And is now backtracking faster than a politician left holding an unpopular policy.
:lol::lol:

So what Restaurant was that?

The Royal Hotel in Ventnor.

Cheers - looks lovely - might have to think of a weekend away with the missus

It's not our old friends is it? lol

Guess you'll be on here a lot today then. Have they got any good kit they're dumping?

C

Not our old friends. They're having major changes in the way they work but until they get their account in order I can't go there at all.

Lots of kit sitting around but still months until any of it needs disposing of.
Need to keep everything as spares just in case anything breaks (as they'll not want to buy in replacements etc)

I know they're closing Bangkok. The new guy even got in touch with me for passwords lol. I pleaded ignorance I'm trying to organise a meet up with some of the old crowd so if it happens I'll let you know.

Sounds like this closure is going to take a while. How often are you going to have to go there?

Once a week for the next 4 months.

I am making sure I bring training videos & headphones.

itunes helped me decide on moving away from the iphone (that and o2 being total twats)

Was listening to the Today programme this morning and listening to George Osborne trying to disentangle this whole mess while attempting to evade any responsibility for fixing it was quite amusing. He made a good fist of it to be fair to him but I don't think this is going away yet and I don't think the government can avoid the fallout entirely. TBH I did think Humphries let him off a bit lightly, or maybe it's he's just mellowing in his old age.

The odd thing is Barclay's board have given the job of finding a new CEO to the ex-Chairman who just resigned... a) He just resigned didn't he? and b) He was the one who chose Bob Diamond, so that suggests his ability to choose CEO's isn't exactly to be trusted.


I'm with Smile, who are effectively the co-op (I have no idea why there are two of them) and the service has been first class compared with every other bank I've ever dealt with. They don't have branches this is true but you can do any business you might want to do at a branch at a post office instead. Between that and online, I can't say I've ever really felt the need of a bank branch to go in to.

Jon

I'm a fairly happy HSBC customer. My local branch is friendly and helpful. I have no complaints. It's just the high street banking being all munged in with the dodgy investment side of things might ripple down. I'm therefore looking at alternatives, and the Co-op (already being a long time member of our local Co-op, and recently having switched our energy supply to them as well) seems the more likely alternative right now.

I could look at some of the unmutualised building societies in our area, or look at a credit union. Most of these, however, don't offer day-to-day banking services. If all I wanted was savings and loans, I'd be happy.

Perhaps I ought to just withdraw all my cash and stick it under the bed.

Yes, I know. It's actually a fair way from me, and involves either expensive buses or exorbitant parking charges to get to. My current bank has free parking and is only a few minutes away.

It's still up for consideration, though. I understand you can pay into accounts via a Post Office counter, and there's always the internet for day-to-day stuff.

I bank with them. You can't pay cash in, which may or may not be a problem. Cheques I either pay at the post office or stick in the post box. They used to provide envelopes for that, but cutbacks mean you now have to provide your own.

I don't think I've been inside a bank for over 10 years, expect just once to open a business account.

IIRC you can still request them to send you some, they just don't send them out by default any more. It's under the 'customer services' link on the main page somewhere.

Jon

Used to be - you can still request PO envelopes but not postal ones. Or at least, that was true last time I looked. All the glue on mine have dried up because they're so old