Le Daily Mail nous rappelle que le niveau apparent de richesse n'est pas toujours l'indicateur d'une absence de fortune.



The £1.4m man: Amazing fortune of widower who owned just one suit, got by on £5 a week... and left a fortune to animal charities

Wearing the same old suit day in, day out, he couldn’t have looked less like a millionaire. But when Gordon Hardy died at 83, it turned out he wasn’t quite the poverty-stricken pensioner he had appeared to be.
The retired civil servant and his wife Jean, who died in 2008, did not have any children. And decades of saving and sensible investments had left the couple remarkably well-off.
However, it was only after Mr Hardy’s death that it emerged he was worth £1.4million.
Their solicitor, Lyndsey McHale, was the only person aware of the couple’s wealth.
Yesterday, she said: ‘Mr Hardy was a real gentleman, modest and old-fashioned, and you would never have guessed he was worth over £1million.
‘He always wore the same suit, and when he had to move into a nursing home it turned out they were the only clothes he owned.

Gordon Hardy and his wife lived a simple life, only owned one suit, and lived on £5 a week
‘I couldn’t believe it the first time he showed me the paper work about all the investments they had, but he just wasn’t interested in spending it.’
The couple, who were animal lovers, are believed to have worked in Derbyshire, where Mrs Hardy was a postmistress, before retiring to a bungalow in the seaside resort of Southport, Merseyside.

They wanted their estate to be split between three animal charities: the PDSA, the Blue Cross and the Donkey Sanctuary.

Neighbour Maureen Taylor, 60, said: ‘There were no signs at all that they had so much money.
'Jean was always out walking their poodle, Bobby, and I suppose they decided they wanted the money to help care for animals after they were gone.’
In 2006, they sold the bungalow for £250,000 and moved into sheltered accommodation, taking with them their collection of antiques, including a grandfather clock worth £4,000.
After Mrs Hardy died, her husband came to see their solicitor, a specialist in wills and probate at Brown Turner Ross.
‘He said his wife had always done the finances and gave me a scrap of paper with details of their savings on.
‘My first thought was, “That can’t be right!”, but it was all there – various bank and building society accounts plus a lot in National Savings certificates.
‘How it was built up we don’t know, but it seems they were just very careful with money.
‘I would always ask him if he wanted to buy anything or go anywhere and he would always say the same thing, “What do I need to spend money on?”.

Gordon and his wife sold their bungalow and moved into sheltered accommodation in later life
‘Later on he asked for £20 a month of which around £9 was for his electricity bills.’

Mr Hardy died in February. His solicitor added: ‘Sadly he never really recovered from his wife’s death, but at least their wealth will now go to benefit the causes they supported.’

Aimer les animaux et détester les gens ?

Voici une brève chronique du député conservateur au parlement européen et redoutable ennemi de l'Union européenne, Daniel Hannan qui pointe le doigt sur la force de la haïne.

Les causes militantes savent bien que les sentiments négatifs sont le meilleur moyen de motiver un prospect.

C'est vrai pour les personnes âgées.

C'est aussi vrai pour les défenseurs des animaux et dans une plus large mesure la gauche du spectre politique n'échappe pas à la règle.

Where would Lefties be without hatred?

Richard Curtis’s eco-prop video confirms the worst impression people have of greenies, namely that, behind all the self-righteous rhetoric, they are misanthropic (hat-tip, James Delinpole). See how easily they glide from platitudes about low-energy lightbulbs to fantasies about killing those who dissent.

I’ve noticed before that a surprising number of animal lovers are really people loathers. Not all, of course, nor most; but some. In every age and nation, there are people casting about for a valid reason to detest their neighbours. Such people are often attracted to apparently high-minded campaigns. Think of the abolitionist campaigner in Steven Spielberg’s film Amistad who would rather lose the case, condemn the slaves and win more publicity than free them on a technicality.
Of course, ideas are not responsible for the people who back them. Bad people can take up good causes. I have Leftie friends who are generous and idealistic, and most greenies are actuated by a sincere concern about the future. Almost all of us, after all, want clean air and water; almost all of us like the idea of pandas mating ineptly for years to come; and almost all of us want a diversity of energy supply. But, just occasionally, as during the Brent Spar fiasco, we see that some eco-campaigners are, like the abolitionist in Amistad, more interested in bashing people they dislike than in advancing the cause they notionally represent. If you doubt me, start reading Guardian comment threads. Ah, hatred: where would Lefties be without it?

Les seniors n'aiment pas les juniors

Les associations spécialisées dans les causes militantes seraient inspirées de lire cette étude même si dans les faits elles la mettent en pratique déjà.


Over 50? You probably prefer negative stories about young people


When given a choice, older people prefer to read negative news, rather than positive news, about young adults, a new study suggests.


In fact, older readers who chose to read negative stories about young individuals actually get a small boost in their self-esteem, according to the results.
And what about younger people? Well, they just prefer not to read about older people.
These results come from a study of 276 Germans who were asked to read what they thought was a test version of an online magazine featuring carefully selected stories about younger and older people.
"Our results bolster the argument that people use the media to enhance their social identity," said Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, lead author of the study and associate professor of communication at Ohio State University.
"Older people and younger people have different goals when they use the media, and it shows in what they choose to read."
Younger people, who are less certain about their own identity, prefer to read about other younger people to see how they live their lives, Knobloch-Westerwick said.
Older people, on the other hand, have greater certainty regarding their identity. However, living in a youth-centered culture, they may appreciate a boost in self-esteem. That's why they prefer the negative stories about younger people, who are seen as having a higher status in our society.
Knobloch-Westerwick conducted the study with Matthias Hastall of Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen in Germany. Their results appear in the September 2010 issue of the Journal of Communication.
The study included 178 younger adults (18 to 30 years old) and 98 older adults (50 to 65 years old). All came to a computer laboratory, where they were told they were testing an online magazine that was not yet available to the public.
The experimental magazine was created specifically for the study and contained 10 carefully pre-tested stories. Each story focused on one individual, but there were two different versions: one that had a negative spin and one with a positive spin (each participant was offered just one of the two versions).