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Metro
2 days ago
- General
- Metro
I am a professional money expert - but I'm medically rubbish with numbers
For some people, swimming is a great way to clear their head. Not me though. As I swim up and down my local 25 metre pool, I'm busy doing mental arithmetic. My goal is to swim one mile continuously. This equates to 1,609 metres, so dividing that by 25 means I'm aiming to swim 64 lengths. As a result, I keep track of the distance I've done. I often find myself counting, adding, multiplying and dividing – and for the first time in my life, actually enjoying it. My journey towards number confidence over the years has not always gone this swimmingly. This may come as a surprise as I am a money expert and financial journalist, but ever since my childhood, I've struggled with numbers. Maths lessons were mental torture. I didn't know why, as an otherwise straight A student, I couldn't hold this information in my head, or remember my times tables, or grasp everyday concepts like quantities, measurements and distances. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video It was only when I was later diagnosed with dyscalculia, often described as number dyslexia, in my mid-teens, that I finally realised why my brain doesn't easily process or retain numbers. I was fortunate enough to end up with a brilliant teacher while studying for my compulsory maths Standard Grade (the Scottish equivalent of GSCE). He created a calm, disciplined and focused environment in which I could make some basic progress. But even then, I was filled with anxiety and distress at the prospect of having to sit a maths exam. I was referred to the excellent learning needs department of my school, which unlocked my diagnosis. Initially, I felt relieved – this problem wasn't down to me being lazy or stupid. But as the years went on, I started worrying that people would judge me, especially once I moved into money journalism. As I've got older, I've met plenty of women who for some reason feel disconnected from both maths and money And yes, I have occasionally had people questioning my ability to do my job or falsely claim that I'm unable to do basic arithmetic (I know 2 x 2 = 4). But overall, awareness and understanding has increased, and that can only be a good thing. I've picked up lots of coping strategies over the years – from always having a calculator on hand to using visual budgeting tools. But even today, there are corners of finance that I still find taxing. Like… well, tax. Whether it's allowances, relief or deductions, I sometimes need to double check with someone more number-smart than me (namely my dad) whether I've done my sums right. But as hard as I find this stuff, I push through. I know that if I can improve my confidence around numbers, I can be much more capable with my finances and (cue Destiny's Child) an Independent Woman, never having to rely on someone to look after me. Sadly, recent research from National Numeracy shows there is still a stubborn gender gap when it comes to financial confidence. The charity's survey found that women are less comfortable than men talking about money, less confident when it comes to making financial decisions, and more likely to struggle with debt. At the same time, women reported being less confident in their ability to work with numbers compared to men, but they're also more sceptical that improving their numeracy would benefit their financial situation: Only 56% of women see a connection, compared to 65% of men. I have often thought about whether my gender played a role in my historic difficulties with numbers. Growing up, was I somehow conditioned to think maths is for boys? Not particularly – there were plenty of girls around me at school who excelled at maths, including my best friend who is now an accountant. But as I've got older, I've met plenty of women who for some reason feel disconnected from both maths and money, and don't always appreciate that there's a link between the two. Don't get me wrong, I understand why women aren't necessarily rushing to remedial maths classes. How does relearning the isosceles triangle help us put food on the table or cope with expensive childcare? A good start would be a school curriculum that majors much more on real-world financial challenges, such as budgeting, tax, payslips, and debt. Teaching maths through money, rather than the other way round, would help young people get more comfortable with numbers as a fact of life, not something to be afraid of. I also strongly believe the more women we have in public talking about both money and maths, the better. Former Countdown star Rachel Riley and super mathematician Hannah Fry are obvious role models, but different kinds of champions can also cut-through, such as TV presenter Denise Welch and Strictly dancer Katya Jones, who are both ambassadors of National Numeracy (as am I). It's why I appear on BBC Morning Live to talk about finances (and yes, sometimes numbers, carefully checked) in front of more than a million viewers every week. If I encourage anyone watching, including women, to take more control of their money, then the 6.30am call time at the studio is worth it. There are manageable steps we can all take to conquer number phobia. The free online National Numeracy Challenge is a great way to build confidence at a pace and level to suit you. This comprises a simple questionnaire that gauges how comfortable you feel about numbers and what your goals are. Your answers are then used to design an online learning process that's personalised to you. It's all based on maths you'll need in everyday life, and once you start doing quick check-ups (not tests!) on your abilities, you may be pleasantly surprised at how much you're improving. If there's only one money-maths concept you get your head around, make it interest rates. This alone will help you work out how to save and borrow more wisely. For example, you can start to compare the annual percentage rate (APR) on mortgages, credit cards and overdrafts to see if you're getting the best deal. More Trending You should also get into the habit of checking the price per unit on products in supermarkets (usually in tiny print on the label), which helps you compare pure value on products once you strip out differing quantities. For example, there could be two different quantities of milk on the shelf – a one litre carton or a discounted two litre carton. You can compare the unit prices to see if the core value of the two-litre carton is still higher even with the tempting discount. And try flexing your maths muscles in the day-to-day activities you enjoy, whether it's measuring ingredients for baking or mastering complex rhythms in music or dance. View More » Or, like me, calculating lengths in the pool. You never know, you might just like it. Do you have a story you'd like to share? Get in touch by emailing Share your views in the comments below. MORE: Average UK house price fell by £1,150 month-on-month in May MORE: I asked my partner to choose the porn I watched for a week MORE: Why I'm scared by a report about Britain's 'minority white' future Your free newsletter guide to the best London has on offer, from drinks deals to restaurant reviews.
