That's a pain, Karl - I take it the warranty ran out just before it gave up the ghost?
First time it failed it was under warranty. Two repairs needed since. The warranty is neither here nor there though; there is a legal requirement for goods to be durable and of acceptable quality - a cooker failing four times in three years would I think fail that test. I will have an uphill struggle though. I'm at at Nice in my three letter process - Nice, Nasty, Small Claims Court.
My printer. I changed the ink. All seemed well did the alignment print as required. now my printer keeps printing alignment paper over and over when I try printing something else. My computer keeps saying looking for printer when I try to print. Hells Bells I am looking right at it why can't you find it? grrrrrrrr. I think I will give it up for the night and here I thought I had accomplished so much needed paperwork today,
Success. I am up and printing. I had turned the printer off and on at least 3 times, nothing. One last try before hanging it up for the evening, only this time I unplugged the thing from the wall. For some reason unknown to me that fixed it.
Success. I am up and printing. I had turned the printer off and on at least 3 times, nothing. One last try before hanging it up for the evening, only this time I unplugged the thing from the wall. For some reason unknown to me that fixed it.
Much modern kit has soft power buttons. There's a little circuit behind the button that detects you pressing it and it then instructs the rest of the device according. Therefore it's never really truly properly off. The only way it can be is if you cut the power and give it a few seconds for all the capacitors to discharge before powering back up.
Incidentally, Windows users might find it interesting to know that Shut Down doesn't do what it says on the tin. It actually puts the machine in a deep sleep. Restart on the other hand does a full shutdown and then restarts from the very beginning. Restart is therefore a more thorough Restart than shutting down and turning back on. Thanks for that one MS!
My bank. I transferred a largeish sum from a deposit account to my current account to cover a BIG CHEQUE I've got to pay this week. Went into branch with relevant paperwork, answered insulting questions about purpose of the expenditure, was I, "an older person" being manipulated by others (😈), all apparently to stop money laundering.
This morning get a text to tell me my account has been frozen because of "suspicious activity" - to whit, the deposit of a large sum of money from an "unidentifiable source". So, back into the branch, with paperwork, to sort out - it only took TWO HOURS 👹
My bank. I transferred a largeish sum from a deposit account to my current account to cover a BIG CHEQUE I've got to pay this week. Went into branch with relevant paperwork, answered insulting questions about purpose of the expenditure, was I, "an older person" being manipulated by others (😈), all apparently to stop money laundering.
This morning get a text to tell me my account has been frozen because of "suspicious activity" - to whit, the deposit of a large sum of money from an "unidentifiable source". So, back into the branch, with paperwork, to sort out - it only took TWO HOURS 👹
Is there no end to this idiocy?
I'm going to defend the bank a bit here. They have had no end of criticism for not doing enough to prevent older people (and young naive ones as well) from being used as money launderers. You know that you're not vulnerable but they don't know you from Adam.
Yebbut that is OK for the palaver required in the first place. But once you’ve gone through all that to transfer money into your current account it’s a real pain if that transaction which you’ve gone to all that effort to verify with your bank then causes them to freeze the account into which you have agreed with them you are going to pay it.
Yebbut that is OK for the palaver required in the first place. But once you’ve gone through all that to transfer money into your current account it’s a real pain if that transaction which you’ve gone to all that effort to verify with your bank then causes them to freeze the account into which you have agreed with them you are going to pay it.
That's because these systems are all automated. It's not like anyone's seeing this and saying "Ah, yes, that's Mr Organist! I remember!" - I wonder if the deposit and current counts are held at different banks?
I cannot give a £10 bag of coins to my other half to put into the bank for me because of money laundering laws, but it seems to be OK if you are Russian and bung the Conservative Party enough cash.
KarlLBlet #1 is applying for student finance. So we also have to be registered at the SLC. We of course already are, having had student loans ourselves (in groats, farthings, denarii and ancient Greek drachmae). So we need to regain our accounts. Not too bad for MrsLB who paid hers off recently and still has details. Not so for me, whose loan was long ago forgotten in the depths of history. But to regain access, they need the address I opened the account under
This, gentle reader, was 32 years ago. I can't remember my address from then!
I now have to write to them using real paper and stamps and stuff to get this sorted.
Reminds me of when I closed my Post Office savings account - 'Your signature's not the same!' Well yes, I've got a bit better at joined-up writing since I was seven.
Reminds me of when I closed my Post Office savings account - 'Your signature's not the same!' Well yes, I've got a bit better at joined-up writing since I was seven.
