His father (who seems to be a genuine war hero) has an entry on Wikipedia which notes:
James O’Brien suggested it was when he started his political career…
Why do I need to know how long I’m going to live?
My bunch of SCPIs gives me 5% dividends a year and the capital remains invested in the properties that deliver rental to pay those dividends. I’m not using capital to pay myself. Plus presumably the properties will grow in value over the long term, as will the dividends.
I’m not really happy with a real estate heavy asset allocation, but it was the best I could do given the failings of French retail investment products.
It’s worth remembering that trans-border financial business is governed by EEA rules, not EU. The UK would have to give 12 months’ notice to leave the EEA, and as far as I know they have not done so yet. This of course does not prevent any company applying its own rules, so we might still be stuffed. I found that two investment platforms didn’t exactly tell me to leave but they made life so difficult (cut off online access for instance) that I shifted everything to a third platform which up to now has been more amenable. Whether this happy state continues, we shall see.
Nice try
Ah, b@#ger, I missed that one. So let’s see what happens . . .
I don’t know Andrea, I don’t understand it. But I thought if you were cashing in your pension and buying something in France with it, at some point someone would have to know what that amount is.
But I would have thought that receiving a ‘guaranteed pension’ from your pension provider for life is better than entrusting it to something which could go down as well as up, or might even disappear.
Not disagreeing, just not understanding. 
Ye know neither the day nor the hour. . . .
But sometimes we can make a good guess.
A doctor may diagnose a terminal illness.
There is a family history of long or short lives.
You might be feeling good, eat a sensible diet and take regular exercise.
And this could be important because -
If you have good reason to think you won’t live long, you might want to take as much in cash as possible and enjoy it while you can.
If you hope to live long, you might consider an indexed annuity, that will give you less initially, but will not be greatly affected by inflation.
Investing the lot in property sounds like a good idea at the moment. Mark Twain said “Buy land, I hear they’ve stopped making it.” But even that carries a risk, because war or climate change could render it worthless.
But the worst case scenario is living a long life with senile dementia, then whatever decisions you made about your financial future will be totally irrelevant. . . . .
if you can remember what they were 
A family member in the UK is an IFA and specialises in pensions, he told me recently that with the average annuity you’d have to live till you’re 93 to be in profit as it were and overall rates have fallen drastically over the last 15 years.
Longer lives and low interest rates would explain that. I retired 18 years ago and have already has more than my money’s worth!
You’re one of the lucky ones Mike, I pulled my money out last year and invested it elsewhere as the capital is safe and likely to grow, I can also access the income whilst in my 50’s at a higher rate than it was going to pay out at 65!
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Didn’t seem like it at the time. The glory days were in the 60s, when my old man retired on a two thirds Civil Service pension. (Before you ask - child of elderly parents, that can happen.)
The only snag was that people (men especially) didn’t last long. Dad had attended quite a few “mantlepiece clock” presentations followed by a sad letter from the widow a year later. So he decided to retire at 63 and lived four years. Mother continued to live for many years on one third of Father’s final salary, but didn’t get much joy out of it, spending her final years with dementia.
My parents lived at an extraordinary moment in history. Both born at the very end of the 19th century, among the last of the Victorians. They lived under the reign of 5 monarchs, through two world wars and saw manned flight progress from Kitty Hawk to men on the moon.
But I think I have been luckier and happier - so far. . . . . !
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He probably didn’t like the connotations of “Ian Smith” either.
Anyway, a bastard by any other name…
Even the hypocrite Wooster-Mogg has moved his hedge funds to the IFSC in Dublin. He’s taking no chances 
Amazing. Your parents were older than one of my great-grandparents.
Having a child late in life seems to be catching. My son was born when I was 49. Second marriage, so this one was actually wanted. He is now 34 and hasn’t sired any young so far, to my knowledge. If he does have children, they could be alive in the 22nd Century, with the result that four generations could have spanned two centuries. Unusual, but probably not a record.
One of my grandfathers had children in his 60s, I don’t think it is great for family dynamics, really.
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My great regret is not knowing more about my parents.