to travel a long distance to get here.
Well, no. It is a cannabis beer. Seriously!
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(By the way: have I mentioned what my Lithuanian friends have told me once? They drink warm beer during winter. It appears to be not even room temperature - the beer is actually warmed before drinking! Well... I am sure I want to try this one day, but I am not so sure I will like it...)
Saturday, 12 March 2016
1. We went to see Manchester International Film Festival. We've seen two blocks of short films: student films and animations.
The students films were surprisingly good; there were two best films. One of them was about an Afghani girl who was injured by an accident and then found by German soldiers, which in Afghanistan is a big problem, because while saving her life, the foreign men touched her (oh what a scandal). The other best film was about a Kyrgyz girl who is going to get married, and her favourite horse will be slaughtered for the food for the wedding. The best thing about this film is that the authors kept it surprisingly 'civil', without emotional pressure and things like that.
The animated films were... animated. Some of them funny, some of them weird, The best one was Mexican 31 min film Revoltoso, which had cubist-like 'puppets' and was visually really impressive.
2. I have finally got my new shoes! These. I looove them. My husband's money and bank account are finally paying off!
3. We have seen some anti-EU campaigners. A guy told us that 'the UK needs to leave the EU because majority of our law is made in Brussels' and that the UK should re-establish its democracy and be a sovereign nation again. This shows a very deep misunderstanding of how law is made in this country.
Then asked us what we thought and what would be our vote. 'We don't have right to vote,' we said. 'Where are you from,' he asked. So we told him. His next question was stunning: 'Is Czech Republic in EU?'
Like, seriously? Are you protesting against it or not? How can you protest against something if you have no idea about it? Oh my...
4. On Monday morning, we've spent more than 20 minutes waiting for a bus. By the time the bus arrived, I was frozen and furious.
The problem is that when a bus is this late, there are of course many people waiting for it on every bus stop. Many of these people want to buy weekly tickets, esp. on Monday morning. The more late the bus is, the longer it takes to sell all the tickets. Therefore, the more delayed the bus becomes, which makes the next stops even more overcrowded, and then... well, you get the idea.
I've decided I would write ti (i) the city council, and (ii) our MP. She (or maybe one of her side-kicks) puts some leaflets under our door pretty much every weekend, so it is time for her to start working on improving our life!
5. My husband ordered some stuff over internet. The stuff was apparently sent by Royal Mail in a neat package which did not fit in our mail box. Therefore, we got a small card saying: Packet is in xxx. I nearly threw it away with all the spam we get every day. (We get loads and loads of takeaway restaurants menus, advertisements for kids' clothes outlets and other 'important' things.) However, I had a closer look on this particular spam, and finally noticed that it was not a spam. Therefore, I went to have a look to xxx (a pretty obvious 'secret' place where you can hide stuff and which I won't give away just in case our mail man decides to do the same thing again), and there it was, my husband's package.
Funny indeed. A mail man would never do this in the Czech Republic, because if he would, the homeless people and/or some thieves would find it and steal it straight away, no matter how well it would be hidden.
6. Everyone knows that Irish people celebrate St Patrick's day. I guess that no one (or nearly) knows that Welsh people celebrate St David's day.
To celebrate St Patrick's day, you wear green things and drink a lot (a lot). To celebrate St David's day, you carry leek and/or a daffodil. Don't ask me why.
And by the way, there is leek on one of the pound coins. (Erm, I thought it was some kind of weird agave... please don't tell Welsh people...)
(Btw2: If anyone is interested in current pound designs: http://www.royalmint.com/discover/uk-coins/coin-design-and-specifications/one-pound-coin)
The students films were surprisingly good; there were two best films. One of them was about an Afghani girl who was injured by an accident and then found by German soldiers, which in Afghanistan is a big problem, because while saving her life, the foreign men touched her (oh what a scandal). The other best film was about a Kyrgyz girl who is going to get married, and her favourite horse will be slaughtered for the food for the wedding. The best thing about this film is that the authors kept it surprisingly 'civil', without emotional pressure and things like that.
The animated films were... animated. Some of them funny, some of them weird, The best one was Mexican 31 min film Revoltoso, which had cubist-like 'puppets' and was visually really impressive.
2. I have finally got my new shoes! These. I looove them. My husband's money and bank account are finally paying off!
3. We have seen some anti-EU campaigners. A guy told us that 'the UK needs to leave the EU because majority of our law is made in Brussels' and that the UK should re-establish its democracy and be a sovereign nation again. This shows a very deep misunderstanding of how law is made in this country.
Then asked us what we thought and what would be our vote. 'We don't have right to vote,' we said. 'Where are you from,' he asked. So we told him. His next question was stunning: 'Is Czech Republic in EU?'
Like, seriously? Are you protesting against it or not? How can you protest against something if you have no idea about it? Oh my...
4. On Monday morning, we've spent more than 20 minutes waiting for a bus. By the time the bus arrived, I was frozen and furious.
The problem is that when a bus is this late, there are of course many people waiting for it on every bus stop. Many of these people want to buy weekly tickets, esp. on Monday morning. The more late the bus is, the longer it takes to sell all the tickets. Therefore, the more delayed the bus becomes, which makes the next stops even more overcrowded, and then... well, you get the idea.
