At long last, the banks are introducing a faster payment system for phone and internet banking. I’ve often wondered how they can continue to get away with claiming it takes three days for money to transfer between banks/accounts – and the truth is, they really couldn’t continue to get away with it.
So they’re now gradually phasing in this new Faster Payments Service – which will (eventually) mean that you can do transfers on the same day, rather than waiting three days. Money leaves your account immediately, and is in the recipient bank account later that day.
Initially it’s just being trialled on smaller amounts – I think the average ceiling is about £20 at first – before it ends up going up to the maximum transaction value of £10,000 in a few months time. If you want to check whether your payment recipient can handle faster payments, you can check the sort-code on this site.
I wonder how this will affect the entire BACS and CHAPS system over time? It’ll be nice to be able to have same-day transfers without paying the extra £30+ for a CHAPS payment, that’s for sure.
So yes, all was well on the first drive of any note since getting everything done on the car.
A piss-poor day (Rain all the way) but the drive was fine. It even seems to have now sorted out the minor judder that was happening at about 60mph – always a bonus.
There’ll be at least another 200 miles added on in the next couple of days before we go off on our cross-country and cross-Irish-Sea jaunt, which should at least make sure everything’s bedded in OK for the journey.
So now I just need to find some time in which to pack and make sure I’ve got everything I/we need for the week…
The car was finally sorted on Friday, and I collected it Friday evening.
It also needed two new tyres, which got done yesterday along with getting the tracking sorted at the same time.
All told, the car’s cost me about £1,000 in the last week – although admittedly £550ish of that was down to me having hit the deer, and the repairs from that. So it could have been worse, but well – I could’ve done without those extra costs, as you can imagine.
But still, at least we know everything is sorted now for when we drive to Ireland on Friday/Saturday this week, which is quite reassuring.
Why is it always the simple stuff that never bastard well works?
All I want to do is have a drop-down box that submits itself to a form when it changes. I’ve been trying to use all variants of
document.forms.submit()
(And document.form.submit() and document.form['form_name'].submit() , and document.forms['form_name'].submit and so on and so on)
And does it work? Does it shit. Ah well, I’ll figure it out next week.
Probably.
Well, yesterday’s trip to the body shop didn’t go so well.
In fact, from what I could tell, they did fuck all. The Ford garage had to go over and collect the car, in order to get it serviced – and that went fine. They then took it back to the bodyshop (next door) for the work to finish and for me to collect it at half five.
Only when I got there at half five, suddenly it had become a two-day job. I’m not sure how – the guy who gave us the estimate definitely said it would be able to be done in one day, and when I booked it in nothing was said about it being two day’s work – but there it was. Two days, not one.
Oh, I could take it home, and they’d book it in for the work to be finished another day. Only when they got the car out for me to collect, the old bumper and wheel arch were still there, and it certainly looked (to my admittedly non-bodyshop eyes) like absolutely fuck-all had been done. At which point I went slightly orbital. The reason it was in yesterday was so that everything happened before we go off next Friday to Ireland. Also, it meant that the bodyshop hadn’t had to find me a courtesy car for the day, as I’d organised one from the Ford place. They’d done fuck all, and it was now a two-day job instead of one. In short, they were taking the piss.
So the car’s still in the bodyshop, and they’re supposed to be doing the work today. And I’ve been lumbered with a shitty Toyota Yaris as a courtesy car. It’s an utter heap of crap – I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole usually – but there we go, at least it means I’m OK for getting to and from work today. (and, of course, getting home last night)
I’ll be in there again at half five tonight, seeing what they try to over-charge me for this now. Should be fun.
I don’t normally bother to write much about spam – partly because I get a fair amount of it (although D4D™ doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere near as much as it used to – anyone else noticed their blogs not getting so many spam comments?) and mainly because well, it’s just rubbish.
But one arrived this morning which just made me chuckle. No good reason except for a very childish sense of humour.
From: Morgan Wang.
Subject : Natural Impotence Supplement
Yes, impotence supplements coming from a Wang. I’m saying no more.
I promise, no matter how much it sounds like me, this piece on ‘The Daily WTF’ is not me.
Honest.
I never did care about team-building, or winning a game of Laser-Tag…
