Are Pre-Nups Worth The Paper They’re Written On ?

I had something else lined up for today but as I read about the latest high-profile divorce, I got angrier and angrier and just had to comment.

Lisa Tchenguiz, 43 is a sister of the Tchenguiz brothers, Iranian Jews, who after an initial guarantee from their father, went on to create one of the UK’s largest property empires.

In an average month the brothers spend about £100m on property and they also bid on most of the bigger London properties that come to market, such as the £350m Berkeley Square Estate and the £300m Shell-Mex House. They are worth hundreds of millions of pounds. And that’s just the brothers – the old man of the family is also a wealthy individual.

So six years ago when Lisa was contemplating marriage to a certain Mr Vivian Imerman (see ‘happy’ couple above), who had already made a few bob in the food and drinks industry, Lisa’s brothers, persuaded the marrying couple to have a pre- nuptial contract, essentially to protect the Tchenguiz family fortune. Now just how their sister marrying might have put the family fortune at risk I don’t know unless Lisa was due to inherit a slice of the family pie if either her father or brothers died. Anyway, Mr Immerman happily signed the pre-nup and that was that.

Nine years later, the warring couple are battling it out in London’s divorce courts and she wants a cool £100 million to walk away (the judge said it was the worst case he’d come across in 30 years !!). They’ve already racked up £5 million in legal fees.

He’s grabbed her bullet-proof Rolls Royce and her brothers have thrown him out of the Mayfair offices they allowed him to use and she’s had her brothers’ IT specialists hack into his computer and printed off thousands of documents purporting to show his true wealth which, unusually in a divorce battle, he’s not trying to hide.

Despite the pre-nup protecting her family’s fortune, she wants £100 million of her husband’s hard earned cash.

Now I know that until recently, pre-nups were not readily accepted in UK divorce cases and if they were considered, it was only to give the presiding judge a view on what the respective parties were trying to protect. However, pre-nups are now being given greater credence but just how a guy can be ‘forced’ into signing a pre-nup to protect his wife-to-be’s assets and then be taken to the cleaners by her when he’s made some money is beyond me.

Or am I just being naïve and chauvinistic or slightly bitter from a previous relationship which cost me the proverbial arm and a leg?

The Stress Time

Just been reading that 7.25am (although it’s 8.25am in the UK) is the most stressful time for parents as that’s presumably when the kitchen is full of kids grabbing the last few pieces of toast for breakfast before screaming at their father, who is looking for the work papers he was reviewing the previous night, to take them to school. Mother, of course, is trying to feed everybody and make sure her husband knows that she used the last of the petrol in the car when she went to her tantric sex class last night. The ‘late’ baby, born 10 years after the previous one, is now screaming in his high-chair and the gas man is due to service the boiler at 9am. Then she’s got to get presents for the kids across the road for their birthday party at the weekend. Her mother is in hospital and visiting time is at 10.30 this morning.

I’m sure you get the picture.

I’m so lucky. J is away this week, visiting her step-father in hospital in Manchester and I’m chief cook and bottle washer and I have to say it’s a pleasure. It’s all very civilized although I’m sure if we had a 6 month old and I was still working, it might all be totally different.

The kids get up without a problem at 6.30am every morning and appear for breakfast, which, as I’m an early riser, is no problem for me. A few minutes watching TV before they get into the car and are transported down to the bus stop and then back to a totally quiet house.

Even dinner time is a doddle. Last night I cooked whatever fell out of the freezer when I opened the door which just happened to be Fish Fingers which looked as if they’d been made when Captain Birds Eye was a boy. Guy had rabbit which J had brought back in a ‘doggy bag’ from her trip to Italy plus oven chips and sweetcorn. All very simple!

And afterwards the kids thank me for making dinner and then they help clear away the rubble.

Of course, life isn’t all a bed of roses. After dropping the kids off this morning, I returned to find a massacre of monumental proportions had taken place in the lounge. Feathers, blood and guts everywhere with Shadow just sitting there looking quite non-plussed. The cats had been particularly frisky last night with Bijou, normally a very quite cat, actually smacking Shadow on the nose with her paw because he wouldn’t lick her. She also attacked Coco and grabbed her round the throat in a vice like grip – most unlike Bijou but it’s good to see that she still has a bit of spirit in her.

So – instead of stressing out about kids and school and things – I go ballistic over a couple of naughty cats!

Bamboo - It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time

When the builders were finishing our house a couple of years ago and were finally filling in the holes which surrounded the walls, they came across a bamboo root. Antonio, the head-honcho suggested that he leave it in place as it would hide the ‘jungle’ further down the terraces. The implication was clear – whilst the bamboo would eventually grow into a straggly clump, it would at least hide the overgrown mess below.

Now where this bamboo root came from I have no idea. There was no bamboo on our land before they started building – it’s all a bit of a mystery. Anyway, it was left to grow and I even decided that Antonio was correct in his assessment and even propagated cuttings along the terraces to try and block out the terraces below and to that end I was successful, spectacularly so!

With the last two days being really sunny (16 degrees !!!), I ventured down into the jungle for the first time this year and having cleared 3 or 4 of the lowest terraces last year, I decided that the bamboo was no longer needed. It was actually hiding the view of all the hard work I’d done last year – it had to go.

What a job. First the chainsaw to cut it as close to the ground as possible, then try and pull out as much of the root as possible (so it doesn’t re-grow) and finally stripping the poles of all their leaves.

What a plant. You can see why it makes such a great (jungle) building material. The poles are absolutely rigid and incredibly strong and they would appear to be able to withstand rain and snow for years without rotting. The leaves and fern type flowers would make an ideal and very comfortable ground material and finally, once dried it would also appear to make excellent firewood, albeit I suspect that it won’t burn too long – we’ll find out next year.

