Category: Life

More student loans muppetry

OK, not so bad (I hope) as the faff I had with them a couple of years ago. I notice on the new deferment information letter that they’ve actually included a standard regional phone number for people to call on if they’re outside the UK. Credit to them for adding that to the existing premiumlocal rate number.

I’m still struggling with their use of email, though. First of all you have to determine which of the four offices to email – England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Is it based on where you are currently registered as residing, where you took the loan out, where the uni is based that you were attending…? This isn’t helped by all the mail coming from the central Student Loans Company in Glasgow (mine always has, even when I was in England) while the actual loans company I’m told to mail with account/address detail changes being in Rotherham.

I checked the English one and it was asking for an ID Code I didn’t have. Or maybe I do. There are umpteen codes all over the letter I got, most of them not actually identified themselves.

So I went for the Scots one as you don’t actually have to register to enter their site like you do for the English one. Again it ask for some Student ID that I don’t know if I have or not, but it’s not mandatory.

My query is a simple one – can I fax my deferment details to someone or do I have to mail them? Between the post here and the post in the UK I just don’t trust it to get there within 14 days.

So I sent my mail and got an auto-response… telling me that they endeavour to get back to all general enquiries within fifteen working days. If you’re appealing, they make it 10 working days but all the same this is completely useless. Even ten working days is effectively the same as 14 celendar days, so by the time you have the information you require (assuming, in fairness, they take the maxiumum length – and they only "endeavour" to stay within that limit) you don’t have time to send your stuff in.

Another victory for bureaucracy.

Serving suggestion

Why do food manufacturers assume we’re all idiots? Is this the fault of some dipshit American (sorry to stereotype, but they are historically the first to seek money in recompense for their own stupidity) who sued Kellogg’s when they opened a box of Cornflakes and were "astounded, shocked and disappointed" not to find their cereal pre-drenched in milk and sprinkled liberally with strawberries?

The topic arises as I just saw the daftest example of a "serving suggestion" I’ve yet encountered. On a bag of Super-U crisps, the serving suggestion appears to be… to remove them from the bag. There is nothing else in the picture apart from crisps.

In a way, it makes me think that perhaps the bag doesn’t contain crisps, but instead a raw potato. Serving suggestion: remove potato from bag, slice thinly, fry and coat in flavouring.

Protest for the tuk-tuk!

I just sent a mail to Brighton council regarding their insane decision to take Britain’s unique fleet of tuk-tuks off the road. I rode in these vehicles in several countries and the thought of being able to jump back into one makes me genuinely want to go to Brighton. No mean feat, given there’s **** all else there worth bothering with unless you’re retiring.

However, our government and their council are full of pencil-pushing fuckwits who value paperwork and red tape over common ******* sense. By all means, drop them a message. I have:

Hi,

I’m writing regarding recent reports in the press regarding the fate of the “tuk tuk” service being run by an independent contractor.

Firstly, I’ll be honest and say that I have never visited Brighton. However, something that has appealed for a while is the unique fleet of tuk-tuks (or “tuc-tuc”s as the emblem on the front of these vehicles proclaim). I’ve been to many countries which run the vehicles commonly (Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, India and so on) and they’re a great idea.

However, I simply can’t believe that a council can be so narrow-minded as to permit these vehicles to run legally… and then effectively withdraw their license by making it economically infeasible for them to run due to a matter of pathetic red tape – something for which the UK has become justly derided in recent years.

No, wait. I *can* believe it, given the state that my home nation is now in. For crying out loud, open your eyes and realise there’s a lot more out there than stupid safety regulations, bureaucrats, MPs and muppets with nothing better to do with their time than shout down anything that’s remotely “different”.

Give a guy with a new business idea a chance, and let people enjoy their lives without jumping on them like a bunch of politicians with nothing better to do with their lives than spoil everyone else’s.

Yes, I’m annoyed. My whole country is going to the dogs because of pathetic pencil-pushers and lawyers after a fast buck, running after the American example.

Get these vehicles properly licensed and back on the streets before you lose one of the few things that makes Brighton appealing to anyone other than drug-pushers and pensioners.

Yours in disgust at the state of his own country,

Mosh

I so await their reply. If you want to tell them what a bunch of boring, dull, rule-following, red-tape-loving, insensitive, mono-cultural, tax-greedy ***** they are then you can contact them via their contact page (here) or email them direct here.

Thanks.

Trick or treat!

Ghostly pumpkin
Ghostly pumpkin

******* trick, ya ****!

Things work differently in Scotland to the craphole estates in England that I got used to over the last few years. In England, “trick or treat” translates as “give me some sweets or cash or I’ll **** through your letterbox and kill your cat”. In Scotland, it boils down to “let me tell you a joke, do a dance or in some way entertain you in return for which I expect some sweets”.

Annoyingly, I got hoards of the scrounging ******* in England (including one daft **** who turned up around October 10th, dressed in an authentic-looking “young chav” costume), but never see them in Scotland where I think the kids would be much cuter and deserving of free stuff.

At least there doesn’t seem to be a huge line in “Happy Hallowe’en” cards as has infested the United States in recent years. Sure, they exist, but they’re not commonplace. Anyone buying one for me would find their face rapidly resembling a carved pumpkin. A month after Hallowe’en. Only with more blood and knife-holes.

Is it too early in the year for me to be saying “Bah, humbug”?

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