Yebbut that is OK for the palaver required in the first place. But once you’ve gone through all that to transfer money into your current account it’s a real pain if that transaction which you’ve gone to all that effort to verify with your bank then causes them to freeze the account into which you have agreed with them you are going to pay it.
That's because these systems are all automated. It's not like anyone's seeing this and saying "Ah, yes, that's Mr Organist! I remember!" - I wonder if the deposit and current counts are held at different banks?
No. Same bank, same branch. Paperwork was very clear this was to pay for fuel oil for the local buyers club, supporting letters, transfers in all stating "Fuel oil club " followed by the number of litres, etc, etc, etc. Its nit a question of knowing me, its a question of being able to read.
Yebbut that is OK for the palaver required in the first place. But once you’ve gone through all that to transfer money into your current account it’s a real pain if that transaction which you’ve gone to all that effort to verify with your bank then causes them to freeze the account into which you have agreed with them you are going to pay it.
That's because these systems are all automated. It's not like anyone's seeing this and saying "Ah, yes, that's Mr Organist! I remember!" - I wonder if the deposit and current counts are held at different banks?
No. Same bank, same branch. Paperwork was very clear this was to pay for fuel oil for the local buyers club, supporting letters, transfers in all stating "Fuel oil club " followed by the number of litres, etc, etc, etc. Its nit a question of knowing me, its a question of being able to read.
That's what I mean - no-one read it. A computer flagged it.
We nearly lost a house purchase because of silly banking regulations. We'd sold our house in Belfast, the money had been instantly (as we thought) transferred to our Canadian account, and David wrote a cheque for the purchase price. Alas, the Canadian bank said the transfer would take three weeks (or something equally outrageous) to clear, and bounced the cheque, causing the seller (not unreasonably) to think we were having her on, and sell the house to someone else.
Luckily for us, the other buyer's financing didn't come through, and as we were cash buyers they came back to us. David made sure this time by getting the Canadian bank person to phone the Belfast one, who assured them that the money had been transferred instantly.
I recently moved from a very small rural town, truly 1 stop light and one 5 block long main street, half of which have a sidewalk. My local bank there does not have a branch anywhere near the city I moved to. They told me to just send them a letter stating that I had moved from the area and wished to close my account and to send me a check for the remaining monies. ( very small amount) I mailed the letter to the address on their website. The envelope came back not deliverable. ( It turns out they keep a PO box ) What makes this sort of funny although I am out a stamp is that the bank is one building away from the post office and I am sure that everyone in the bank knows everyone at the post office, as well as me. I understand, but back in the good old days, I bet there was a time when the postmaster could have just walked it next door.
Many years ago, my husband notified the bank that he was going on a work trip to America, and asked them not to freeze his account when he started using his credit card there.
Half way through his trip they froze his account.
He had bought gifts for our children from FAO Schwartz which apparently was n't normal behaviour for a man on a work trip.
We had to convince them that it is possible for a man to simultaneously
a) be on a work trip and
b) not forget the existence of his children.
Many years ago, my husband notified the bank that he was going on a work trip to America, and asked them not to freeze his account when he started using his credit card there.
Half way through his trip they froze his account.
He had bought gifts for our children from FAO Schwartz which apparently was n't normal behaviour for a man on a work trip.
We had to convince them that it is possible for a man to simultaneously
a) be on a work trip and
b) not forget the existence of his children.
We had a similar experience. Notified our local branch of the mutual bank that we would be travelling for six weeks, outlining the countries we would be visiting. Did some shopping in Singapore including a new telephoto lens. Arrived at our hotel in Beijing to find we could not pay the deposit on our room as the card was blocked account suspicious activity. Then used up all the credits on our phone trying to sort it out. Fortunately we had some US dollars to tide us over.
I have an absolutely wonderful team lead X who nevertheless keeps miscorrecting my English back to errors, causing me all sorts of embarrassment as I'm forced to re-correct it via email. At least before we were all remote I could stick my head around the edge of the cube and point it out gently. Having to send email about it feels like making a federal case of it.
From the peanut gallery: "But why, then, don't you let it go?"
Because I'm charged with proofreading the bloody thing for publication. And while I'm the proofreader, his official title is "editor," and de facto (not de jure) he has the final say on the matter. Which wasn't a problem until our mutual boss left and his position went unfilled. After a year, it has become clear that X has little faith in my ability to grammar correctly, if you know what I mean--or to detect errors in scansion, content problems that could get us into legal hot water, etc. etc. etc. Despite my many years in publishing and my PhD in English.
