Access Key Details
Revenue and Customs || UK Dept for Transport (located on gov.uk) || The Office of Fair Trading disappeared 1st April 2014. For advice our government asks us to use the independent under-resourced charity Citizens Advice. It is not a government task to protect or assist its citizens.
The UK Government Site (NOTE- former web site DirectGov was closed on 17th October 2012. The new site is just gov.uk). The new site is simpler - which means a lot of information you want is not there. Try a search on "RPI" or "inflation". Nope. Also the tabs (eg for "detailed guidance") (and some other things) require javascript.
Mental capacity and Powers of Attorney are dealt with by the Office of the Public Guardian, whose website has been closed (2011) to save money, but useful content was moved to DirectGov which has now been closed (2012 - can you see a pattern here?) and is now to be found on Gov.uk where the link at the start of this paragraph will take you. gov.uk uses https; uses google analytics and uses lots of cookies- link at their page top tells you about them all.
Official UK Inflation figures are well hidden from September 2011, here are direct links to the annualised change in some indices (note- tables go back to 1948, are presented annually, quarterly and monthly, and have the latest month at the bottom of page)-
CPI - CPI (also called HICP) (series D7G7) is the euro standard that ignores housing, and uses price geometric mean instead of arithmetic mean, which yields a lower result (can be dramatically lower) than the arithmetic mean used by all other measures below. This usage assumes that the consumer will shop at the lowest price available, and that the lowest prices are widely available.
CPIH is CPI plus housing rental costs and from 2030 will be called RPI and use to calculate company pension scheme increases where RPI is referenced in trust deeds, although measured differently and usually below traditional RPI.
RPI- RPI (series CZBH) is the old cost of living index now little used officially and due to be dropped in 2030 when CPIH will take its name.
RPIX -RPIX (series CDKQ) is the one that ignores mortgage interest.
Data for RPIY (series CBZX) {ignores mortgage interest rates and indirect taxation) has been discontinued (last issued January 2017). Data for Pensioner Household Inflation has been discontinued.(Last issued for Q4 2016).
If you want UK company info, go directly to free data from site Companies House Beta. | | Search for disqualified directors. For help with queries about what a Limited Company is and how it is supposed to work, they have lots of info at Limited Company Guidance
The Official U K Statistics release calendar from ons.gov.uk.
The government is determined to hide any official information and present it in as difficult to find or use form as possible. To assist it, the web site meant to supply official statistics has been givne SERIOUS reorganisation in 2011, 2014 and 2016. Information is harder to locate, URLs change every couple of years... we seem to have closed government masquerading as open government.
However with that caveat you may have the patience and software to explore a gov.uk format of the website -statistics section redesigned yet again in 2019- at UK Statistics web page located at gov.uk.
Recent HOUSE PRICES sold at from Onthemarket- use the search box at the top of the page to input location then drill down by post code links and road links. Alternative is Primelocation- input post code, town or address in the search box.
You will need to supply a copy of the deed that created the rentcharge and a copy of the Land Registry register (if the property is registered) which may be available from your mortgage lender or you can purchase copies from the Land Registry.
(formerly the Rentcharges unit offices were located in Manchester, then moved to Liverpool)
Note that "ground rents" paid by an owner of leasehold property, and management charges paid by apartment owners are not included.
For official government recommended health advice by phone from none medically qualified people who will use a computer query screen to collect your information- and a computer program that uses key words to target actions to take- a telephone health filtering and advice service (not emergency) is available on telephone number 111 which is free from all telephones.
Call 111 if: you need medical help fast but it's not a 999 emergency OR you think you need to go to A&E or need another NHS urgent care service OR you don't know who to call or you don't have a GP to call OR if you need health information or reassurance about what to do next.
For less urgent health needs, contact your GP or local pharmacist in the usual way- many GPs now tell you to call 111 outside surgery hours.
More secure and sometimes more useful patient information is available from a commercial body that supplies leaflets for GP surgeries-
Unfortunately the search results do need script but instead leave scripting OFF and also turn off CSS- then instead of lots of white screen you will see the search result but you will need to scroll down a lot to see it. Type in what worries you eg "blood pressure" or "high blood pressure" etc.
Or view an online calendar Time and date
Mathematics can be fun. Martin Gardner, Clifford Pickover, David Singmaster, Barry Martin, Michael Ecker - mathematicians that have kept me amused. On the internet, an excellent pot pourri of recreational maths can be found at Mathpuzzle
The magazine REC is beginning (2023) to become available online- developments are developing, so keep an eye on the website
Recreational and Educational
Computing
Copyright? or Copyleft? An interesting article on intellectual property rights.
A remarkable book by a talented decorator is "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" written way back in 1911 the subject material is ludicrously current. RTP is freely available on line - from Project Gutenberg as Text, HTML, or various Epub formats.
Politics Resources (UK)is no more and will not be updated- a sad loss- but still a huge amount of information archived at - webarchive.org copy enormous quantities of facts, figures, claims and counterclaims to wade through- some data handily gathered together on the web site and many external links. A site worth studying. Alas not to be updated.