They say a week is a long time in politics, and with party conference season underway it feels truer than ever today.
But while Prime Minister Theresa May showed off her dance moves to overshadow the Bo-Jo Show in Birmingham, more serious matters rumbled on.
Pensions, Brexit and property were the themes of the week and you, our readers, voted them top of our most read list.
1) Take my advice (once I am allowed to give it)
We know the regulator does not like to be rushed, and some three years after the UK's pensions freedoms arrived, the FCA this week published its new rules for pension transfer advice.
In order to help clients wishing to withdraw from defined benefit schemes – the main driver behind the move – advisers will have to get qualified.
They have two years to do it, the FCA said. There are no loopholes for those who have already passed significant exams, but those without the relevant paperwork can still give help as long as their work is signed off by someone who has it.
More work is going to have to be undertaken by advisers to ensure where the money is headed is a suitable option – the FCA is upping its oversight on scams – while inflation calculations and other assumptions are to become standard work.
And don't expect this to be the final version. There is more to come, says the watchdog.
2) Home is where the cash is
Someone who took his own transfer advice a little too far this week was a pensions manager from one of the London Boroughs.
Ian Woodall, 47, tricked colleagues at the Westminster City Council into signing off payments totalling around £1m from the £1bn pension fund by disguising them as investments, jurors heard.
Woodall, who joined the fund in 2003 aroused suspicions of auditors when he couldn't recall what payments of up to £741,000 had been made for in 2013.
The prosecution alleges Woodall, who had also been interim chief investment officer of the fund, funnelled the cash through Swiss bank accounts before bringing it back to the UK to fund a lavish lifestyle.
The defendant, from Dorking in Surrey, denies the charges and the trial continues.
3) Home is where the CGT is
Success for HMRC this week, as it won an appeal to charge £61,383 in capital gains tax on a property that had not been built.
Last month 2018 the Upper Tribunal decided HMRC was right to apply the tax to the whole period of ownership of a person's property from the moment he bought it off plan.
The story began in 2004, when Desmond Higgins paid a reservation deposit secured against an off-plan two-bedroom apartment in London, followed by two further deposits in 2006 and 2007, but construction was delayed and could not move in until January 2010.
CGT relief was only found to apply to the period in which Mr Higgins directly occupied the property from January 2010 to January 2012, meaning that although the flat wasn’t there, it was accumulating tax.
It is all a bit existentialist and Albert Camus for me.
For one tax specialist, it was more Lewis Carroll. "Truly this is the world of ‘Alice through the Looking Glass'," he said.
Whichever author you favour, it landed Mr Higgins with a significant bill to pay.
4) It is (still) all about Mifid II
It seems a long time ago that the finance sector was worried about implementing Mifid II and the impact it would have on business. I suppose we have had a lot to occupy us since January.
But this week, everyone's favourite trading and investment regulation reared its head again, this time amid a warning for advisers.
Marc van Poeteren, chairman of the Financial Planning Standards Board Europe, told an audience at the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investments, that they should consider reducing their fees to as little as 1 per cent.
Why? Mifid II. The directive is all about protecting the client and increasing transparency over what they are paying for.
According to Mr van Poeteren, attaining clients' investment goals with fees of 2 or 3 per cent is "simply impossible" and the regulators will figure that out.
"Either you do something now and you have a future business model or you want and die," he said.
Yikes.
In welcome news, sharing the same stage, Simon Chapman, head of retail at Complyport, said advisers could cut down on the voluminous packs administered to clients addressing suitability of products.
"It either is suitable or it isn't," said Chapman, adding: "A suitability report can be very detailed but it can be a short and sweet version for the review."
Hooray.
5) Project No Fear
Great news to end the round up this week, and back to party conferences we go.
The Conservative party has (again) moved to reassure retired UK expats in the EU that no matter what colour or consistency of Brexit the UK has, the state pension will not be touched.
So, for a UK resident living in the EEA, the state pension increases by the triple-lock - whichever is the greatest of earnings, prices or 2.5 per cent - as it does in the UK.
The Department for Work & Pensions’ (DWP) Esther McVey said: "We will provide a triple lock on people with UK pensions living in the European Union."
But put that champagne on ice for the moment though. Few of us could live on the state pension alone and according to no-deal Brexit documents published by the government this summer, insurance companies may be unable to pay pensions to their UK customers living in the EU.
And speaking as one who has just returned from a weekend sur Le Continent, this is something that needs addressing – and soon - should the sterling/euro exchange rate continue at its current poor level or worse.
Anyway, we have a few months before we leave the bloc, so for now let us have one more chorus… "You are the Dancing Queen…"
