2006

What else happened in this year?

In finance…

Annual UK Inflation: 2.97% CPI
Bank base rate:

• 3 August 4.7500%
• 9 November 5.0000%

IHT threshold: £285,000

In the charts…

• Crazy by Gnarls Barkley held on to the number one spot in the singles chart for a total of 9 weeks. The song also became the first song in history to top the charts based on downloads alone, as the influence of the internet began to impact physical sales in the music industry.
• The advance of technology did not however stop a number of artists from the 1990s making comebacks in 2006, with Take That, Emma Bunton and All Saints all enjoying renewed success in the singles charts with new releases.

On the screen…

• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, follow up to the very popular The Curse of the Black Pearl released in 2003, opens in July and grosses $55.8 million on its opening day, setting records for the largest opening day, the largest single day gross, and the largest Friday gross of all time (the previous record was held by Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, released the previous year).
• Daniel Craig makes his first appearance as James Bond in Casino Royale, released on 16^th November.

Around the world…

• January 19 – The New Horizons space probe is launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
• January 26 – Western Union’s telegram service is discontinued.
• December 6 – NASA reveals photographs taken by Mars Global Surveyor suggesting the presence of liquid water on Mars.

In the UK…

• Thames whale: a whale is discovered swimming in the River Thames in London.
• April 21 – Elizabeth II celebrates her 80th birthday at Windsor.
• April 28 – TV double act Ant & Dec make their big screen debut with Alien Autopsy
• July 30 – Top of the Pops, which by this point was the world’s longest running music show after 42 years, was broadcast for the 

This year saw Applewood become directly authorised by the FCA (formerly known as the FSA). The FCA aims to make sure that financial markets work well so that consumers get a fair deal.

We also began sponsoring more charity events and during the year helped to fund the Francis House Children’s Hospice Charity Concert in the Park. Francis House was one of the first charities that we supported and we still maintain a strong relationship with them today.

During the year we also went green by going paperless with all of our paperwork and moved to an online database system.

Key events

• Applewood becomes directly authorised by the FCA
• The business went paperless