And he's such a nice guy. But he won't trust me, and we've all been remote for two full years, and the guy who could/should sit him down and remedy this problem is over his head drowning in other projects, and there's not a snowball's chance in hell.
Which leaves me to make a pain in the ass of myself on a regular basis, or else to say, "Ah, feckit" and do a shitty job. And.I.just.can't. Grrrrrrrrr.
(Yes, that hyphen needs to come out, dammit! It's not only ungrammatical, but in that particular phrase it evokes Donald Trump on a tear with his favorite insults. Sheesh. Just trust me already.)
I was going to claim the 10p plus interest I've had left in the Aberdeen Savings Bank since I worked for the University in the summer of 1972. After reading all this, maybe I won't bother.
My guy? I'm afraid he's of the mind "The author is always right." Also has a tendency to think I'm bitching about their style. Which I am, but only in the sense that it's inappropriate (given our mission and audience) to write complex-compound un-agented passive constructed sentences with three subordinate clauses for an average sentence length of 39 words when you could say the same thing in a simple active sentence with twelve words long. And so on, and so forth... We need and want (at least we SAY we want) people who can write on a middle school level (think: ages 12 to 14 reading level). In practice we hire people who write on a level that causes difficulty to college grads, and then this guy refuses to edit them, because "That's their style." This is work-for-hire, dude. If they can't write so an average human being can understand what the fuck they're talking about, I don't CARE if they hold a doctorate in whats-a-fuck-it. This isn't novel writing. This isn't poetry, or lyrics. It's meant to be straightforward nonfiction prose on subjects like suicide prevention, anxiety, doubt, etc. etc. etc. If they can't communicate, edit them. Or find someone who can.
I was going to claim the 10p plus interest I've had left in the Aberdeen Savings Bank since I worked for the University in the summer of 1972. After reading all this, maybe I won't bother.
Don't forget to declare the interest on your tax return. Strictly, of course, you have to declare that year by year, and no doubt there are penalties for late payment.......
Just be glad you were not the editor for St. Paul.
Oh I do so wish he'd had someone to shorten his sentences. I get so lost in them!
True, but of course Greek has the advantages of agreement and verb conjugation which direct readers around in a way that doesn't happen with English. One wonders what his spoken Greek was like, though?
But ST doesn't live in the UK, which presumably makes him a "non-dom", like Mrs. Sunak. So, no tax ...
I assumed from his detailed and vast banking that he was in the UK - but even if he lives elsewhere I'm pretty sure that he be liable for UK tax on any income received from investments there.
Just be glad you were not the editor for St. Paul.
Oh I do so wish he'd had someone to shorten his sentences. I get so lost in them!
True, but of course Greek has the advantages of agreement and verb conjugation which direct readers around in a way that doesn't happen with English. One wonders what his spoken Greek was like, though?
Perhaps there should be a Circus thread: 'St. Paul's writing before his editor got hold of it'.
No, I'm not going to start it. I have neither the biblical knowledge, nor the writing style, nor the wit to do justice to the idea.
She is an Indian citizen (I think India doesn't allow dual citizenship but I could be wrong). I gather domiciliary status is not the same as residency so she can be resident here and non-dom for a period of time, 15 years from what I have read. She will still be paying tax on her UK income, as I understand it, but not her Indian income, which will be taxed in India. But I am no expert on tax law.
She is an Indian citizen (I think India doesn't allow dual citizenship but I could be wrong). I gather domiciliary status is not the same as residency so she can be resident here and non-dom for a period of time, 15 years from what I have read. She will still be paying tax on her UK income, as I understand it, but not her Indian income, which will be taxed in India. But I am no expert on tax law.
Thank you Piglet for that information.
In answer to Heavenlyannie, domicile, nationality and residence are different concepts, although in determining domicile, residence is a useful starting point.
TICTH (though I suspect it is already there) BT Broadband. My connection has been on and off (mostly - and currently - off) for a couple of weeks, and an engineer was supposed to pay a visit today between 1pm and 6pm. This was all booked via email (using my V**afone dongle).
No engineer. No call, despite two messages being left on their mobile, the number of which was given to me on the O-so-matey Track Fault page of My BT.
After a good 90 minutes on the phone (free calls, happily) with an advisor, BT eventually decided that I needed to book a further appointment with an engineer. I now await another email...
The advisor, a very helpful chap from (he said) Falkirk was very apologetic, and I rather think I was the most awkward sod problem he'd had to deal with all day.
There is, I think, some mega-fault with the local Broadband pieces of string, rather than with my own shiny newish Hub (it replaced the old one early in 2020). Although I have internet access via the dongle, for some reason it won't talk to my printer, which only seems to work if the PC is connected to BT.
