Monday, 24 March 2003
The country's at war! We're all going to die! Big Bad Saddam's going to use his shitty missiles to destroy the rest of the world! Oh no!
So, that was sarcasm, yeah? I don't for one second believe that the UK or the USA was at risk from Saddam Hussein. Their oil profits perhaps, but not the lives of anyone here. (Before you tell me it's nothing to do with oil, consider the fact that Iraq is the largest producer of oil in the region and most of the oil from the middle east goes to Asia. Now, consider how many things around your house are made in Asia. (of course, i just read somewhere that the oil from the middle east goes to asia, it may not be true))
Although, to be truthful, I don't think oil is the primary issue here and I'm not really sure what is. Perhaps Bush just needs to keep the momentum going on his so-called War on Terrorism...
I also want to know why we've lost more servicemen to helicopter crashes than to enemy action? Either it shows that the UK/US troops are far better than their Iraqi counterparts, or that the UK and US services can't service/fly their helicopters...
I've also noticed that a British tornado was shot down by an American Patriot missile. That's an improvement on Desert Storm where nothing at *ALL* was hit by patriots.
The Bank of Scotland! Goddamnthem! Are in the process of making my life hell. They decided that I had to change my account, so rather than doing the usual thing and just changing my account, they decided to open me ANOTHER one and transfer everything across then close the first one. This wouldn't be a big problem if any part of it had actually gone right. During the switchover the overdraft on my old account ran out. I was about two hundred and fifty quid overdrawn. Luckily, they didn't charge me. So, I went and got it extended for a month so I'd have plenty of time for the rest of it to go through, except the lassie in the bank quite blatantly didn't want to do it, and made it very clear (without saying anything) that she didn't want to give me a larger overdraft than I was already overdrawn, which was no use because my dole money was about a week away from being paid in. So I managed to haggle it up a bit, yay!
Next thing that happened was I phoned up the Bank of Scotland Visa people to pay off a bit of my Visa bill. I switched twenty quid. All's well and good. I went to the cash machine. "You may withdraw 0 pounds." I popped along to the bank (I needed to get the rest of this account switch sorted, it's not automatic, I have to go and live in the bank until they've done it) and finally get to talk to someone. She tells me that the Visa folk took ninety pounds out my account. The only explanation I have is that the girl on the other end of the phone misheard me. So, now I'm overdrawn again, AND I get charged for the pleasure!
So, whilst I'm in I get an overdraft set up on the new account and the woman tells me to pop back in the following day and transfer my (lack of) funds over to the new one and close the old one. So the next day I toddle along, only to find the overdraft isn't there. So I go in and ask and the woman I talk to say's she'll put it through again (just in case the other one's got lost). So currently I've had the most expensive weekend of the year (end of the show) with two bank accounts, one with nothing in it and no overdraft and the other overdrawn and with no overdraft. I owe several people some money... I'm hoping that the overdraft will be sorted out tomorrow and I'll be able to get rid of the old account *and* have access to some money, but I'm not holding my breath.
As a result of all this I'm seriously considering changing bank. (I've had some bad situations before with the bank screwing up, and my brother's had some problems with them before too) This mean's I'm becoming an instant expert on different bank accounts, and I'm also looking into credit cards. (I just noticed this evening that I'm on 19.9% APR with my current one. I'm led to believe that's pretty damn bad)
I've also just drank the skankiest can of Irn Bru I've had in a long time. I've no idea what happens but sometimes you get a batch of Bru that is just vile. It's not good.
Oh well, damn long entry today, that should do you for a bit. ;)
Night!