Grumble Thread

[oddoneout]

I'm still dithering about renewing my passport. I don't need it for the likes of holidays, but with family in Holland and none of us getting any younger I worry about some emergency meaning that I need or want to go there. If I do go ahead I'll pay the fee and get the Post Office to do a digital application as the branch in town can take the photos, check they are compliant and upload them direct. One thing I do need to check is whether it will be a renewal or a new application, as it is quite a long time since it expired.

[Jonathan]

After nearly 4 years of managing to avoid Covid, I've finally succumbed. Feeling rather wretched. Spent most of the last 2 days listening to music and feeling rubbish.

[french frank]

After nearly 4 years of managing to avoid Covid, I've finally succumbed. Feeling rather wretched. Spent most of the last 2 days listening to music and feeling rubbish.

Sorry to hear that, Jonathan. Get well soon! . A cautionary tale to show it's still around.

[Jonathan]

Thanks FF - still feeling awful this morning but maybe a little better than yesterday.

[french frank]

Thanks FF - still feeling awful this morning but maybe a little better than yesterday.

Sometimes enforced bedrest is beneficial to counter an overbusy daily routine.

[Dave2002]

After nearly 4 years of managing to avoid Covid, I've finally succumbed. Feeling rather wretched. Spent most of the last 2 days listening to music and feeling rubbish.

I hope you feel better soon. If you had the vaccinations, or even caught it previously without knowing - though that sounds unlikely from what you have written - you should eventually recover. When I finally caught Covid last year it wasn't pleasant, but passed soon enough, though some others took longer and definitely didn't enjoy it.

I think now it's actually endemic, so may appear like a cold or an allergy. Few people bother to take tests, or to take precautions. We still have some test kits for verification if we think we might have something like that.

Good luck with getting through this.

[Serial_Apologist]

James Max (whom I usually strongly disagree with) had a great grumble on the Jeremy Vine Show this morning about shoppers who hold up supermarket check-out queues by not being ready with cash or payment cards, delaying packing and in general taking their time, faffing on their iphone, as though once it's their turn they think they own the premises. He came in for some stick for possibly not taking account of age or disabilities; however, I have seen this time after time from normal-bodied and minded people, clearly with no thought for those following, though they themselves often huff and puff before it's their turn.

However part of the problem arises from adding unnecessary complexity to what should be the simple act of transaction, and once was. Those of us old enough to remember when supermarkets first came on the high street (remember Fine Fare's revolving spit-roasting chickens?) will recall the pros and cons: there would no more be the personalised service offered in your high street greengrocer's, baker's. butcher's and so on, but on the other hand the shopper in a hurry would be offered fast no messing in-and-out shopping by selecting their own items without a counter hand having repeatedly to return to the shelves. In fact one had genuine choice back then - still the option of a fast shopping spree using the supermarket, or going to the traditional seller as previously. But what then happened was that supermarket chains increasingly out-competed the traditional sellers on costs and time-saving, doing the latter out of business, with long-term results now apparent in dying shopping centres. Farmers too have been forced to comply with supermarket monopoly price fixing, often at the expense of the small holders themselves at the mercy of merciless large-scale agribusiness operators. Now that the supermarkets have consigned the small retail sector to virtual oblivion and killed off the city centres, their once-hyped advantageousness to the pressured shopper has vanished into the false past dreams of the myth-makers along with all the promises of new tech reducing hours of work and restoring the work-life balance, with this cashback, that item held up in the baggage department, those points awarded to be deducted, this OAP forgetting his or her pin number, that courteous staff member subjected to verbal abuse and worse for something that was never their fault, and the pound coin or tiddlywink that can't be found to liberate the shopping trolley and us all in our consumer paradise of freedom from the chains of enslavement. And so, so much more one could mention!

[Belgrove]

I'm still dithering about renewing my passport. I don't need it for the likes of holidays, but with family in Holland and none of us getting any younger I worry about some emergency meaning that I need or want to go there. If I do go ahead I'll pay the fee and get the Post Office to do a digital application as the branch in town can take the photos, check they are compliant and upload them direct. One thing I do need to check is whether it will be a renewal or a new application, as it is quite a long time since it expired.

My old passport was due to expire in the New Year. I reapplied with 6 months to go, having heard horror stories of delays, but the new (blue) one came back in a week! Initiating the application and filling in details online was very straightforward, I used a booth for the photo, which checks if it’s compliment, and provides a code for the passport office to access a digitised version which is used on the passport. The only thing to send is your old passport (returned with the corner snipped off) which automatically makes it a reapplication. I was agreeably surprised and impressed by the ease and efficiency of the entire process.

[Pulcinella]

My old passport was due to expire in the New Year. I reapplied with 6 months to go, having heard horror stories of delays, but the new (blue) one came back in a week! Initiating the application and filling in details online was very straightforward, I used a booth for the photo, which checks if it’s compliment, and provides a code for the passport office to access a digitised version which is used on the passport. The only thing to send is your old passport (returned with the corner snipped off) which automatically makes it a reapplication. I was agreeably surprised and impressed by the ease and efficiency of the entire process.

