2014 — 9 September: Tuesday
My first external port of call this sunny morning is Dr Fang's office, alas. I find that's always enough to put a bit of blight on a day, somehow. After that, I suppose I'd better call in to check how the bank I left yesterday is dealing / reeling with the shock of my departure. I was, after all, only keeping the accounts open for sentimental reasons, it having been Christa's bank for 34 years.
My initial skirmish...
... with their voicemail system yesterday got me no further than the second digit of an unrecalled "telephone banking system password" (not unreasonable, given I never signed up to deal with them by phone) and the lady with the thick Indian accent into whose tender care I was eventually dumped didn't strike me as a Prime Candidate for a support rôle.
I do, however, hold the Ace of Trumps. Having first taken the precaution1 of transferring out all the remaining funds — not to mention removing my old Will from their vaults, thus finishing all entanglement with them (having long ago switched off all standing orders and direct debits) — I feel that (and, of course, the mythical patience of a calm pensioner) should go a long way to giving me the upper hand in any coming altercation.
I don't watch...
... broadcast TV. The news that the BBC4 channel editor is "most excited about" some inane "intimate history of dance" isn't going to bring me back into the fold. Interesting to see that BBC4 gets 14% of the population as viewers on a budget of £50m compared to BBC1's £1000m and BBC2's £402m.
Having mentioned...
... "work-life balance" just last Saturday, it's also interesting to see the UK's Chief Medical Officer telling us that "More help is urgently needed to help people with mental health problems stay in their jobs." An odd point of view, given that many people have the sort of mental health problems (stress, depression, anxiety) caused by their jobs in the first place. She worryingly asserts that half of adult mental illness starts before the age of 15. Could our fine education system have anything to do with that? Just askin'.
One signature...
... and my final ties to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation are severed. Mind you, I first had to wait nearly ten minutes for the lady in front of me to finish unburdening herself of what sounded like her life story on antidepressants since retiring, aged 49, while actually trying to register her mobile phone with them. I expect they will survive my departure. I expect I will, too. It's the second time I've left them, after all, as I once attempted to explain to dear Mama:
I have never bounced a cheque in my life, by the way, nor been overdrawn, except once for less than 24 hours in the case of (Midland) bank error (they made the mistake of taking 24 hours to clear a cash deposit made in the morning and at my own branch!) which (when they failed to apologise and refund the day's interest they saw fit to charge me for their own mistake) was the trigger that caused me not only to leave them, but to take a certain pleasure in telling them that I would be re-telling the tale to as many people as I could. (Shortly after, they fell so low [having been the world's largest at the turn of the century] that they were taken over by the inscrutable East, so let that be a warning to others of their ilk.)
Although I...
... somehow overlooked the arrival of the first of these TV shows in December 2008, today's delivery of the seventh set...
... marks the seventh time I've now thought to myself "I bet Christa would have enjoyed this, too." <Sigh>
I decided it was time...
... to find the round tuit needed to watch my Blu-ray of "Bound" that popped through the letterbox three weeks ago. After all, I'd already seen the host of "extras". What a wonderful piece of film-making. Classic noir with a decidedly modern twist. Hard to believe it was the Wachowskis' first film as directors.