Copper

Todays pensioners were promised that if they paid NI and Tax all their working life their heath care needs and pensions would be paid for in later life.  There are people who have worked for 50 years in low paid jobs for companies who didn't offer a pension scheme who are now receiving a pension which is not fit for purpose.

For those pensioners who rent, how can they afford to rent and heat a home on £150 per week?

We have a 90's house and were surprised that although we have cavity wall insulation in places, this does not go throughout the walls. We were thinking of having cavity wall insulation (beads), but are worried that the existing insulation will cause problems with the beads and lead to damp. Could you please advise. The house is very cold in the winter and our heating bills are high

We have just had our bathroom renovated with porcelain tiles. The door handle is banging on the wall, so we need put on a door stopper.

Will a self adhesive stopper stick to a porcelain tile? It mentions that it is ok with "ceramic tiles", but doesn't mention porcelain.

Thank you

We would like a tree for our small garden but do not want to block out too much sun. We are looking for a small tree with a smallish crown and not too tall.... say 3 to 5 metres. We like red/gold colours in the autumn and like the tree shape of a sycamore (but not the enormous size). Does anyone know of a beautiful tree which would fit the bill?

I usually rent through Europcar and always select the option to reduce the excess to zero in case there are any problems.

The last time I hired a car I was looking at options and saw that Europcar had the additional insurance for around £11 per day including VAT. Then the option disappeared the next time I went in to book. I contact Europcar and was told that the price was still the same but that I would have to pay for insurance when picking up the car.

When I picked up the car they said that the tax inclusive rate was now around £16 per day and that the original quote did not include tax. Then when the bill arrived it showed that £19 per day had been taken from our credit card and the difference was tax because the £16 did not include tax.

This is a complete rip off.

Now Europcar quote £20 per day for this insurance and who knows if that includes tax or not!!

I complained to Europcar but after almost 2 months there has been no reply from them.

Now I notice that hardly any of the rental companies now offer this insurance online. What has changed and what is the best option for this insurance.

The reason we book this insurance with the hire company is so that we do not have the hassle of filling in claim forms when returning the car

When I was young we had very little money, and could only afford the basics. All our clothes were second hand and the furniture and furnishings in our home were threadbare. But here in the UK we have the NHS so that if we were sick we could get treatment at the doctors or hospital without having to pay a penny more. The NHS is funded by all tax payers, so those who are paid more pay more tax and those who earn little pay less tax.

I am now doing very well, and earning a good salary, and I do not begrudge paying more tax so that those who are less fortunate can get healthcare.

Why is there so much opposition in the US to a similar scheme? Yes, taxes for the rich will be higher but how can you put a cost on a persons life?

I find it very strange as if it were not for the NHS I may not have survived childhood and would not now be able to contribute so much in tax for the benefit of others.

Sometimes when we switch on the hot water tap and the heating is off we get hot water, but at other times the boiler fails to fire up and we get no hot water.

We simply switch on the heating (or adjust the thermostat so that the heating turns on) and then when we turn on the hot water tap the boiler fires and it works. Once the tap is running we can turn off the heating and the hot water continues to flow until the tap is turned off.

We got a local plumber to come around (a boiler expert) and he didn't even notice that the pressure was down (something my Dad noticed and after this was adjusted the problem was better for a couple of months).

After paying for an expert to tell me he didn't know what was wrong I am worried about paying for another plumber unless anyone knows somebody who knows about ideal mini combi boilers in the Newcastle upon tyne area.

Hi,

I am English and have been living and working in Switzerland for the last 5 years, and this year I have switched to a C permit which means that I will need to fill in a tax return and pay tax on my world assets... I think.

I am also still filling in my UK tax returns but am not sure if I am ordinarily resident in the UK or not (I am rarely in the uk and certainly less than the 90 day limit and only have an average of 2 visits home a year).

Do I have to pay uk tax on my earnings in Switzerland? Also I now have money in the Swiss bank (already taxed in Switzerland), Will this be taxed again when I transfer it home to the UK before returning?