The Guardian
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Beyond Paradise's Kris Marshall looks back: ‘I was once fired from Iceland for wearing blue sunglasses on the till'
Born in Bath in 1973, Kris Marshall landed his first major screen role in 2000, as layabout Nick Harper in the sitcom My Family. He went on to play Colin Frissell in romcom Love Actually and joined the cast of the cosy crime drama Death in Paradise as DI Humphrey Goodman in 2013. Marshall left the show in 2017 but later reprised the role in the BBC spin-off Beyond Paradise, which returned for a third series this month. This photo was taken on Easter day and is one of my first ever memories. I was standing in the dining room of my grandparents' house near Newark, Nottinghamshire. My dad spent 30 minutes trying to get me to sit still so he could take this picture. The moment I stopped fidgeting, my grandfather popped up behind him with a camera and said: 'Click! Got it!' My little navy suit would have been made by mum. Until I was nine, she made all my clothes. There was one particular Lincoln green suit I would wear quite a bit, but deep down I craved a pair of jeans. The Marshalls were neatly turned out in general. I come from a military family – my father, uncle and grandfather flew in the RAF. This meant my father was often away for long periods of time, working abroad. Because of his career, we were quite a disciplined household. Everything changed when my parents got divorced when I was 12. The shackles were thrown off! Aged six, I was cherubic and naive. I lived in the countryside and went to a very small, rural school. There were about 90 children in total and I was not particularly worldly, even for a young child. All of which made my experience of boarding school a real baptism of fire. Being a force kid, my parents wanted me to have a base – somewhere steady so I wouldn't have to move around if they got posted anywhere else in the world. Hence, Wells Cathedral boarding school. Suddenly I was surrounded by 700 kids. I had to find my feet fast and wise up. This all happened around the time my parents divorced, and with that loss of naivety I became a bit more rebellious, which led to me getting expelled. It wasn't a single major incident but rather a gradual buildup of resistance against the system. Although, there was the time I hid a motorbike at the top of the rugby field in the rhododendron bushes so I could disappear to London for a weekend to visit some friends. That didn't go down too well. My academic achievements were dwindling too. While I managed to cram all of my GSCE revision and sail through those exams, I couldn't exactly wing my A-levels. Especially as I chose maths, economics and French. It was a classic case of pushing against the institution again and again, to the point where the school had no option but to ask me to leave. Which they did seven weeks before my final exams. My parents weren't particularly impressed, but they quickly became supportive when they saw how serious I was about acting. I was never the kid who performed plays for the family – my sister was that sibling, and my parents did amateur dramatics. I only became aware of how much I enjoyed being on stage when my studies started to fall apart. I had romanticised the idea of being an actor, as if I was James Dean. If anything, being chucked out of school was just part of 'my story'. Whenever something went wrong, I'd think: 'That's fine. It's all good material for the autobiography!' After being expelled, I had two options: retake exams, with my tail between my legs. Or say 'sod all that' and try to become an actor. The only problem was, I had no idea how to get into the industry. Instead, I worked the odd crazy job to make ends meet – doing shifts in a toothpaste factory or in the laundry of an abattoir. That one was pretty grim – the smell will never leave me. I was once fired from Iceland for wearing blue sunglasses on the till, and for a while I knocked on the doors of people who hadn't paid their TV licences. I was serving snake bites in a bar when I met a guy who said: 'You seem like a pretty stand up guy. You can't just want to work here for the rest of your life?' After confiding my ambitions to be an actor, he said he worked in the industry and gave me a couple of numbers. I called up the first one and it was an agent based on Charing Cross Road, like something out of Withnail and I. I assumed I would get the brush off. But he got me a job at one of the last travelling rep companies – which I did for seven years, not really making any money, but touring the country putting on plays. I was tenacious in those days. I had a rule that I would do one small thing per day that would help towards my goal. Being an unemployed actor is not like being an unemployed musician or artist – there is no painting or song to work on, and quite easily your days could drift into months, into years. I didn't take no for an answer either. I used to fax the National Theatre in London every week with my CV, then phone them up afterwards. They'd say: 'Yes, we got your CV, you called us last week. What's that? You'll call again next week? Fine.' Eventually, that determination paid off. In 1997, I went from hiding under my bed from the landlord because I couldn't pay my rent, to flying over to the Toronto film festival to promote my first lead role in a film 18 months later. