h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Something like that. Our way is so much easier - elect some b*stard that's the lesser of two pr*cks, knowing that at most you'll only have to put up with him for 8 years.

I'm English and I'm confused. I'm happy with just thinking how glam it is to have a Queen.

Yeah, but don't you all get annoyed at having to pay for her upkeep?

No, because we don't.

Ah..I was under the impression that a good portion of your taxes go to the royal family. Or do they manage to live off the interest and investments of the huge sums they already have?

Random factoid: The Queen costs the country via Civil List payments approximatly thirty million pounds a year. However, the Crown Estates (land owned by the Queen) pays its profits to the government in return for this civil list. Apparently in 2003 this profit was over 170 million pounds. i.e. if the Queen was just to take her money from land she owns and not accept the civil list the country would be worse off, by quite a bit.
Not quite sure why I am gibbering on about this in a thread about the cost of living, but hey ho.

Well, The Royal Household gets a certain abount of funding from the Civil List, and the Privy Purse, but I wouldn't call in a 'good portion of our taxes'. The civil list money is what pays for her official duties, so it's not 'pay' for the Queen. The Privy Purse money comes from the Duchy of Lancaster. She has her own private money for her own private expenditure. So we only 'pay' the Queen in the sense that we fund her official duties.

She and Charlie also pay income tax on their private income.

No other member of the Royal family apart from the Queen recieve Civil List funding.

£30m? Where did that come from? The civil list payment has been set at £7.9m since 1990.

>> Ah..I was under the impression that a good portion of your taxes go to the royal family. <<

A false impresion I am afraid. The Civil list of thirty million represents less than a pound per tax payer per year. The National Health Service can spend thirty million in one day!

If the NHS only managed to spend £30m in a day that would be a very good day for it! Substantially more than that, I fancy.

RF

My numbers came from http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,2763,994434,00.html and http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/uk/2002/the_royal_accounts/the_queen.stm
The thirty million number does include other things as well as Civil List but seems to be the total value, from my quick and ill-informed skim read.

Ah, well, what you need to watch there is the difference between the Civil List and the Civil List Act.
The Civil List is the money paid to the Queen (that's the £7.9m), which mostly goes on the Royal Household and her fufiling her official duties. The Civil List Act money is paid to other members of the Royal family (not Charlie, who doesn't get anything). The Civil List Act money is then repaid to the Government by the Queen.

Do Americans get annoyed at having to pay for their president?

RF

Well, his actual salary isn't that much..200K a year or so. But I don't think he's responsible for paying for anything remotely related to his job so he basically gets to stick it all in the bank. I'm also not sure what sort of pension plan goes along with Leader of the Free World :P. I'm not so bothered to pay his income. What bothers me is that it is invariably only those from upper income brackets that have a shot at the presidency.

Now you are in England, do you have to pay tax to the states still, or does it all go in our pot? I know my friend from Ukraine pays it here, but wasn't sure if this was different.

Well, you also have to pay for all his state ceremonies, protection etc. Probably comes to a bit more than $200k.

RF

From what I understand, had I made enough income in the States to count for anything this year, I'd pay income tax over there. I don't own property, so no tax for that.. When/if I start working here, I'm sure I'll be taxed up the a** just like Njan . The only thing that sort of stinks is that because we're immigrants, we get no family tax credit benefit whatsits. Guess they want to see that I can stay here for a while without stinking up the place first.

Sorry to return to a much earlier post.. but hey this thread is derailing so nicely at the moment, i just thought i would give it another shove..


"The only problem with these water filter jugs is that they render the water sufficiently acidic to leach minerals out of tooth enamel.
If you then heat the filtered water to make a hot drink, you potentiate its effect.
Acid erosion is an increasing dental problem in the UK."


Teuchtar- could you please elaborate? My friend who swears by the thing and has used it for a number of years is a tad worried now.. She is trying to get a hold of some Litmus paper to see exactly how acidic the filtered water is...

Will the acidity vary according to water type or will an effective filter reduce all water to a base level ph?

Here's the science bit...

You can filter or not to your heart's content, it won't affect the pH of the water. pH is determined at a subatomic level. It is only affected by the condition of the local drinking water.

</

Winnoch

I was referring to an article I read in the dental press a few months ago - think it was the BDJ.

Minerals can be leached from dental enamel from 5.5 pH and under.
The lower the pH, the greater the risk.
If you have fluoridated water or supplements in early childhood, the fluoride ions are incorporated into the structure of the tooth as it grows, forming calcium fluorapatite crystals which are more resistant and will tolerate a pH of 4.6 before any damage occurs.

Having something acidic occasionally is not a problem - since the minerals are replaced back into the enamel by saliva. If the flow of ions out of and into the enamel remains in balance there will not be any net loss.
It's only when one frequently ingests acidic drinks/foods that a net loss occurs.

I don't have sufficient information to comment on individual makes of filter but will try to find the article again.

None of my kids has any fillings but they all have signs of dental erosion - caused by 'no-added sugar' squash

The safest things to drink, in order to avoid decay and erosion problems, are tap water and milk. Tea and coffee are fine, provided they're made with tap-water and no sugar is added.

If you're careful most of the time, the odd 'deviation' doesn't matter - we've got to have fun now and again.

Something else which you will find alarming Huggy - a lot of lagers are acidic .
And sorry, I don't have any data on that either. Now that would be an interesting wee bit of research for someone!