Finally, of course, with its rigid poles it makes an excellent weapon.

As I cut down only one of several 200 pole clumps yesterday, I couldn’t help but think of all those Malaysian and Japanese war films where the nasty little Japs would dig deep pits, fill the base with sharpened bamboo (sticking upwards)and wait for unsuspecting invading forces to fall into the pit and impale themselves on the bamboo. Sharpened in the right way, you could see just how lethal it would be. Yuck!

Anyway, one clump has been cleared – only several more to go. Why on earth did I ever spread it?

You Can Tell A Lot By Website Visits

I reckon that if you wanted to know all about somebody you only need to look at the websites they look at.

Take yours truly for instance. My routine never changes. Here are the websites I visit and the order I look at them first thing in the morning……

Exchange rates – being paid in sterling and living in euros it’s important to watch the exchange rates and move when the time is right. Luckily I can save my sterling and change my money into euros when the rate looks good. I’m pleased to say, last year I got the exchange rate virtually right at the top of the market , probably more to good luck than any expertise on my part. And despite the UK being a financial basket case, the pound is again rising against the euro simply because Greece and Portugal are in a worse state than the UK. I’m watching it! The site I use is OANDA.COM.

AngloInfo – our local forum where you can buy and sell items. Given that I’ve bought quite a lot from it (3 scooters, 1 car and sold 1 car, rented the house etc), it’s useful to see what’s going on. If you want to have a look at it it’s RIVIERA.ANGLOINFO.COM.

Venc e – next it’s the local weather. Despite looking at it the night before, it’s still worth looking at it again in the morning because the weather can change pretty quickly down here and I need to know before I get out of bed if it’s going to pour with rain or be sunny! The site is the Yahoo weather site.

Next, and this shows how nerdy I am, I look at the Met Office satellite weather picture just to see if Yahoo is telling the truth. It has a historical picture going back 24 hours but this shows the bad weather (or the good) moving in, in an animated sequence. Very interesting! The site is at METOFFICE.GOV.UK/SATPICS.

Then FACEBOOK just to catch up with anything one of my ‘friends’ has posted. People now seem to be using Facebook as a Twitter medium and it keeps you in touch with them without all the phone calls. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you the Facebook site.

My Blog site – I check for any nasty comments which have been left and post the new day’s rubbish.

By this time I’ve worked my way across my Google Chrome (browser) favourites and then it’s the news. The Daily Telegraph is first, followed by The Sun and then the Scottish Daily Record. I only browse through the papers so it doesn’t take long.

Then it’s e-mail and all the spam telling me that I need to be bigger here and smaller there! And once I've tipped all that stuff into the Trash folder it's usually time to look and see what the stock market is doing.

And that’s about it. So what does that tell you about me?

The Honda CRV

You know when life, as we men know it, is coming rapidly to an end, when you want to watch a soap and your wife demands to see the latest Top Gear programme. Apparently J is not alone – loads, nay millions of women want to watch it. Rumour has it that it’s not the cars they’re interested in but mothering James May and cuddling up to the Hamster (Richard Hammond). Not a single woman seems to like Jeremy Clarkson but I’m not surprised at that.

Anyway, J switched it on last night and then disappeared into the kitchen to do a practical for her degree in Kitchen and Fridge Management and left me and the kids to watch all the new, unaffordable cars being presented, one of which was the ‘new’ Honda (Hybrid) CRV. It was stunning although the presenters gave it the thumbs-down as they seem to do with any electric car but it looked amazing and I’ve been ‘Googleing’ it without success since last night.

Now I’m a fan of the CRV having owned three of them, the first not long after they were initially released to the public (more about this shortly) and whilst I love the car to bits (not a single problem in 19 years of driving them) they’ve always been a bit ‘boxy’. The latest version (pictured) is much more modern looking and apparently is more economical, more comfortable etc etc etc but I’m waiting. The new unannounced Honda Hybrid CRV looked amazing so I’m keeping my cash until it comes out, hopefully in 2011.

Anyway, back to my first CRV. I wanted a 4x4 (can’t remember why) and as usual I researched the subject to death and after reading hundreds of reviews came to the conclusion that the CRV was for me because it was described as ‘the posers 4x4’. It also went from 0-60 mph in about 10 seconds and was reported as the nearest thing to a ‘normal’ car. I went to the local Honda garage and test drove one – bright orange! I was smitten but the sales guy was so condescending, I said we’d be back the following week. Instead I drove straight over to the other Honda dealership in town and I ordered one right there and then at a large discount. I ordered a bright blue metallic one.

A few weeks later I was informed my car was ready to be collected and I arrived in my bright blue weatherproof jacket which I’d bought to go with my car (sad I know). When I asked the guy where my car was he pointed to a gold one sitting outside on the pavement. I protested but he said I’d chosen ‘Gold’ as my second colour and that’s what they’d delivered!

When I arrived in France and wanted a new CRV, the same thing happened. I went the garage in Cannes but the sales guy was such an arse that J and I drove right over to Nice and ordered one on the spot from the only other Honda garage in the area. The sales guy couldn’t believe it and kept asking if we were sure. Eventually I cottoned on and managed to get a 10% discount and he got the order.

A year later we got another CRV (from Nice) and that’s the one we still have - 9 years old and still going beautifully despite being a trifle bashed.

I’ve been looking at a new CRV because sooner or later ours will need a bit of work doing to it but the price differences are staggering. Study this for the same model across Europe (all prices converted to £ sterling and applying stated discounts)……..

In the UK - £21,000, in France £24,000, in Holland £36,000 !!!

I think I’ll wait for the new hybrid version.