Tax Return
Posted: Fri 27 October, 2006 Filed under: Weirdness 1 Comment »This week, I got a letter from your friends and mine, the Inland Revenue. Following on from my self-assessment tax return, which I sent off in time for the “we’ll tell you how much tax you owe” deadline at the end of September, and please bear in mind that I’ve been on PAYE (AKA ‘paying the tax decreed by Inland Revenue’) for the entire tax year.
So – the letter arrived, along with fucking reams (I may exaggerate slightly) of paperwork explaining how they’d done their calculations, what tax had been paid, when, why, what it should’ve been, what it might be, what it is, and all sorts of other shit.
At the end of it, they finally tell me the amount that I owe for this year – bearing in mind (again) that I’ve only been doing PAYE this year, so really it should be nothing at all.
But instead it’s… Are you ready for this?… 88p
They’ve spent about 85p on the fucking postage!
Getting Off
Posted: Thu 26 October, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Travel, Weirdness 1 Comment »I was reading Diamond Geezer’s post about how people get on trains this morning, and remembered something I’d been going to write about a while back.
Basically it’s quite similar to DG’s post, but I still find it fascinating that when it comes to trains and platforms, so many people
- Just get to the entrance to the platform, and simply stop, making no effort to move down the platform, and having no consideration for other people. (I know, it’s London, and I really shouldn’t hold out any hope of consideration for others, but there we go – sometimes I’m an optimist)
- Don’t know where the exit they’ll be using is at their destination station.
I find this particularly odd on the train from Waterloo to Bracknell, where tons of people just cram on to the train and find a space anywhere – then you see the same people walking all the way along the platform when they’ve reached their destination. To a bunch of people so obsessed with wasted time, delays, and anything that interrupts their little routines, I find this really weird.
When I’m using that train (or in fact any train where I know the route, the destination, and where I’m likely to end up) I try and get a seat at the place where the exit is closest when I get off the train. When I was going from Reading to Manchester (or vice versa, actually) I knew it was best to be at the front of the train, because at each end it’s the final stop, so the front is going to be closest to the exit. Conversely, when I’m going from London to Cambridge I stay at the back of the train, because that’s where the exit will be at Cambridge.
Maybe it’s just something far too logical for most people, I don’t know. It just seems weird to be in such a hurry all the time (in the example of London commuters/people) yet not be organised about things at the same time, so that you don’t have to keep on fucking about walking the length of a platform.
Turns of Phrase
Posted: Thu 26 October, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Getting Organised, Weirdness Leave a comment »The other night I had to talk to a bank’s “customer services” department. I’ve been trying to set up a savings account, and they offered one of the better rates around (roughly 4.75%) so I sent in an application. Two months ago. They’re only just processing the application now, and were calling to find out whether I knew my (now-ex) employer’s company number, because they couldn’t find the company on Companies House, and directory enquiries couldn’t find the phone number. (In fairness on that point, I can’t find the phone number either)
So they called me, but wouldn’t/couldn’t
- accept the number if I gave it to them
- accept the company number if I gave it to them
- use the company’s website to find the number
or - find the company details in the HSBC system, even though the company banks with HSBC
Which rather led me to question just what the point of the call was. Unfortunately, the woman I was speaking to couldn’t actually tell me what the point was, except to go through the cyclical argument of “well, it’s on the form” – “but you can’t find the information, and it’s irrelevent anyway, so why do you need it?” – “because it’s on the form”
Eventually, we had the following conversation snippet
Me: OK, this is now utterly farcical. Can I speak to your supervisor please?
Her: Sir, I’m the on-duty supervisor tonight.
Me: OK, can I get a call from your manager tomorrow then?
Her: I don’t know. It’s not the usual procedure…
Me: Fine. Can I speak to someone who’s even vaguely competent, or at the very least capable of independent thought?
Her: …
I don’t think First Direct have any of those…
Anyway, I’m now going to use a different bank – First Direct can get stuffed if that call is representative of their attitude to customers.
Defecation’s what you need (if you wanna be a Record Breaker)
Posted: Mon 23 October, 2006 Filed under: Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »
I have to say, there’s something ineffably gross about this story of a man who has been smearing shit over train carriages in the South-East.
So far he’s done this on about thirty trains, which has cost about £60,000 in cleaning costs and damages.
Really it just makes you wonder how some peoples minds work, doesn’t it?
Adopting Madonna
Posted: Mon 23 October, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »I must be missing something relevant in the farce about Madonna adopting a boy from Malawi.
Personally I don’t give a monkey’s toss what Madonna does or doesn’t do, and I think a lot of the hype around this story is just that – hype.
But I do have to wonder (in the little brain-time I’ve given this) one thing. If the boy has a father, what the blue blazing fiddly fuck has he doing in an orphanage?
Or do I have the wrong meaning of “orphan” stored in my head?
Breakfasts
Posted: Sun 22 October, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Over the last month, I’ve been in a selection of different hotels and B&Bs, and one thing I’ve noticed is the sheer difference in quality that’s around. However, there’s also a weird little equation that seems to keep on coming up – it’s not just in the last month I’ve noticed this, but over the last rumty tumty years.
The more a hotel is per night, the poorer the breakfast is
I still don’t really understand how this works out, but I know that the cheapest B&B I’ve used is the one with the best breakfast – and the one that cost me the most was easily the worst. (And yes, that was the one with the watery scrambled eggs)
Very odd.