the day before
my local burger king shut down (fear ye not- a new one opened eventually, and the company that took the spot of the first didn't last long), I decided to treat myself to my usual... they forgot to charge me.

one XL bacon double cheeseburger, large fries and drink and onion rings. ALL FREE.
(venort apparently exists, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 18:33, 1 reply)

A magic cash machine
I often had to use the local cash machine in the corner shop that charges £1.75 to withdraw money. On one occasion I went down and took out £200 to make the charges worth while. When I got home, I thought the wad was a little large so counted it and realised I had £400. I had a receipt saying I'd taken out £200.

I told three of my friends who lived close by and they gave it a go too. We all got double the amount out - the machine was clearly faulty. Windfall!

However, we all also played it cool. We didn't keep going back, we only went the once and we didn't tell everyone either. On checking our bank accounts, we found that we'd all got away with it.

To this day, we've never been asked for it back!

WIN!!!
( camp freddy well, would you look at that!, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 18:31, 17 replies)

Bitchelor's
many moons ago, Mummy Smash decided to make me a nice bowl of celery soup for lunch. whilst stirring said soup, she discovered something in it that definitely wasn't celery. it was, in fact, a large piece of jagged plastic, quite hard and shaped like a dental appliance that was lacking its false teeth. Mummy Smash was not pleased. a letter was duly - and angrily - written and, with plastic enclosed, the peeved missive was sent on its way.
two weeks later, a reply was received. it went something like this:

Dear Mummy Smash,
we at Bitchelor's are not in the habit of putting plastic in our soup. we don't believe you. tough shit.

Cunty McFuckbucket, something high-up, Bitchelor's.

Mummy Smash was now incandescent. she immediately phoned the "helpline" and inormed the person on the other end that she had contacted a solicitor(she hadn't) and had, before sending it off, taken pictures of the offending plastic and would begin legal proceedings.
the effect was dramatic. apologies were profuse and grovelling. £40 in vouchers was also forthcoming.
take that, dodgy soup-merchants!

that said, the condensed cream of mushroom makes a damn fine pasta sauce when undiluted.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 18:14, 7 replies)

Pretty pathetic, but that's the point, right?
I was made obscenely happy when I got my cheque from Spice.co.uk for the princely sum of £3.46.

Then I remembered I had bought more of the designs than I had sold, and I was WELL in the red overall. Still, felt awesome for all of, oooh, 5 seconds.
(errrggghhhh should be doing something else, but what was it?!, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 18:03, Reply)

Not the same as Richard Madeley at all
I was in the supermarket just before Xmas doing a small shop, just enough for an evening meal for Mrs Rammer and the Wee Rammers. I had already crashed plenty cash in the pre-Xmas run up and had resolved to avoid spending too much more but decided to treat myself and buy a bottle of expensive(ish) whisky.

This was a bit of indulgence and I felt a small amount of guilt about it, esp. as Mrs Rammer and the Wee Rammers were getting frozen pizza for tea rather then baked sea bass (or whatever).

Because I only had a basket I want to the self service counter and started scanning. The whisky, being expensive was in a box and the bottle had one of the anti theft devices on it. I asked one of the assistants to remove the device. She took the bottle out, removed the tag, put the bottle back in the box and put the box stright into my bag - missing out the scanner!

Happy days! I looked at her for a moment and she looked at me then turned away. As I am approaching middle age I flirted with the notion that she did it because she fancied me, then I got a grip and pressed the pay button, paid my £9 or so for the food and left with a free bottle of £40 whisky in my bag. I felt guilt for a moment or so but do enjoy a chuckle on the incident now and then. I told Mrs Rammer about it once the whisky was finished (I had to otherwise she would have made me return whatever was left and ask for forgiveness) - I cannot understand why women (well at least the ones I meet) have such an overdeveloped sense of guilt/righteousness.
(Rammer, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 17:43, 7 replies)

More banks
About 10 years ago, I broke up with my girlfriend. Between us, we had 2 joint bank accounts, both with £500 overdrafts, and I had a £3000 loan with Lloyds that I'd taken out so we could set up house together.

I called up First Direct (who had one of the overdrafts) and explained the situation, and that I'd need to freeze the joint overdraft and make some kind of repayment arrangment - I proposed £50 a month. "No problem" the nice lady said, "I'll set you up a seperate sole account, freeze the joint account, and since Christmas is coming up (this was late November) I'll set up your account so you don't start making payments until January." Lovely and painless.