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion My first screen job was a day's work and a couple of scenes in a film with Jane Asher. I was absolutely over the moon – another chapter for the autobiography! However, I overslept my alarm on my first and only day of filming. It's a cardinal sin to be late when you are shooting, never mind if you are some bit-part actor. I was absolutely mortified, but I've never been late since. In fact, I did a movie with Jane called Death at A Funeral about 10 years later. Thankfully, she had no recollection of the incident. The first time I got recognised was after I did a show called Metropolis in 2000. It was exciting enough that I was in the paper the next day, but then a guy stopped me on the street and said: 'I saw you on TV last night – really good!' My feet didn't touch the ground for days. It became more frequent after My Family – the show had 13 million viewers a week, and I would get recognised daily. Since then, it hasn't stopped, but I don't mind – it's a small price to pay for what is a wonderful job. Now I'm a dad I've become more risk-averse, compared with the motorbike days. But I still enjoy extreme sports – sailing, surfing and throwing myself down mountains. I like to do my own stunts. Part of me never really grew up or lost that teenage sense of adventure. As for my aesthetic choices, I wouldn't say I dress quite as smart as I did when I was six. I mainly mess around in clothes I would have worn in my 20s. Unless of course I am playing DI Humphrey Goodman, a man who wears a lot of linen. You wouldn't catch me dead in linen.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- General
- Yahoo
David Adams obituary
My father, David Adams, who has died aged 80 of oesophageal cancer, was a well-known musical director, teacher and community impresario; he recently celebrated 50 years as church organist. Later in his career David played a key role in devising the musical curriculum on a national level and became an Ofsted school inspector. He also spent 20 years as the chair of Edexcel examiners for GSCE music. Born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, to Edith (nee Winter) and William Adams, a shipbuilder at Rosyth docks, by the age of 11 David was regularly playing the organ at the local congregational church and at the Methodist church, where they had a small foot pedal instrument. He attended Kirkcaldy high school and went on to study music at Edinburgh University in the 1960s, where he was awarded the Alfred Hollins Memorial Organ scholarship, and also gained a diploma from the Royal College of Music, London. In Edinburgh he met Patricia Stevenson and they married in 1966. Intending to pursue postgraduate study in church music, David and Patricia moved to Cambridge. There he joined Sawston Village college, a secondary school opened in 1930, in order to gain some practical teaching experience, and became director of music and a member of the college's senior management team. David began playing the organ at All Saints Church in Little Shelford in 1974 and was also musical director for the local community orchestra, Sawston Light Opera Group, Sawston Youth Drama and Duxford Music Workshop. He encouraged everyone to join in. His orchestras were inclusive and it did not matter if he had six flutes and two violins. He wanted everyone to be part of the music and enjoy it. He made Sawston Village college a renowned centre of musical excellence. Young students started out hesitantly, then became confident performers, with many going on to professional careers as musicians. He loved church music and in his spare time spent many hours in King's College Chapel and Ely Cathedral, especially in order to take part in his favourite service, Evensong. In his retirement David was an active Freemason and served as organist for five Masonic chapters: United Grand Lodge, Supreme Grand Chapter, Mark, Royal and Select Masters and the Red Cross of Constantine. Patricia died in 2023. David is survived by his children, Ruth, Pete and me, and his brother, Hadyn.