But you will have lost the six months your existing passport had to run.
In the good old days this was 'carried over'.

[oddoneout]

But you will have lost the six months your existing passport had to run.
In the good old days this was 'carried over'.

In the good old days you didn't need to have x months in hand to be allowed to enter certain countries. Quite apart from concerns about how long the new passport might take to come through, if it had had to be used it might not have passed muster with "only" 6 months left before expiry.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...cument%20early.
At least if I do decide to renew my passport I won't lose months as it is well and truly expired already!

[Old Grumpy]

Banks!
OH received several texts [allegedly] from Lloyds Bank saying the account was about to go overdrawn. Part of a card number was included in the first message; part of an account number in the second. Due to (presumed) lack of action on the part of the account holder a third message (which included the surname and title of the a/c holder) stated all communication would now be by email.

We do not have any accounts with Lloyds.



Visiting two separate Lloyds branches and contacting Lloyds complaints by phone yielded the same response: "We can't do anything about it without the account number or address".

This does not seem to be a scam (our initial thought) and can only be explained by the a/c holder having registered my wife's mobile number by mistake. Why the bank can't search their systems for an account connected with a given phone number is beyond me. I did actually contact the financial ombudsman to see if they could do anything, but no. They did suggest, however, that this might represent a data breach and the information commissioner might be interested...

[french frank]

Banks!

Just checked. Practically all the bank branches in Bristol are now in the city centre. The two that are closest to me require a bus trip into the city centre first and then back out again - which is a bit pointless as there are branches in the centre without getting another bus back out the the branches closest to me. I thought banks were making huge profits.

We're getting a shiny big Coop next door to the existing one which is being demolished. Surely it wouldn't be difficult to house a small Coop bank branch in the new building? And for similar branches of other banks to be in existing large stores?

[oddoneout]

Just checked. Practically all the bank branches in Bristol are now in the city centre. The two that are closest to me require a bus trip into the city centre first and then back out again - which is a bit pointless as there are branches in the centre without getting another bus back out the the branches closest to me. I thought banks were making huge profits.

We're getting a shiny big Coop next door to the existing one which is being demolished. Surely it wouldn't be difficult to house a small Coop bank branch in the new building? And for similar branches of other banks to be in existing large stores?

The Coop Bank isn't owned by the Cooperative Group anymore.

[french frank]

The Coop Bank isn't owned by the Cooperative Group anymore.

Oh. Well that's another good idea scuppered then. Not that it need be a Coop bank anyway. Why couldn't Lloyds have a little corner in a Coop store?

[Serial_Apologist]

Oh. Well that's another good idea scuppered then. Not that it need be a Coop bank anyway. Why couldn't Lloyds have a little corner in a Coop store?

The whole admittedly diminishing business of cashing cheques is becoming so problematic it's hard not to conclude that the world of doing business has ganged up in order to force cheque payers and receivers into doing it online, along with every other damn thing. A year ago Lloyds answered my phone call to say I must use "the" local post office who would transfer the cheque amount into my Lloyds account through their system. I had to try three post office branches to find one set up to do this, and the staff member was understandably irritated this this was now part of their job.

The latest annoyance is that in September and October just gone I was three times "fined" a banking charge of £14 something - the first two times for inadvertently going over their threshold requirement to hold a certain minimum sum in the account, the third for inexplicable reasons - maybe I had been late in rectifying my oversight. As it happened the manageress at the Streatham branch coincidentally rang, announcing herself as there to help with any problems I might be experiencing. I mentioned the above, and after checking the account in question from her end, she stated that the abovementioned banking charge was a regular monthly deduction and had been "for some time". Indeed, she was surprised that it had only started being deducted in this month! She then informed me that the account is a very old one, no longer available to new clients, and recommended me to go onto another type of account, one which is not listed in any of their online publicity blurb. If I wanted to know anything more about it I would have to speak to the manager at the Putney branch (!) who is, like, the area manager, and this was her work phone number, should I want to contact her. However she (the Streatham branch manager(ess)) could send me a leaflet explaining the aforesaid "mystery" account.

Four weeks later it arrived by post. As she had explained the new account had fewer of the add-ons (offers, insurance etc) than my existing one - which I had explained I did not need - no banking charge, but a slightly better interest rate. However, it appears to require me to add £2,000 pounds into it each month! Either that or the write-up is badly explained, and really means I need to have a minimum of £2,000 in it if I am not to breach the threshold incurring the £14 deduction or whatever the amount would be, which is not stated. Why on earth should I be expected to continually transfer £2,000 from my deposit account, where the incrementally diminishing amount will thereby progressively earn me less and less interest? The irony however is that the "banking charge" deduction whatever has not been inflicted on my current account for this month, leaving me thinking that because it is no longer an on-offer account to new bankers they must have lost or dumped the documents stating the conditions. Really, this is all so unnecessary and just adds to all the other everyday stresses of life in 2023.