Then I called Lloyds to try and do the same with the second overdraft. Again, everything seemed fine - they didn't take the extra step of waiting until after Christmas, but they were nice about it, and froze the account. Happy, I went about my business.

Mid December, I made the first payment to Lloyds. Again, no problem, all well and good. A few weeks later, my statement came through. I was £40 worse off than I was before I paid them. To make the payment, they'd unlocked the account and applied interest and a fee for unlocking it, applying the payment, and freezing the account again. This came to about £55 in total. That had taken the account slightly over limit, which they'd charged me another £35 for.

At this point, I'd already gone through various headaches on account of the ex, and frankly, I couldn't be arsed to argue with them. So I wrote them one letter - paraphrased, but this is the gist:

Dear sir,

I notice with dismay that my recent attempt to pay £50 off my outstanding joint overdraft with yourselves has resulted in charges totalling approx £90 being applied to my account. As I'm sure you can see, this is not a sustainable approach to reducing my debt. In the interests of keeping the debt to a minimum, I will be making no more payments until we are able to reach an agreement which results in my payment actually going towards my debt.

I realise that the terms and conditions of my account allow you to take funds from my sole account to clear this debt. Therefore, please also be advised that I have transferred my salary payments to another bank. As you have previously advised me that you will only collect my loan payments from a Lloyds account, this also means that I am unable to make repayments towards my loan, since I harbour concerns that deposits into my sole account will be reappropriated to cover the fees you have charged on the joint account.

Please be advised that I am still putting your payments aside, and once we have reached an agreement, all my accounts will be brought up to date. All I am asking is that I be allowed to make the payments already agreed with yourselves without incurring higher charges than the amount I am paying in.

I look forward to hearing your proposals for how this can be achieved.

Your Sincerely

Me.

All very cordial and professional, I think you'll agree. Unfortunately, they never bothered to reply. They also stopped sending statements. Since they never replied, I never made any more repayments, and a few years later I had a nice little bit squirrelled away, which I saved until the 6 year Statute of Limitations had expired, at which point I blew the lot on drugs and hookers. Actually, it was probably beer and geek toys...I can't actually remember.
(bblgoose, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 17:10, 4 replies)

10p
I just won a 10p bet with a co-worker on the date Mubarak would leave office.

That's pretty small, all things considered.
( speedyballbangpots, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 17:08, Reply)

Crispy Monitor Surprise
One day at work I managed to accidentally plug a 110V monitor into a 240V outlet. These were large, high-res colour monitors, and very expensive (this was some time ago). There was an unpleasant fizzing noise, and the monitor - while amazingly still working - from that moment on showed everything in a nasty shade of wobbly purple while generating an unpleasant smell.

Sheepishly I admitted to my boss what I'd done, and luckily he wasn't pissed off at me. "Those monitors are supposed to be bullet proof, call the supplier and see if they'll replace it."

So, I called the tech support line. At first they refused to listen, claiming that these monitors were indeed indestructible, and I can't possibly have damaged one. I had visions of having to pay ££££s out of my own pocket.

I insisted that all I'd done was what I'd described, and eventually the guy said, "Right, I'll go and try it myself, you'll see." There were some noises off, then I heard a very distinctive unpleasant fizzing noise.

"Erm, yes, they do, don't they? I'll get a replacement on its way..."
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 16:58, 8 replies)

Mexican foods
Chilangos have opened a restaurant (if you can call it that, I don't know how to define such a place!) in Sheffield, and their food goes down particularly well as a hangover cure, or generally as a quick and tasty way to destroy hunger pangs.
Anyway, they put their prices up by a pound, and I thought I'd voice my (possibly slightly drunken) opinion on their facebook page, whinging about how I'm a poor man and the price increase has devastated me and has caused me to be deprived from the delicious goodies that they provide.
Having forgotten about this, I then recieved a message from an employee offering me 3 free burritos for me and two friends (or just me, as I'm a fat shit). I decided to use this on a day in which Sheffield had been hit hard with the snow. I was given five burritos and all the nachos I could eat as a result of being on of about five customers that was stupid enough to traipse to Meadowhell in the ridiculous weather. That was lunch for a fair while.
(plasmaman, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 16:24, 2 replies)

