What Made You Want To Swear Today?

[LaughingGirl]

- Couldn't get the on-line payment system for my daughter's school 'cashless' card to work. Had to practically ice-skate to local shop at 7am to get money out for her, and get charged £1.50 for the privilege.

- Got home to discover multiple attempts to use on-line payment system had triggered by bank's fraud protection protocol, received automated phone call. Pressed '2' instead of '1' at some point. Card now blocked.

- 40 minute ice skate into bank branch in town, having given daughter only available cash in house. Arrive at bank to discover that had I listened to automated message properly, I would have brought proof of I.D. Impassioned pleas to bank staff fall on deaf and frankly disinterested ears.

- Further 20 minute ice skate to my Mum's, who thankfully has an ancient copy of my birth certificate which I can combine with council tax letter (which I happened to have in my bag )to persuade bank I am not a Nigerian con-artist.

- 20 minutes back to bank. Puzzled clerk points out that original clerk could have just checked my signature on their system. Listen to two clerks bicker over whether this is actually true. Resist robbing bank in retaliation for my now throbbing calf muscles. Settle for withdrawing £10 so I don't have to continue half-hearted Jane Torville impersonation. Catch bus home.

- Decide that I will buy myself a conciliatory bottle of wine to enjoy in a warm bath. Pour half bottle into my giant wine glass so I don't have to get out of bath if I want a refill.

- Move shower curtain, knock entire glass into bath. Glass helpfully shatters on side of bath. I spend 25 minutes picking minute shards of glass out of my bath. Am now too scared to have a bath.

- Give in and go downstairs. Spend the evening listening to my phone ring incessantly with an unknown foreign number, until I relent, pick up the phone and get verbally abused by the most obnoxious man in Egypt. Resist urge to throttle other half as he insists I 'must have given the number out somewhere'.

 

If there is a God, he's sitting on a cloud pointing and laughing.

[LaughingGirl]

One question LG. Did you manage to drink the other half of the bottle of wine?

 

Nah, I'm saving it for tomorrow night when I've rinsed out the bath for the 27th time and convinced myself I won't sever an artery.

[LaughingGirl]

lol poor luv....I know all about the cashless catering fiasco....had plenty of run in's with them in the past and acctually got hold of HER the founders email address so i gave her a megga gob full and also some total twonk at her office....I told that cow that to her we are the fodder for her personal ''cash cow'' ...she didnt like that one bit and tried to defend her GIMIC known as parent pay....yes we pay through the nose......my son finishes this summer thank COD...yes I call god cod due to thats all fishy to me too grrrrrrr

 

GITS

 

LMAO!

 

To be fair, I've never had a problem with it before but we don't use Parent Pay - I think it's called Wise Pay. The worst thing is, I've found out now that if there's a problem with the system they issue the kids with slips to pay for their lunch, so the 7am Dancing on Ice shenanigans wasn't needed, either! I would say that I've used up all my bad luck for the month, but I'm too scared to. I can do without a satellite dropping out of space onto the house to prove me wrong, thanks very much.

[LaughingGirl]

I can't believe they are thinking of blur to close the Olympics! Park life, my goodness we need Jessie j it's all about the money money money! or sir paul singing imagine. Any other suggestions?

 

My suggestion would be that we stage a bloodless coup, free ourselves from the shackles of Government oppression and use all the money from the Olympics to fund care homes for the elderly, properly provide for the disabled and aid start up businesses. If they want to chuck stuff around and run about all over the place, they can do it in Hyde Park for free.

 

Oh, wait...you meant suggestions for bands. I suppose everyone will moan if I vote for Motorhead?

 

OK...I'll get my coat.

[LaughingGirl]

Life of Brian?

 

Not what I was originally thinking of, but now you come to mention it...yes.

[LaughingGirl]

Hahaha.

 

Pimply teenagers in Shelter tabards, trying to persuade me to part with my bank details while I'm walking down the street. I swear to God, it's the worst charitable funds strategy ever to have been born. Why, yes..of course I'd love to yell my bank details at you in public while surrounded by complete strangers. Certainly, I'd love to give someone I don't know a direct debit mandate and the authority to take whatever they fancy out of my bank account. Sounds like a smashing idea.

 

Stop it. Stop it immediately.