I have a friend who had brain surgery for a tumour 9 months ago. He is still in hospital as he is unable to speak properly (it is impossible to understand his words and his mouth droops on one side), he is still given food and drink through a tube as he can not swallow, and although he can stand he can not walk and he is very weak. He has also lost the sigh in his left eye and the hearing in his left ear.

I am worried that the hospital are no longer giving him any physiotherapy and he has made no improvement in the last 6 months. He is thinking of moving back to the UK as the treatment there may be better, but I was wondering what he can do for himself, and if there is any kind of therapy he can have which will improve his quality of life. He has been in hospital since December.

When he emails I can understand his emails perfectly, and character wise still seems to be the same person, so the problems are only physical.

I have suffered from migraine for a few years, and usually these are preceded by 24 hours of feeling incredibly tired and sluggish.

The last couple of migraines I have had over the last month have been proceeded by something different. I woke up with a very sudden painful stabbing pain (where my heart is centre left chest). I've read that a heart attack feels like a pressure on your chest and this was not the case, so I thought it must be something else. The pain was much worse if I tried to lay on my left side and occasionally shot up to my chin. I had it most of the night and to a lesser extent the next morning when I felt tired and sluggish. Then I had a migraine over the course of the afternoon and evening.

Does anyone have any idea what is causing this and how I can stop this from happening again.

n.b. It is not indigestion, as I have had this before and it feels completely different and can be sorted out by a couple of rennee.

I have swum a few times in Lake Geneva, and each time my skin is lovely and soft for a couple of days after-wards. Why is this?

I want to get a white leather christening bible in the New International ( NIV ) version.

I can find loads in the King James (KJV) version, but this is old English and not great for a child to understand.

Can anyone help with where to find one in Newcastle upon tyne or online?

Thank you

I have my yahoo account on the windows 8 app of my pc.

I sent an email this morning and it is being received every 20 mins by al of the recipients. They are getting very annoyed.

The email shows in the outbox on the windows 8 app, and there is no option to move or delete. It is just stuck there. It doesn't even show in the sent folder.

I tried to go to the yahoo website to delete it from there, but I can't see it anywhere (there is no "outbox"

I have even tried to delete the yahoo account from the windows 8 app but this does not seem to have helped.

When I created the email it seemed to save it in skydrive (not sure why), but I have since deleted it from skydrive and it still continued to send.

Please help

Hi, I have been sending emails from my yahoo account on my windows 8 apps on my pc and phone, and sometimes just on the regular yahoo site.

I have just noticed that the emails I sent from the windows 8 apps (phone and computer) have not appeared in the regular yahoo sent folder.

Does anyone know where the emails are or if I can recover them?

If not everyone else should be aware of this problem as I sent some important emails and now have no record of them.

Hopefully somebody out there can help me.

We need to fly from Geneva to Newcastle, but can not find any direct flights. Does anyone know an airline which does direct flights in the summer (easy jet do them from December to April only). Or direct flights from Geneva to another north uk airport (as near as possible to Newcastle). It seems crazy that so many airlines do direct flights to various airports in the south, but nobody does them to the north of the UK from Geneva. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

What happened in the last 10 minutes of the final episode of The Fall (The drama with Gillian Anderson). Did they catch him?

I am trying to run a course on my windows 8 pc which has the latest version of explorer, but I get a message from the course set which says that I must have explorer version 5 or higher (which I do have). The course provider has asked me to run the browser in compatibility mode to access the course. How do I do this?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you

Hi, I just left my job, and before leaving I saved some tasks with personal passwords and notes to a usb stick. Now when I come to read them on my windows 8 pc all I get is strange characters no matter what application I choose to read the pages. Can anyone help me to read the information.

Thank you

We suddenly noticed that our Norton icon had disappeared off of the laptop, but we are sure that we had paid for another year. We had paid over the internet. Why would it just disappear as usually we get a message to say that we have to pay for an extension. We are worried that we have been hacked.

I received an email from my brother with no subject, and inside was an internet link (which I clicked on because the email was from my brother). I was taken to a site advertising the sale of Viagra.

I immediately came out of the site and deleted the email. I then received another one a week later from my brother. He didn't send them, but thinks his email account has been hijacked.

How can he fix his account, and how can I check if my pc has been infected (I have norton antivirus software)