two-fingered salute
if, like me, you're a woman of child-bearing age, you'll know that there are certain times of the month when chocolate is a medical necessity. you don't just want it, you NEED it.
one evening last month, i was suffering some pretty heavy-duty cravings for the stuff. unfortunately, i was skint and had no chocolate. bit of a pisser, i think you'll agree.
i decided not to let my cravings get the better of me. i am better than that. i am strong. i am in control of my own body and mind.
am i fuck.
i was sitting there like a smackhead waiting for a bottle of methadone to magically appear. i couldn't think of anything but chocolate.
finally, i decided to see if i had any money in my copper jar. i upended said jar and recovered an entire 17p, just enough for a freddo. it was just hitting 10.30, so i put my coat on and dashed across to the shop, just in time to see the shutters going down.
i could have cried, i really could.
despondently, i decided to make myself a nice cup of coffee. i opened the fridge to retreive the milk when, there in the salad crisper drawer, i spotted something so awesome it almost took my breath away.
it was a twix. a beautiful, wondrous, chocolatey, two-fingered twix. i savoured that twix with my coffee. oh, how i savoured it. it was as ambrosia to my chocolate-raddled mind. i couldn't have been happier had it been a slab of thornton's finest.
a small victory, yes, but most definitely a sweet one.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 14:48, 16 replies)

My gran vs International law
Kind of relevant so I'll go ahead anyway, sod you all!

My gran, RIP, was a dainty wee Scottish lass who wouldn't harm a fly. We were dropping her off at the airport to see her daughter, my aunt, in Germany. Alas she had forgotten her passport and an awkward, heart-breaking silence ensued. Even the airline ticket officer looked gutted.

Moments later my gran, all 4ft 9in of her, pulled out her bus pass, "Och mi dear - I've got mi bus pass if that's Okaaaye?". You could actually see the airline officer melt and she was straight on the phone to various people - English and German - before finally announcing, with a beaming smile, that the bus pass would indeed be fine and that the German authorities would be happy to welcome her on that basis!

A nice little tale to bring on the weekend? Certainly nice to know that there are some nice people out there. Bear in mind this was about 20yrs ago, when border control was much tighter... my gran got to Germany and back.... on her bus pass
(Mean Mad Mutski, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 14:26, 15 replies)

First Buses
Wasn't allowed on bus because my £5 note had a 1 inch tear in it. I explained not only that it was legal tender but that I was given it as change for my bus fare the previous day. Guy still refused so I asked for his name. Off went my complaint via the online form and I expected nothing. A few days later I received an apology stating that it was indeed legal tender, that the driver should have known this and would be sent for training. Attached to the letter was £10 in vouchers enough for 2 days free travel. The drivers off the buses had no idea what they were when I presented them so I can only imagine that they are rarely given out.

Never going to make the popular page but its definitely a little victory for me.

Also remember the old days of tokens on cereal packets? Well Weetabix always used to have the coolest things to collect for. I used to write to them claiming I had sent off numerous tokens and not received my toys/games/accessories. Without fail they would send them out to me despite the fact I had A. not sent any tokens and B. must have done it over 10 times.
( Peej, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 14:24, 9 replies)

A roasted pea, in line with "Abbey/A&L/Santander are bastards"
During trials and tribulations with Abbey, I once needed to withdraw £400 for a replacement disposable car. A fine fifteen-year-old Vauxhall Chavalier on this occasion... I digress.

I went into the bank and, knowing that the daily cash machine limit was £300, queued up. For about twenty minutes. When I got to the window, Emo cashier boy says, "oh you need to take £300 from the cash machine and then I can do the other £100."
"But I'll have to queue up again!" I protest.
"No it's fine," says Emo boy, "use that cash machine there and I'll get the £100 out, just come straight back to the window."

Fine, the machine is literally next to the counters; I get my £300 and go back.
"So," he says, counting out tennners, "that's ten, twenty, thirty..." "Actually," I say, "can I have it in twenties please?"
"Oh yes, of course," says Emo boy. He counts ten tenners back into his till... and then proceeds to count out the twenties.
"Ten, twenty, thirty..." etc.

I obviously kept my gob shut.

