| Bet on Bettie: Avoid unwanted "surprise" parties
Birthday parties are a big deal to a lot of families. Parents certainly don't want anything to go wrong after weeks or even months of planning. So what do you do when the party equipment you've rented doesn't show up -- or gets there late? Many families rent moonwalks for their kids' parties; it's the main attraction. So imagine how you would feel if things started to go wrong. One Austin family says a party rental company almost ruined their daughter's birthday. Krystin and Mike Johnson ordered a Scooby-Doo moonwalk for their daughter's sixth birthday party. All was well until the scheduled delivery time which was between 11 in the morning and one in the afternoon. At one, the Johnsons started wondering if Scooby would ever show.
Aust banks exposed to troubled US lender
And so their reactions over the last couple of weeks has simply been to claw back some of the profits they were losing on this short-term funding crisis which has actually turned into a sort of a medium term going on since August last year.
TOM IGGULDEN: Is it fair do you think for Australian consumers and people who have borrowed money from the banks - businesses as well - to be wearing the higher cost of credit that the banks are having to endure at the moment?
WILLIAM AMMENTORP: You know, part of the agreement is that the interest rate is a variable rate and whilst every time there was an interest rate cut they benefited from the lower mortgage repayment, it actually means that on the other side, that there's a little bit of risk there.
BRIGID GLANVILLE: Banking analyst, William Ammentorp, ending Tom Iggulden's report.
Fast rail offering hip personalised travel
E-TICKETS, on-board DVD rentals, events, and even new encounters French rail's new iDTGV trains are testing a new way of travel. Music blares from a speaker in a bustling bar and conversations get louder as customers just out of Paris meetings trickle in, settle down and order drinks. The barman hands over a beer, spilling a little as the brightly-coloured buffet car on the top deck of a customised high-speed TGV train rolls into its three-hour journey to the Mediterranean port city of Marseille. Joined to a regular TGV train, this iDTGV, playing on the French word "idee" or "idea", is operated privately, but owned by the national SNCF rail company and designed as a laboratory for future rail travel. Planned party train on the way The iDTGV was launched in December 2004 and offers cheaper tickets, internet reservations, and services aimed at pleasing passengers, including a soon-to-be launched party train, to help the SNCF better compete with low cost airlines.
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