[LaughingGirl]

They are called chuggers as in Charity Muggers. I prefer to call them chunts

 

I very nearly inhaled a mouthful of coffee when I read that. I like your word better...

[LaughingGirl]

Bang on LG! We get on average 2 a week where I live - this week I've had 3 (with two on one day!). They really seem confused/aggrieved when you don't want to give details 'but we're a charity'. I don't care whether you are a charity or not, I will not give any details to you!

 

I'm more than happy to put a couple of quid in a box if I support that charity, and I'm sure others feel the same, so I do wonder how much all these charities are losing on normal donations by insisting on the whole 'we can't accept money at the door' rubbish. I know I've not given to my usual charities for quite a while now as they all seem to use this doorstep tactic. The Rotary Club however, who shake a tin outside Tesco, get frequent donations.

 

Rant over

 

These aren't even the one's that bang on the door. These stop you in the middle of the High Street and try to engage you in conversation about their gap year doing conservation in Machu Picchu - like the HUGE red tabard with the name of the charity on it isn't a dead give-away that they don't just want a friendly chat about the perils of conserving Inca archaeology.

 

They certainly lose money from me - after being accosted for the third time this week, my opinion of Shelter has gone down several notches. I don't like bully tactics, and they are persistent enough to be close to overstepping the mark on that one.

Edited March 9, 2012 by LaughingGirl

[LaughingGirl]

The horrible, horrible, useless, inadequate dementia care in the area I live in. Watching useless Doctors being compensated for by brilliant Nurses. Very nearly having the lift I got from the brilliant Nurses (and if Doctors get a capital letter, I'll be damned if the Nurses don't BTW) ruined by a health care assistant who is quite clearly in the wrong profession.

 

It's just as well I've got a sense of humour, let's put it that way.

[LaughingGirl]

Please don't take this the wrong way; it's not meant to be... Myself; am looking at a mid case scenario that I'm facing a nursing home! I'm 43!!! Unfortunately, when I became severely physically ill I didn't tick all the right boxes. No worries thought I... Not so said they (social services). Two years down the line I'm still 'fighting' for everything. My home, care, benefits. I paid my taxes, NI, everything... Naively thinking I'd done the right thing. Where am I now? Facing an almost worse than death sentence because I suffered an hypoxic brain injury almost two years ago. I have no idea how long I have to be 'compus mentus'. A week, a year, a decade?

 

WARNING...massive rant not directed at anyone in particular ahead. Feel free to skim over and move on.

 

BB, not taken the wrong way at all - in fact, I fully symapthise. Mum and Dad are the same - never been unemployed, worked their backsides off, only had two kids, bought their house - did absolutely everything that society asks of people. Now they're here at 67 and 70 respectively, and where has it got them? My poor Dad is a walking misdiagnosis, they seem to think that because my elder sister is a Nurse and I used to work in a dementia centre my Mum shouldn't need any support. Lovely idea, but not when we both work full time - how the hell are we supposed to help? My Mum has been ripped off to the eyeballs, firstly by CrapFest then by some dodgy debt management company. Where's all that support they were promised, from the cradle to the grave? I'll tell you where - it's beating a hasty retreat over the horizon. In the meantime, my Mum (who is the size of a house sparrow) has been left with my 12 stone Dad, a commode and a bed in the dining room. If he fell, he'd take her with him. Even the paramedics who brought him home said he shouldn't be there - they didn't actually DO anything about it, but they did mention he shouldn't have been discharged. Thanks for that, lads. He fell again 15 minutes after they dumped him on the doorstep, and ended up being readmitted.

 

The only reason...ONLY reason...things are starting to move now is because my Sister (God bless her) has started chucking her professional weight around, which makes her feel horrible. How people with no knowledge of "The System" cope is utterly beyond me. If the mark of a society is how we treat our elders, we're a bloody disgrace.

 

OK, rant over. Tomorrow's another day and another opportunity to plant my boot up someone's backside if this keeps happening.

 

BB, again, you have my full sympathy. I know how hard it is fighting for someone else, never mind having to do it for yourself. It's all wrong, it really is. Sending you lots of good thoughts in the atmosphere - it's not much, but it's about the best I've got at the minute.

[LaughingGirl]

Employment agencies were the bane of my life when I was looking for work. They're a nightmare.