Two hours later, a frantic phone call from the branch manager. "Mr X5, did you withdraw some cash over the counter today?" "Why yes I certainly did, one hundred English pounds in fact."
"Right... did you happen to notice if it was ten or twenty pound notes?" "Oh no, I am afraid I didn't. is there a problem?"
"We might have given you the wrong amount, you see. Can you check the money and see how much it is?"
"Well, no I can't, as I've already handed it over to the man with the car. However, I do have a receipt which I signed and you stamped to say it was £100. So if you have UNDERpaid me, there's not much I can do is there?"
"Well, Mr X5, i'll be honest, I think we overpaid you."
"Ah yes, but in this situation, in light of my receipt, I don't suppose there's much you can do is there....."

Take that you thieving bastards
(MightyX5 living on a small island on, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 14:22, 4 replies)

Sweet Victory/Revenge
One of my 'mates' fucked my misses, so I fucked his mum. Simple as that.
(TheBat, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 14:22, 18 replies)

Precis: Long tale of drunken chatting up ends in a little win.
I should say here that I'm not exactly great with chatting up girls in pubs/bars/clubs. When a bit pissed I either treat girls I fancy like dirt (like a smitten 8 year old stealing his heart’s desire’s toys) or come on all over the top friendly / chatty and they think I’m gay. Luckily for me the future Madame ESP met me sober…

But this is a tale from before the days of monogamy, at a friend’s birthday drinks many summers ago. The girl… let’s call her RODA. She was half Persian half English so had a delightful tan and rather a pretty face as well. I kept accidentally staring down her top, due to the excessive cleavage on display. All in all, a perfect drunken target. We got talking and she didn’t think I was gay. I didn’t insult her heritage, gender, religion or dress sense. It was all going well until I realised she was fucking boring and dull as grey paint. Still, after five or six pints I wasn’t going to throw away my groundwork on a minor issue… I was going to get laid!

RODA and I went with the pack of revellers to a really scummy club where the music was thankfully too loud for conversation. RODA decided that this was a good excuse to stick her tongue down my throat and I agreed wholeheartedly. We danced to Bon Jovi and other masters of cheese and after a couple of hours I did that universal ‘let’s go have sex’ gesture by tilting my head at the door and looking suggestive. RODA agreed it was time to go. I was getting laid, for sure!

We walked back to mine, which goes past a little riverside park, and RODA decided she wanted to see the river. We sat on a little bench, staring out at the Thames, and of course things happened. Clothes start getting shed and all was going swimmingly (by that I mean I hadn’t drunk myself flaccid, and also I was about to get alfresco sex) when she brings up her religion. She’d mentioned that she was a member of a Persian faith with some odd beliefs. She waits until this exact semi-undressed moment to tell me that she can’t have sex before marriage. I wanted to cry. The awesome self control I’d exerted in not acting like a bellend; the dancing, the jokes; the not telling her she was dimmer than an energy saving light bulb were all for nothing.

I’d frozen mid-grope and was deciding how best to abandon her at the nearest bus stop when she told me something I’ll never forget:

“Oh, it’s ok, I’m still allowed to do anal.”

I think that counts as a little victory.
(ElectricSexPants would like to be the Sultan of something, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 14:20, 26 replies)

"This court is fraudulent"
Last week, a friend appeared before the beak to answer charges of driving without insurance.
Being a belatedly anti-establishment sort of chap, he read up some information on that there internet, and proceeded to annoy the magistrates to the point of them shouting at him that he was indeed a fool.

The hearing was adjourned and he will now face trial. He considers this the first step in his almighty victory over a supposedly de facto judiciary.

I consider it a small victory that I was able to stifle hysterics whilst sitting at the back of the room ostensibly taking notes, with the court usher passing me a note that simply read "where the fuck did you find this guy?"

Our illustrious local newsrag doesn't publish everything online, so here's the report from oh-so-important page 27: Hunts Post
(MightyX5 living on a small island on, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 14:08, 13 replies)

Getting one over on Lloyds
Small victories against banks seem to be popular. Here's mine.

I moved out of the UK a few years ago. Before I left, I had an overdraft and a loan with Lloyds bank. The move came about because of losing my job. I had sod all money, and had to move quickly. I took a job in central Europe.

I hadn't managed to keep up my repayments during this time, but I wasn't trying to run away from the debt. When I had managed to secure somewhere to stay in my new country, I wrote to the bank, letting them know my new address, and asking if we could discuss clearing the debt.

In return, they sent a change of address form.

I duly filled this in, and enclosed another letter, asking how I could repay the money I owed them.