I've decided I would write ti (i) the city council, and (ii) our MP. She (or maybe one of her side-kicks) puts some leaflets under our door pretty much every weekend, so it is time for her to start working on improving our life!
5. My husband ordered some stuff over internet. The stuff was apparently sent by Royal Mail in a neat package which did not fit in our mail box. Therefore, we got a small card saying: Packet is in xxx. I nearly threw it away with all the spam we get every day. (We get loads and loads of takeaway restaurants menus, advertisements for kids' clothes outlets and other 'important' things.) However, I had a closer look on this particular spam, and finally noticed that it was not a spam. Therefore, I went to have a look to xxx (a pretty obvious 'secret' place where you can hide stuff and which I won't give away just in case our mail man decides to do the same thing again), and there it was, my husband's package.
Funny indeed. A mail man would never do this in the Czech Republic, because if he would, the homeless people and/or some thieves would find it and steal it straight away, no matter how well it would be hidden.
6. Everyone knows that Irish people celebrate St Patrick's day. I guess that no one (or nearly) knows that Welsh people celebrate St David's day.
To celebrate St Patrick's day, you wear green things and drink a lot (a lot). To celebrate St David's day, you carry leek and/or a daffodil. Don't ask me why.
And by the way, there is leek on one of the pound coins. (Erm, I thought it was some kind of weird agave... please don't tell Welsh people...)
(Btw2: If anyone is interested in current pound designs: http://www.royalmint.com/discover/uk-coins/coin-design-and-specifications/one-pound-coin)
Wednesday, 2 March 2016
Ever heard of a concept called 'equitable ownership'?
OK, so this equitable ownership. In every 'normal' country, if you have stuff, you just have it. Period. Not in the UK. There is a thing called 'trust' (also an equity thing) which means that if you are a trustee, you own something, which was given to you by someone (settlor) but this guy did not quite give it to you - s/he gave you on someone else's (beneficiary's) behalf.
In other words: there was someone (settlor) who started all this. and owned a thing. He wanted someone else to have the thing. However, for some reason it is no possible that settlor gives the thing directly to that someone else. So the settlor chooses a trustee, who gets the thing instead of the someone else, and the someone else becomes beneficiary. If there is any profit in having the thing, or if the trustee sells the thing, s/he cannot keep the money, the beneficiary gets it.
It sounds fairly easy when you put it like this, but if you consider all the other problems, it becomes a mess. First thing is: legally - in common law - the true owner is the trustee. If the thing is, let's say, a piece of land, the trustee is the one recorded in the land register. However, he's at the same time not the owner, because equitable owner is the beneficiary (who is not owner in common law). So both these guys are owners, and are not owners.
Second thing: This is found nowhere in written statutes (Acts), it just happened and developed in the case law of equity courts. There is literally no written law talking about or codifying this thing. Still, it is very real. It happens every day. And because trusts and all this is equity business (...and has 'nothing to do' with common law), it takes precedence over common law, it doesn't have to be written, it just is. (And btw, have I mentioned that common law may mean three totally different things?)
I always thought that owning stuff is pretty much a binary thing - either you have it, or you don't have it. Well, in England and Wales (no idea how this works in Scotland or NI...), this has more levels than just plain 1 and 0.
It's a bit like Schrödinger ownership, if you allow me one physics students' joke.
OK, so this equitable ownership. In every 'normal' country, if you have stuff, you just have it. Period. Not in the UK. There is a thing called 'trust' (also an equity thing) which means that if you are a trustee, you own something, which was given to you by someone (settlor) but this guy did not quite give it to you - s/he gave you on someone else's (beneficiary's) behalf.
In other words: there was someone (settlor) who started all this. and owned a thing. He wanted someone else to have the thing. However, for some reason it is no possible that settlor gives the thing directly to that someone else. So the settlor chooses a trustee, who gets the thing instead of the someone else, and the someone else becomes beneficiary. If there is any profit in having the thing, or if the trustee sells the thing, s/he cannot keep the money, the beneficiary gets it.
It sounds fairly easy when you put it like this, but if you consider all the other problems, it becomes a mess. First thing is: legally - in common law - the true owner is the trustee. If the thing is, let's say, a piece of land, the trustee is the one recorded in the land register. However, he's at the same time not the owner, because equitable owner is the beneficiary (who is not owner in common law). So both these guys are owners, and are not owners.
Second thing: This is found nowhere in written statutes (Acts), it just happened and developed in the case law of equity courts. There is literally no written law talking about or codifying this thing. Still, it is very real. It happens every day. And because trusts and all this is equity business (...and has 'nothing to do' with common law), it takes precedence over common law, it doesn't have to be written, it just is. (And btw, have I mentioned that common law may mean three totally different things?)
I always thought that owning stuff is pretty much a binary thing - either you have it, or you don't have it. Well, in England and Wales (no idea how this works in Scotland or NI...), this has more levels than just plain 1 and 0.
It's a bit like Schrödinger ownership, if you allow me one physics students' joke.
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