After two more calls to BT advisors today, a Very Nice Lady In Falkirk (sounds like a limerick...) confirmed that there is nothing wrong with my landline, BUT (she said) my two-year-old Hub is actually now well out-of-date, and might possibly be malfunctioning. She told me that it was not unknown for the odd Hub here and there to actually be a Lemon...
Anyhoo, a lovely new super-Hub Mk 5 (my present one is a Mk 2) will be with me on Tuesday, and the Very Nice Lady In Falkirk will call me on Wednesday to see how I'm getting on with it...🤞🤞
TBH, it's not been at all difficult to actually contact BT, and their staff seem to be very helpful, patient, and polite with this Aged Technophobe.
*sigh*
Meanwhile, it occurred to me to try connecting my printer to its PC (online via Vodafone, not BT) with a USB cable, rather than using wireless.
Ha! The proof of the pudding is whether I can manage to set up the New Hub when it arrives...
It's hard to keep up with teknollogee. I have a new mobile phone which is causing me grief, so TICTH the firms that send out gadgets with so many bells and whistles that you could run a small country from them, and yet provide no instructions (other than where to out the SIM card).
Fortunately, my neighbours have an intelligent 11-year old son, to whom I fly for succour when needed - but they're on holiday just now...
Comments
First time it failed it was under warranty. Two repairs needed since. The warranty is neither here nor there though; there is a legal requirement for goods to be durable and of acceptable quality - a cooker failing four times in three years would I think fail that test. I will have an uphill struggle though. I'm at at Nice in my three letter process - Nice, Nasty, Small Claims Court.
I wasn't having a good day to start with, but they didn't help.
Much modern kit has soft power buttons. There's a little circuit behind the button that detects you pressing it and it then instructs the rest of the device according. Therefore it's never really truly properly off. The only way it can be is if you cut the power and give it a few seconds for all the capacitors to discharge before powering back up.
Incidentally, Windows users might find it interesting to know that Shut Down doesn't do what it says on the tin. It actually puts the machine in a deep sleep. Restart on the other hand does a full shutdown and then restarts from the very beginning. Restart is therefore a more thorough Restart than shutting down and turning back on. Thanks for that one MS!
This morning get a text to tell me my account has been frozen because of "suspicious activity" - to whit, the deposit of a large sum of money from an "unidentifiable source". So, back into the branch, with paperwork, to sort out - it only took TWO HOURS 👹
Is there no end to this idiocy?
I'm going to defend the bank a bit here. They have had no end of criticism for not doing enough to prevent older people (and young naive ones as well) from being used as money launderers. You know that you're not vulnerable but they don't know you from Adam.
That's because these systems are all automated. It's not like anyone's seeing this and saying "Ah, yes, that's Mr Organist! I remember!" - I wonder if the deposit and current counts are held at different banks?
KarlLBlet #1 is applying for student finance. So we also have to be registered at the SLC. We of course already are, having had student loans ourselves (in groats, farthings, denarii and ancient Greek drachmae). So we need to regain our accounts. Not too bad for MrsLB who paid hers off recently and still has details. Not so for me, whose loan was long ago forgotten in the depths of history. But to regain access, they need the address I opened the account under
This, gentle reader, was 32 years ago. I can't remember my address from then!
I now have to write to them using real paper and stamps and stuff to get this sorted.
I didn't!
Bet it's not
No. Same bank, same branch. Paperwork was very clear this was to pay for fuel oil for the local buyers club, supporting letters, transfers in all stating "Fuel oil club " followed by the number of litres, etc, etc, etc. Its nit a question of knowing me, its a question of being able to read.
That's what I mean - no-one read it. A computer flagged it.
Luckily for us, the other buyer's financing didn't come through, and as we were cash buyers they came back to us. David made sure this time by getting the Canadian bank person to phone the Belfast one, who assured them that the money had been transferred instantly.
What a faff.
Half way through his trip they froze his account.
He had bought gifts for our children from FAO Schwartz which apparently was n't normal behaviour for a man on a work trip.
We had to convince them that it is possible for a man to simultaneously
a) be on a work trip and
b) not forget the existence of his children.
We had a similar experience. Notified our local branch of the mutual bank that we would be travelling for six weeks, outlining the countries we would be visiting. Did some shopping in Singapore including a new telephoto lens. Arrived at our hotel in Beijing to find we could not pay the deposit on our room as the card was blocked account suspicious activity. Then used up all the credits on our phone trying to sort it out. Fortunately we had some US dollars to tide us over.