Their response was that the signature on the change of address form didn't match the one on record (it was my normal signature). They were not willing to accept the change of address form, as they could not be sure it was me. They insisted that I should get a notarized copy of my passport and a copy of my lease (translated into English).

I was pissed off by this. I had tried to be helpful, to take responsibility, and they were making it difficult for me. I decided just to ignore it.

About 3 months later I received a letter from them, asking how I was going to repay the money I owed them. I sent them a copy of their previous letter, stating

"I enclose a copy of previous correspondence in which you state that you cannot be sure that I am the person who owes you this money."

I haven't heard from them since.
(ragged, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 13:32, 5 replies)

the bewildered and the damned
Feeling you haven’t so much beat the system but you have at least poked it in the eye can really make your day – little moments where you feel ever so slightly ahead of the game.

Missing trains fascinates me. If I’m on the train sitting waiting for it to trundle off and a group of commuters miss it, if it’s in a busy station there is a very visible and collective reaction of ‘awfirfucksake’ quickly followed by ‘fine, so it’s a ten minute wait, see if I care’. However a lone traveler at a quiet outlying station missing a train becomes a tragedy of epic proportions. Maybe its because there’s usually a much longer wait for the next train, or maybe if your on your own its suddenly ‘your train’ the only hope. One of my favorite Fast Show skits showed a family desperately battering along in holiday attire dragging bags and cases –nothing was ever explained, no resolution was offered, nor required. As much as I could identify with their plight I was also happy to mock.

Aside from the schadenfreude (oh come on – you could be the nicest person alive but there is a certain smug pleasure in sitting on the very train some sad tardy schmuck has just missed. It’s the same as seeing someone in a suit soaked by a lorry rampaging through a puddle).

I used to commute from a wee rural station in Lanark to Glasgow. I’m always late. Maybe not so much late but I tend to cut it finer and finer until finally the luck runs out. There’s another small pleasure – strolling onto a train just as the doors start beeping. “Fuck yeah I’m cool” Although to be honest it was more often a very undignified dash where only the victory steps were strolled. Adults shouldn’t run. Not unless there are trophies involved. Particularly if you are in any way overweight or out of shape or are carrying a bag. You just look like a tit.

Over time I noticed there are three basic types of missed train melodramas.

1. Injustice: “How could this happen?” (The doors are sealed and its pulling away) “Oh no it can’t be true – all is lost” coupled with a look of tragic bewilderment.

2. Denial: “NO! You utter bastard – you DEFINITELY saw me and deliberately left ahead of schedule.” Minor tantrum ensues on platform. Letters of complaint are drafted.

3. Blame: “Oh well fucking done! You knew what time you had to be here and you fucked it up. Can’t even get on a bloody train on time. Well fucking thank you”.

Which brings me to my point. One day I dashed up the escalators to the low level trains at Argyle Street in Glasgow – is it just me or is it odd you descend one escalator then have to go back up another escalator to get to the platform?

I heard the doors beeping as I got to the top of the escalator. There was a throng of Denials and a few Blamers in front of me. The doors had started to close. The Injustice brigade had already started looking to each other for some sense to it all. A few had already begun tying yellow ribbons around the benches.

Not today I thought! I pushed through the fallen and bewildered and grabbed the closing doors. They didn’t stop closing.

Fuck.

Determined, I hopped onto the doorstep and for some reason began to Samson style, heave the doors apart. Suddenly I was a superhero tearing open an impregnable vault – steel plate ripping apart like wet paper. The smug brigade on the train mere inches from my face looked at me through the door windows wryly.

“Daft fucker’s missed his train”

But then a marvelous thing – the doors gave up. Folded, or more so unfolded. As I casually stepped into the newly conquered carriage, the doors snapped shut behind, leaving the bewildered and the damned on the platform – excluded and bereft.

In true Glasgow style a bloke casually turned to me and said:

“So how do you get aff mate – through the roof?”

That day I was (slightly) ahead!
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 12:38, 7 replies)

Late night drag racing in Essex
Back in the days of yuppies and affordable petrol, before anyone had ever heard of global warming, I used to drive a clapped out Jaguar XJS, wanting something a bit classier than the usual loutish essex boy racer cars of my contemporaries.