[LaughingGirl]

You're not paranoid.

 

I'd say that's one of their more moral tactics, to be honest!

[LaughingGirl]

we used to get in some scrapes due to drinking pints of pernod and lemonade lol ....manys the time.....ahhhhh days of my late youth and early twenties lol

 

 

Just as well they didn't have minimum price per unit in your day, Burly.

[LaughingGirl]

Is that a technical term burly?

 

Just for a second, close your eyes and actually visualise a "ratfacedcockhead".

 

OK, it made me laugh.

[LaughingGirl]

That's just plain wrong!!!

 

Any time. I'll be here all week.

[LaughingGirl]

This is a public service announcement.

 

However hard you're laughing, however much you're wiping the tears from your eyes....DO NOT wipe your eyes after you've been grating chili infused cheese. It will hurt, and there won't be enough water in the world to rinse that crap out.

 

Thank you for reading.

[LaughingGirl]

I'm don't think I can watch it. My Dad's been in respite care for the last few weeks, and although he's coming home this weekend, we're going to have to look into permanent care eventually. I'm paranoid enough without adding to it - I'll end up with a full scale surveillance system in his room.

[LaughingGirl]

This piece in the Daily Mail - although I did laugh at the Sarah De Tutte comment about them treating debtors fairly and reasonably at all times - wonder what planet she is from or on.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2135861/Collection-firms-chasing-58bn-debt-figure-jumps-6bn-just-SIX-months.html

 

Has someone invaded the Daily Mail and locked their usual staff writers in a cupboard or something? I know they're still a long way off The Independent, but this is the second piece I've seen from them that doesn't amount to "TEH DISABLED PEOPLE AND DEBTORS ARE GOING TO RUIN THE COUNTRY AND EAT OUR CHILDREN OMG WE'RE ALL DOOMED!!11!!"

[LaughingGirl]

I think it reads well because it was in the Independent.... may not be penned by the DM hacks (who seem to have left grammar and some spelling behind).

 

Aaaaah, suddenly it all becomes crystal clear. I thought they'd finally realised that if all their readers are too terrified to leave their houses because they think they're going to to be murdered by minorities (or run over by bloody wheelie bins), they won't sell many papers.

[LaughingGirl]

I fully symapthise, Lexis. I'm dealing with a company insurance claim this morning that is blatantly being wound up to turn into a personal injury claim, despite both cars moving only slightly faster than stationary (it happened in a car park, for goodness sake!).

 

I hate no win no fee solicitors with a passion. They do untold damage to the economy, not to mention make genuine claimants look bad because nobody believes them anymore!

[LaughingGirl]

Halifax yesterday tried to charge me £19.95 for sending £20 to Turkey - I told them where to shove their charge, went over to the Post Office and sent it recorded delivery for £6.25... it seems the banks are trying to charge for every single thing they can think of.

 

Wouldn't mind betting they will charge you for using a branch instead of online, or vice versa soon!

 

Amazed that isn't already happening. I'm under the impression I am unwelcome at a Halifax counter unless I'm clutching £300 in my grubby mitt as it is...

[LaughingGirl]

duck the bank is Think banking

 

What a rip-off. You could do what they're offering yourself for free.

 

The Halifax offer a perfectly serviceable basic bank account - it doesn't have any of the bells and whistles, but you get a debit card and internet banking and they seem to open them really quickly.

[LaughingGirl]

Yes, you can open the Halifax one online, you can only have one of these accounts though - they seem to have closed the door on multiple basic accounts.

 

You can do online banking, transfers, pay people by direct transfer and also use the card on Paypal.

 

Beware that they may try to get you to set up a current account... don't do that as they are expensive to run.

 

I've found that too - it's a bit annoying, because I like to have one account for bills and another for spending money. I can live with it though, so...

[LaughingGirl]

found Halifax onlne will let you know what happens

 

Just make sure you apply for the basic account, not the current account!

[LaughingGirl]

ok, filled in form but it did not ask if we wanted a joint account so in one name for now,it just said we will hear in about 7 days if they have accepted me,and it said standard account I think, was not very clear

 

Was it this one?

 

http://www.halifax.co.uk/bankaccounts/other-bank-accounts/easycash/

 

I should have pasted the link for you to start off with. I haven't had nearly enough coffee today.