101 YEARS OLD AND STILL FINANCIALLY POSH...

PERCENTAGES, as you probably know, hold a strange fascination for me, which is why I store and compare the figures quoted in surveys sent to me. This week however I have received two surveys which raise bewildering questions.

The first was about sharing financial information with one’s partners and came from the price comparison people at uSwitch. Among other things, it reported that 82 per cent of people know how much their partner earns. However they also say that only 77 per cent of people think that their partners know the contents of their pay packet.

Comparing these figures, we see that five per cent of people know their partner’s earnings without the partner realising it. In other words, one in 20 people are skulking around, delving into their partner’s bank statements or similar financial evidence to find out about their partner’s credit worthiness without the partner knowing about it.

This, I feel, is a potential source of family discord and the skulkers should be identified. I immediately headed to my Metasurvey collection of all surveys I have seen so far this year to find out who the devious 5 per cent are.

The first thing I saw was that 5 per cent of people in prison are female. Have they, I wondered, been convicted of illegally accessing their partners’ accounts? That would explain it all but then I realised that if they had been convicted, their partners would know about it by now, so they would not be in the five per cent we are looking for.

Then I found a clue in the second new survey I have just received. This came from Rustlers who have just launched a new gourmet burger, in connection with which, for reasons I cannot quite fathom, they have conducted a survey about poshness.

Five per cent of people, they report, have faked poshness at a job interview. So are these the fakes who have been surreptitiously sneaking a look at their partner’s finances or are they the female fakes who have been jailed for misrepresentation at job interviews?

The only other five per cent on my database so far this year is that five per cent of people of working age in Wales are unemployed. Have they been trying, I wonder, to cover up their accents at job interviews? Surely this is an error. It seems to me that a Welsh person trying to do a posh accent is far less likely to impress than someone talking to a potential employer with a naturally attractive Welsh lilt.

Back on finances, I should mention that the uSwitch survey reports that 93 per cent of 18-34 year-olds say they are fully clued up on their partner’s finances, which I find most worrying of all. For 93 per cent of over-45s believe there is still a place for chivalry, which gives the 34-year-olds only 11 years to learn to be chivalrous and stop delving into their partner’s finances.

Also, 93 per cent of drivers think themselves “safe” and 93 per cent of new parents think breastfeeding mothers should feel encouraged to breastfeed anywhere in public. It is a mystery to me how they can possibly think it is “safe” to drive a car while breastfeeding and reading their husband’s bank statements.