At about 3am I'm driving home from London after a long night at work, and I pull up at a set of lights on the outskirts of Romford. There are 3 lanes, me in the middle, and on my left a proper Essex wide boy, in a silver Porsche 911. He starts revving his engine like mad, and inching forward in stops and starts, and shouting something at me (god knows what, I couldn't hear it over his engine, but it was clear he's going to race me no matter what, and wipe the floor with my sedate V12 cruiser). I look over to my right, where there are two young-ish blokes in a fairly fast looking Ford Sierra. With a tip of my head, I indicate the Porsche driver, and with a barely imperceptible nod, the passenger shows he understands perfectly.

A few tense adrenalin-filed moments pass before the light goes amber. Either side of me, I hear squeals of tyre smoke. I, however sit there, until the amber turns to green, and then push the accellerator, gently, wafting off into the night to the strains of the BBC world service. The Porsche spins it's wheels and heads for the horizon at an insane pace. The Sierra also waits a moment, and in that moment, the passenger breifly tips his hat to me, before it too zooms into the night with as much zest and urgency as the Porsche, but with slightly more blue flashing lights on top.
( Andy_R At the third stroke, the time will be precisely, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 12:25, 13 replies)

My Benq monitor when on the blink a few months after buying it.
Like most of you I really need a decent monitor so I forked out good cash for the 24" monster.

The backlight going out, I found was a known fault so the support at first was good and they swapped it out; but they swapped it out for a lesser model. I wasn't happy, so called up told them. They said it would be fixed; but they swapped it again for the same lesser monitor and that one was also a bit damaged. The call centre girl couldn't help, no matter what she typed in to the notes, if the depot doesn't read it - the same thing will keep happening.

I wasn't happy at all. This had gone of for a few weeks and I needs me monitor. So I spent too long working out all their email formats and got every name I could find in head office and emailed the lot. About 20min later I got a call and if was soon fixed :)

If felt like a victory, it is just a shame that if you want something done you have to scream till your blue in the face.
(waxdart hello., Fri 11 Feb 2011, 12:13, 1 reply)

This isn't just any old complaint this is a Marks and Spencers complaint.
Before Xmas we recived appauling service at one of the large M&S's in Cardiff culminating in abbout a hours wasted time and Mrs Odin suffering a diabetic crash-caused in part by sitting round wating for the staff for ages.

Suitiably pissed off I fired off a angry email to head office. (this was on a sat night). Monay came and went, no reply, Tuesday came and went still no reply. So I printed the gist of the email off and put in in a letter adressed to the manager of the store.

Wed am a email apologising not only for the crappy customer service but also that the peroson who deals with the complaints had been away for 2 days!!!

Politley I emailed them back saying, these thing happed and I had actually written a letter outlining my problems to the manager of the store.

Result was 20 quids worth of vouchers from head office and then a tenners worth of vouchers from the store.
Not just a victory but a M&S victory.
(Gru being trolled since 1998, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 11:50, 3 replies)

Check your contract carefully
One of my biz partners had a flat he used to rent out. One of the terms of the contract was that the occupant had to get it completely repainted at the end of the lease. He rented it out to some guy for a couple of years. During the term of the lease they bickered a bit, nothing serious, but when the guy left he wasn't sorry to see him go.

Only little hiccup was that the guy stuck to his contract to the letter, and had the whole place repainted. In black.

To be fair my biz partner thought it was pretty funny, gave the guy his deposit back and chalked it up to experience.
( Not Pineapple anymore, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 11:31, 8 replies)

A letter to Mr.Mervin King
A few weeks ago I wrote a letter to Mr. Mervin King the head of the Bank of England. To my surprise he asked his PA to respond to me, sorry for lack of funny, just shocked to recieve any reply at all -

Mr. King,

I would personally like to thank you and your fellow colleagues for taking a different approach to interest rates than our govt have to cutting the deficit. The last thing we need is a knee jerk reaction and an increase of interest rates at this stage. As you know this will discourage growth in our already shrinking economy.

From a personal view, a hike in interest rates would be a disaster, as I am on a variable interest mortgage, as are millions of other people who's money would be instantly taken out of the economy trying to pay their mortgages and survive.

I may be out of my depth knowledge wise here but I refer to the Laffer curve, which I am sure you are aware of, so next time you are in meetings with the govt, perhaps you can suggest to them dropping income tax down to a flat 15% across the board ( yes, even for you Mr. king), therefore increasing growth, raising inflation with interest rates rising as a consequence of growth. I'd be able to take the hit if I was earning a lot more. I understand this isn't your remit to comment on their policies here but they seem more out of their depth than even me.

