I suppose it was the spectacular view from the balcony, looking out over a classic English riverscape, that hooked me. That, and an increasingly urgent sense that time was running out and I really ought to be clambering back on the housing ladder, before I was too frail to make it on to the first rung.
Then the games began. Securing a mortgage in the UK while living and working in the UAE proved a major challenge - so much so that after a while I lost sight of my real objective. By the end, simply getting a mortgage - any kind of mortgage - had become an end in itself.
The day it was finally approved, I felt triumphant. Looked at later, however, in the cold light of day, two of the figures in the loan offer added up to a formula for financial disaster.
The interest rate was a whopping 6.29 per cent, fixed for five years - not great, but pretty much all that had been on offer - and the period of the loan was just 17 years.
This bald, actuarially informed measure of my future halted me in my tracks. Didn't they know I planned to live for ever? It hadn't even occurred to me that there was an upper age limit on mortgage life, but there was and it turned out to be 70. I was 53, which meant my loan had to be paid back over 17 years; as a result, the monthly payments would be a lot higher than the same loan taken out over a longer period.
Realising I was just 17 years away from my 70th birthday came as a bit of a shock, but still served as more of a distraction than a warning; although I redoubled my narcissistic efforts in the gym, I still failed to exercise my brain.
My plan was to rent out the property until I returned to the UK. This, I assumed, would be a piece of cake; the apartment occupied the top two floors of an imaginatively-converted riverside maltings in a village that, while delightfully rural, was also within easy commuting distance of the capital. There was a station right outside the back door, with fast trains taking just over an hour to reach Liverpool Street in London.
Finding tenants proved easy enough. The shock came when the agency told me how much rent I could expect to get - less than £600 (Dh3,628) a month, about half the cost of the monthly mortgage payment.
But by then I was committed and bit the bullet. It would probably be only for a year, I told myself, and then I'd go home and live in it.
Then a year turned to two, and then to three, as it has a habit of doing out here. Far too late - after a conversation with my accountant that I should have had three years earlier - I started doing the maths and, as I did, it started to sink in that I might have been better off simply stashing the cash.
By that stage I had already subsidised the mortgage to the tune of about £25,000, including the monthly service charge, not to mention the £50,000 deposit I had put down in the first place.
For that amount of money, my neglected calculator told me, I could rent the same property for 10 years.
But owning property was an investment, right? In 17 years, when the mortgage was finally paid off, I'd have somewhere to live, rent-free, for the rest of my life, so it would all be worth it in the end.
Or would it? Once you start doing the sums, I find, it's quite difficult to stop.
First, I read further into my original loan offer. I had borrowed about £158,000 and now I discovered that over the 17 years I would be paying back a total of £241,928.12 - or, if you prefer, £1.53 for every £1 I had borrowed.
Now, is it just me, or is there some kind of disconnect between the 6.29 per cent interest rate I thought I had signed up to, and the 50 per cent I was actually paying?
No matter. On with the morbid maths.
According to the life expectancy tables produced by the UK Government Actuary's Department (not, it has to be said, recommended reading for depressives), I could expect to stagger on until I was about 80 years old.
So: in 17 years' time, taking into account service charges of £20,000 (plus who-knows-what for repairs, etc.), I would be the proud owner of a charming riverside apartment at a total cost of £260,000. Assuming I would live in it for the following ten years before popping my clogs on actuarial cue (and, I found myself wondering, if it was such a struggle getting a sofa into the lift, would it really be big enough for a coffin?), with an additional £12,000 in service charges I would have spent a total of £272,000.
On the other hand, renting the same place at £600 a month for 27 years would have cost me just £194,400 - leaving me with £77,600 to fritter away on a Saga cruise or two, a top-of-the-range Stannah Stairlift and a really impressive funeral.
Property; go figure. If only I had.
jgornall@thenational.ae
Company%20Profile
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Essentials
The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly direct from the UAE to Geneva from Dh2,845 return, including taxes. The flight takes 6 hours.
The package
Clinique La Prairie offers a variety of programmes. A six-night Master Detox costs from 14,900 Swiss francs (Dh57,655), including all food, accommodation and a set schedule of medical consultations and spa treatments.
COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Developer: Treyarch, Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Console: PlayStation 4 & 5, Windows, Xbox One & Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5
Essentials
The flights
Emirates, Etihad and Malaysia Airlines all fly direct from the UAE to Kuala Lumpur and on to Penang from about Dh2,300 return, including taxes.
Where to stay
In Kuala Lumpur, Element is a recently opened, futuristic hotel high up in a Norman Foster-designed skyscraper. Rooms cost from Dh400 per night, including taxes. Hotel Stripes, also in KL, is a great value design hotel, with an infinity rooftop pool. Rooms cost from Dh310, including taxes.
In Penang, Ren i Tang is a boutique b&b in what was once an ancient Chinese Medicine Hall in the centre of Little India. Rooms cost from Dh220, including taxes.
23 Love Lane in Penang is a luxury boutique heritage hotel in a converted mansion, with private tropical gardens. Rooms cost from Dh400, including taxes.
In Langkawi, Temple Tree is a unique architectural villa hotel consisting of antique houses from all across Malaysia. Rooms cost from Dh350, including taxes.
Company%20profile
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The specs
Engine: 2-litre or 3-litre 4Motion all-wheel-drive Power: 250Nm (2-litre); 340 (3-litre) Torque: 450Nm Transmission: 8-speed automatic Starting price: From Dh212,000 On sale: Now
The specs
Engine: Direct injection 4-cylinder 1.4-litre
Power: 150hp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: From Dh139,000
On sale: Now
Tree of Hell
Starring: Raed Zeno, Hadi Awada, Dr Mohammad Abdalla
Director: Raed Zeno
Rating: 4/5
UNpaid bills:
Countries with largest unpaid bill for UN budget in 2019
USA – $1.055 billion
Brazil – $143 million
Argentina – $52 million
Mexico – $36 million
Iran – $27 million
Israel – $18 million
Venezuela – $17 million
Korea – $10 million
Countries with largest unpaid bill for UN peacekeeping operations in 2019
USA – $2.38 billion
Brazil – $287 million
Spain – $110 million
France – $103 million
Ukraine – $100 million
The biog
Favourite food: Fish and seafood
Favourite hobby: Socialising with friends
Favourite quote: You only get out what you put in!
Favourite country to visit: Italy
Favourite film: Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
Family: We all have one!
The specs: Fenyr SuperSport
Price, base: Dh5.1 million
Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 800hp @ 7,100pm
Torque: 980Nm @ 4,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 13.5L / 100km
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cyl
Power: 153hp at 6,000rpm
Torque: 200Nm at 4,000rpm
Transmission: 6-speed auto
Price: Dh99,000
On sale: now
Company%20Profile
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What is graphene?
Graphene is extracted from graphite and is made up of pure carbon.
It is 200 times more resistant than steel and five times lighter than aluminum.
It conducts electricity better than any other material at room temperature.
It is thought that graphene could boost the useful life of batteries by 10 per cent.
Graphene can also detect cancer cells in the early stages of the disease.
The material was first discovered when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were 'playing' with graphite at the University of Manchester in 2004.
Company%20Profile
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A%20QUIET%20PLACE
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Brief scores
Barcelona 2
Pique 36', Alena 87'
Villarreal 0
The specs
Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
Power: 310hp
Torque: 583Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh192,500
On sale: Now
SPECS
Engine: 4-litre V8 twin-turbo
Power: 630hp
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: 8-speed Tiptronic automatic
Price: From Dh599,000
On sale: Now
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)
Display: 21cm Liquid Retina Display, 2266 x 1488, 326ppi, 500 nits
Chip: Apple A17 Pro, 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Storage: 128/256/512GB
Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, digital zoom up to 5x, Smart HDR 4
Front camera: 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.4, Smart HDR 4, full-HD @ 25/30/60fps
Biometrics: Touch ID, Face ID
Colours: Blue, purple, space grey, starlight
In the box: iPad mini, USB-C cable, 20W USB-C power adapter
Price: From Dh2,099
The%C2%A0specs%20
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Joker: Folie a Deux
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Director: Todd Phillips
Rating: 2/5
The biog
Age: 30
Position: Senior lab superintendent at Emirates Global Aluminium
Education: Bachelor of science in chemical engineering, post graduate degree in light metal reduction technology
Favourite part of job: The challenge, because it is challenging
Favourite quote: “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” Gandi
