Dominic Laurie

Life would have been much more simple if I'd been born with the same surname as my wife. The hassle she is going through since our recent wedding changing her surname on such things as pensions, credit cards and bank accounts is a pain. To alter the details in your passport though - as we've found out - is an extra layer of annoyance. The UK Passport Office charges £72.50 to change surname letters (in our case, six) on the particulars, even if the expiry date of your previous one is still many years off, as my wife's was. It seems grossly unfair to the hundreds of thousands of (mainly) women who might want to do this each year. Changing your name on a document you have already paid for should be a free service, no? The DVLA doesn't charge for driving licences.

When I was first getting on the housing ladder in the late nineties, the idea of taking out a mortgage you never intended to pay back was pretty normal. Interest-only mortgages were widely available to first-time buyers like me. It was a good way to get us onto their books. Over time, as I did, we’d convert to a repayment version, and everyone’s happy. In the post-financial crisis world, though, borrowing or lending debt never intended to be repaid is frowned upon. The self righteously prudent (or just plain rich) are dying to crow to those left stranded with a decreasing choice of interest-only mortgages that 'it’s people like you who helped bring the whole house of cards down'.