If there is anything I have written that couldn't be implemented for sucess I would like to here about it.

Yours faithfully

bROKEN aRROW
-------------------------------------
Dear Sir or Madam



Thank you for your email to the Governor, which he has seen and asked me to respond to. He asked me to thank you for your comments.



Regards

***




*** ***

Assistant Private Secretary to the Governor

Governor’s Office

Bank of England
(bROKEN aRROW PUA HVI Master, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 11:25, 14 replies)

Alliance & Leicester (or Santander now) - inspired by previous comments regarding these cunts!
I had a £400 overdraft on my A&L account, so every month I would get paid and my account would show an available balance of £1600 (not actual amount, but enough to demonstrate my logic here!) This would therefore be £1200, plus my £400 overdraft. This was built up as a result of needing a bit of cash quick, and forgetting (for a period of 5yrs!) to cancel the overdraft! The problem was, I could cancel it but I'd be down for that month... so I had an idea!

I gathered up £400 from my "resources" (read: borrowed it off me mum!) and went into Alliance & Leicester, paid in the £400 cash and asked them to remove my overdraft. My logic being, I'm not "down" any money here, but I can pay my mum back in installments which are easier to manage by smiling sweetly and giving her £50 a month or so.

Now... cue the miserable cunt behind the counter who replied with "I'm sorry sir, we can't do that I'm afraid. You'll need to call the call centre to cancel an overdraft facility"

When I asked why they couldn't do this, the girl meekly offered the shit excuse of "They need to prove who you are" - now, my mentality worked on the logic that face to face contact is better than "anyone" phoning a call centre and claiming to be me, simply by reading the info off my last bank statement. I had got 3 forms of photo ID on myself at the time (one of which was a warrant card FFS!) and she couldn't accept that as proof of identity, yet me confirming the first line of my address and my postcode was enough to satisfy them that I'm who I say I am.

Seriously - who the FUCK walks into a bank with cash to pay into someone else's account, and to cancel their overdraft for them.... you'd expect a "criminal" to be the person walking into the bank to WITHDRAW the money... not reduce the person's debt!

Anyhoo... I asked to speak to the manager and got a bit arsey to her, asking what the point was of my money funding branches full of staff who have no useful purpose. This got a couple of titters from the queue behind me!

No... I didn't get my overdraft cancelled until I went home and phoned the fuckers up, but I managed to knock the smug smile of the cashier's face by openly questioning in front of a queue of people in the branch, why these people were even employed, if they're unable to provide the service a customer would expect from a bank.

I feel horrible saying this, but I have now switched to a different bank, and Santander took over and made that particular branch redundant! (because there was a bigger Abbey branch up the road!)

NOW WHO'S SMIRKING BITCH!?!?!
(Anne Frank started to build a loft conversion on, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 10:44, 10 replies)

Among the indicators my parents displayed about how little they loved me was jumping at the opportunity to send me to boarding school from the age of 10.
Unpeturbed, I still tried to convey my love for them through the medium of letter-writing and telephone calls.

Meanwhile, my father was developing a new tactic of disuasion; that of acquiring my stepmother.

Fans will remember that my stepmother is one of those awful righteous new-agers - she's a vegetarian, and goes on about not inheriting the earth but borrowing it from our children - and that's before she even gets onto the colour of your aura or the tuning into the harmonics of celestial song. If she were just a hippy that would just be mildly irritating, but she was also an evil bitch who beat up my sister and dragged her 'round the kitchen by her hair, blacked my father's eyes for reasons unknown, told me my dad had never loved my real mum, left my half-brother in a cot at the 'bus station to prove a point, and regularly stripped down to her bra and knickers and ran through neighbouring villages in order to win an argument with my father.

Soon she decided that she'd apply her best assets to her social career, and announced herself as a Life Councillor, and as such would often regale us with teachings of respectful behaviour and appropriate tone of voice. She also decided that my father's choice of listening to Radio 4 in the morning was "intellectualist".

One evening at school I 'phoned home to speak to my dad, and she answered.

"Oh hiyeeee Vagabond!" she cried, clearly on the upturn of whatever fucked hormone was currently surging most strongly through her system, "How's it goin'?!"

"Fine" I said dismissively, "Can I speak to dad please?"

