2015 — 13 July: Monday
We got back from London sufficiently late1 I see I managed to slump into bed without even publishing the last of yesterday's diary entry.
I could blame...
... the Chivas Regal — however, it was actually the need to compose what I hope will be my final interaction with Barclays as I storm their gates later this morning. All in the cause of returning Big Bro to NZ somewhat richer than he was when he arrived. And indeed trying to get the funds down there more quickly than he will be making the return journey to give Lis a sporting chance to spend his inheritance. I thus finally only got to bed at about 01:30 this morning.
Seeing the house...
... that Peter2 now lives in (in NW2) is something I truly wish Christa could have done. She would have been every bit as delighted by it as I was. Bro (who was meeting g/f for the first time) and I treated them to a bite in a nearby Italian restaurant, had an amiable chat and a cuppa back at their place, and then hit the still-crowded North Circular that's more or less on their doorstep at about 22:20 or so. They are nicely shielded from the traffic noise, and it's nowhere near as noisy as the traffic was in their little Battersea flat above an(other) Italian restaurant, which was where Christa and I last visited him together shockingly over eight years ago!
All plain sailing, as it were, if you disregarded motorway closures, entry ramp closures, and the undeniable fact that we ended up returning by a route that was very similar to the one Christa and I had used in the pre-motorway days of mid-1981 coming down here on my Sunday evening returns to IBM Hursley while she and Peter stayed on in Old Windsor to sell our house there.
The weather is...
... entirely appropriate for a minor-league skirmish with Barclays. But they can surely wait until after breakfast, at least. They seem to think I actually wish to bank with them. I can't help what they think, of course, but they are sadly mistaken. All I actually want to do is "gather in" the last jigsaw piece of dear Mama's estate from them, and gallop off into the sunset. Cackling maniacally and waving the new/replacement XL2 Bush hat Big Bro has almost promised to send me. (He looked a bit askance at the battered nature of my present one which, I candidly admitted to him, is actually the best birthday present he's ever given me.)
It made its public début in December 2009...
... and has, by now, seen better days (as they say).
The perils...
... of being smarter than your boss. Not difficult when he's a US governor, it seems:
A future classic, indeed.
Rather to my surprise...
... it only took me just under an hour to browbeat Barclays into submission. So John's legacy is now en route electronically to NZ, though quite why it will take up to eight days to reach his account puzzles me. Cost? A £25 fee at my end for the 'Swift' transfer — a misnomer, surely? And whatever the Bank of NZ decides to hit him with by way of currency exchange and fees at his end. The rest made the shorter trip to my a/c in Soton in two hours, but still managed to cost me a further £50. The teller and the branch manager spent time (with a queue building up behind me, alas) reading their own bank's processes. And I still have to return with a letter requesting the formal termination of our relationship. Couldn't do that on the spot 'cos you can't leave their embrace in mid-flight (as it were).
Nor can the Executor actually do3 much, except pay in assets and write cheques to beneficiaries. Last time I met this level of bureaucracy was during the translation of my marriage certificate into German for a civil servant Christa never saw again in 33 years. Still, banks have to make enough money to pay-off the chaps at the top from scandal to scandal, I suppose.
Had I not...
... already left this outfit some while ago, this...
... would have tipped me out. I'm such a Luddite.
After treating...
... my elderly sibling to a nice meal at "The Cromwell Arms", I sat him down in front of "The Imitation Game" and then inflicted some pancakes on him for his supper. He's up and away tomorrow for the day but, as it's again aviation-related, I've declined the invitation. Someone has to stay behind to do the supplies shopping and collect whatever it is he's ordered from "Air Britain", after all.