I have an absolutely wonderful team lead X who nevertheless keeps miscorrecting my English back to errors, causing me all sorts of embarrassment as I'm forced to re-correct it via email. At least before we were all remote I could stick my head around the edge of the cube and point it out gently. Having to send email about it feels like making a federal case of it.
From the peanut gallery: "But why, then, don't you let it go?"
Because I'm charged with proofreading the bloody thing for publication. And while I'm the proofreader, his official title is "editor," and de facto (not de jure) he has the final say on the matter. Which wasn't a problem until our mutual boss left and his position went unfilled. After a year, it has become clear that X has little faith in my ability to grammar correctly, if you know what I mean--or to detect errors in scansion, content problems that could get us into legal hot water, etc. etc. etc. Despite my many years in publishing and my PhD in English.
And he's such a nice guy. But he won't trust me, and we've all been remote for two full years, and the guy who could/should sit him down and remedy this problem is over his head drowning in other projects, and there's not a snowball's chance in hell.
Which leaves me to make a pain in the ass of myself on a regular basis, or else to say, "Ah, feckit" and do a shitty job. And.I.just.can't. Grrrrrrrrr.
(Yes, that hyphen needs to come out, dammit! It's not only ungrammatical, but in that particular phrase it evokes Donald Trump on a tear with his favorite insults. Sheesh. Just trust me already.)
I've calmed down now. But it's very frustrating!
Don't forget to declare the interest on your tax return. Strictly, of course, you have to declare that year by year, and no doubt there are penalties for late payment.......
But ST doesn't live in the UK, which presumably makes him a "non-dom", like Mrs. Sunak. So, no tax ...
But what if the building society charges him an Administration Fee greater than the value of his investment?
BTW, any news on your TV?
True, but of course Greek has the advantages of agreement and verb conjugation which direct readers around in a way that doesn't happen with English. One wonders what his spoken Greek was like, though?
I assumed from his detailed and vast banking that he was in the UK - but even if he lives elsewhere I'm pretty sure that he be liable for UK tax on any income received from investments there.
Mrs. Sunak is the fabulously wealthy wife of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, who apparently has non-dom status so she can avoid paying tax.
Perhaps there should be a Circus thread: 'St. Paul's writing before his editor got hold of it'.
No, I'm not going to start it. I have neither the biblical knowledge, nor the writing style, nor the wit to do justice to the idea.
Oh believe me, I am. Though come to think of it...
Thank you Piglet for that information.
In answer to Heavenlyannie, domicile, nationality and residence are different concepts, although in determining domicile, residence is a useful starting point.
No engineer. No call, despite two messages being left on their mobile, the number of which was given to me on the O-so-matey Track Fault page of My BT.
After a good 90 minutes on the phone (free calls, happily) with an advisor, BT eventually decided that I needed to book a further appointment with an engineer. I now await another email...
The advisor, a very helpful chap from (he said) Falkirk was very apologetic, and I rather think I was the most awkward sod problem he'd had to deal with all day.
There is, I think, some mega-fault with the local Broadband pieces of string, rather than with my own shiny newish Hub (it replaced the old one early in 2020). Although I have internet access via the dongle, for some reason it won't talk to my printer, which only seems to work if the PC is connected to BT.
Machinery is all very well until it doesn't work.
After two more calls to BT advisors today, a Very Nice Lady In Falkirk (sounds like a limerick...) confirmed that there is nothing wrong with my landline, BUT (she said) my two-year-old Hub is actually now well out-of-date, and might possibly be malfunctioning. She told me that it was not unknown for the odd Hub here and there to actually be a Lemon...
Anyhoo, a lovely new super-Hub Mk 5 (my present one is a Mk 2) will be with me on Tuesday, and the Very Nice Lady In Falkirk will call me on Wednesday to see how I'm getting on with it...🤞🤞
TBH, it's not been at all difficult to actually contact BT, and their staff seem to be very helpful, patient, and polite with this Aged Technophobe.
*sigh*
Meanwhile, it occurred to me to try connecting my printer to its PC (online via Vodafone, not BT) with a USB cable, rather than using wireless.
It worked, so well done, Me!
It's hard to keep up with teknollogee. I have a new mobile phone which is causing me grief, so TICTH the firms that send out gadgets with so many bells and whistles that you could run a small country from them, and yet provide no instructions (other than where to out the SIM card).
Fortunately, my neighbours have an intelligent 11-year old son, to whom I fly for succour when needed - but they're on holiday just now...