"Yeah sure but let's you an' me have a chat first, hey?"

"No" I said firmly, "I'd like to speak to dad - could you put him on, please?"

"YOU WILL RESPECT ME VAGABOND AND YOU WILL TALK TO ME!" she screamed, "YOU MUST RESPECT ME I AM YOUR FATHER'S WIFE AND YOU WILL RESPECT ME!"

"Listen" I said calmly, "Respect is earned, not given on demand - now - please can I speak to dad?"

"VAAAAAAAAAAAAGAAAAAAAABOOOOOOOONNNNNNNDDDDDDDD!" she cried, "YOU WILL RESPEEEEECTTTTT MEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

And so, thinking to continue would be more of a waste of my 50p than putting the 'phone down, I hung up.

My dad managed to leave her five years later, when she vetoed his attending my eldest sister's wedding, having told him that his priority must be to his wife first and made him sleep in the shed for a week, and recently I was overjoyed to see on my half-brother's Farcebook account pictures from her wedding some poor old sap who's eyes clearly betray a happy innocence to her character. A happy innocence which is, I imagine, being raped irrepairably as I type.

Poor, poor sod. But at least my dad's out of it now.

It's the little victories.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 10:41, 6 replies)

That never happens
A few months ago, I got a cold-caller trying to sell me emergency plumbing cover. Normally I swear at such parasites and slam the phone down, but he must have caught me in a happy place, because I actually listened, and agreed that it was a good deal, and agreed to take the free introductory offer.

I've been kicking myself ever since, because I normally have a policy about cold callers: "If I want something, I'll fucking well go and get it, so don't bother me at home, and I'll make a point of avoiding your company from this day onwards, you antisocial leech." I couldn't believe I'd been suckered into agreeing to this.

Last night at nearly midnight, a pipe behind the fridge spontaneously exploded and started spraying water everywhere. And to my astonishment, I'm actually covered and get free 24-hour emergency call-out.

Win!
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 10:14, 7 replies)

I got my Image Challenge set for this week
Get in there!
( monkeyboyalpha jumping on the bandwagon since, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 10:06, Reply)

Edinburgh Airport now has a £1 fee for dropping people off....
An acquaintance of mine was so incensed by this, he dropped his £1 into the payment basket, the barrier opened, and then he dumped all the rubbish inside his car into the basket before driving off. Win.
( Mr Gear the gay-maker, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 10:05, 9 replies)

It was December 1978, I was 5
and it was the day of my first school Christmas party. The teacher asked the children to contribute to the food and bring it in that morning. Some girls brought in fairy buns, some brought crisps, some brought bottles of pop and some brought biscuits, myself included. A packet of chocolate digestives.

It was dead exciting, after lunch I got back to school and all the desks were laid out with plates of food. After a pantomime performed by the sixth form from the local senior school, we went back to class and started on the food and pop.

The teacher, Miss Simpson came round with a plate of meat-paste sandwiches. Now, I didn't like crusts. I could manage the bottom crust, but I didn't like the top, darker crust from the loaf at all. I reached for a light-crust sandwich but she handed me one with the dark crust.
"I was going to get that one there" I said
"Well you've got that one now" she said a bit too snappy for my liking. I ate as much as I could, leaving a thin sliver of very dark crust before leaving it on the side of my plate, and asked for another.
"You haven't finished that one" she replied.
"I have, I don't like the crust"
"Don't be such a baby" she snapped, "Here, give me it here, I'll put it in the bin"
That kinda took the edge off the day. When I got home, I told my mum.
"tsk, the miserable sod. It's nearly Christmas as well. Did you eat those biscuits?"
"No, I don't think she put them out" I said.
"You should've asked for them back" my mum said.

So the next day just before registration, I went up to the teacher's desk and with all sincerity said
"Miss, because we didn't have those chocolate biscuits I brought yesterday, me mam says can we have 'em back?".
She gave an exasperated sigh, and without saying a word opened her desk drawer, took them out and handed them to me. I went home for my lunch and gave them to my mum, who was somewhat surprised.
"I was only joking!" she exclaimed. "Good anyway, she can buy her own bloody biscuits"

me: 1
Miss Simpson: 0

Just after Christmas, I was back at school with a bit of a cold and she caught it off me. Which was good.

me: 2
Miss Simpson: 0
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 9:34, Reply)