SANTANDER PART 2

It never ceases to amaze me that some big businesses do not seem to have a sense of humour. I am referring specifically to my new Bank, Santander. I think they must have a sense of humour to charge me £25 for a very minor mishap with my bank accounting, not once but twice. I thought, therefore, that Santander would be game for a laugh so I sent them a poem which was quite obviously very tongue in cheek. This is on a previous blog “Santander Saturday 24th September 2011”. I received a response today. This response was from the Complaints Department. I did not send my e-mail as a complaint; I sent it as “general feedback and other enquiries”.

It also amazes me that there is so much unemployment when companies set aside a whole department just to deal with complaints. With this in mind I may even write to the Financial Ombudsman Service as suggested in Santander’s letter. They also sent me a leaflet “how to complain, we are serious about resolving your complaint”. As they have gone to so much trouble in encouraging me to make a complaint, I feel duty bound now to do so. I am pleased to think I am playing a part in keeping these banking officials in gainful employment. I do believe that if I complain I will still not receive the £100 I first requested, but I will be helping in my own small way to support my Bank, who does seem to be a little bit strapped for cash. This is my response to their response to my poem:-

SANTANDER PART 2

I have received a letter from you today
And I’m so shocked I can hardly speak
That you’ve taken the time to write to me
Re my poem that was quite tongue in cheek.
It would have been rather nice
If you had credited my account
Considering there’s no money in there
I’m overdrawn by a considerable amount.
I do, however think, that cos of what you did
Adding charges twice to my account
When I was overdrawn by only 4 quid.
I don’t know how you can justify
Charges of twenty five pounds
And how you come up with this figure
Tell me please, what are the grounds?
I would like to draw your attention
To “ my facilities and benefits remained intact”
I’m afraid I have to disagree
Cos this is not the fact.
With my faster payments service
You were sadly not on the ball
And the tenner that I sent to my son
He did not receive faster at all.
So although your letter is well written
Very articulately
You may think you raise some valid points
But sadly you don’t convince me.
Although my e-mail is not a complaint
Just an observation
I still think you should give me a hundred quid
Go on, go on, go on!!

I am confident that Santander will deal with this in the same professional way they dealt with my last “complaint”.

I look forward to hearing from them in due course.

IS THIS A RHETORICAL QUESTION?

My son came home yesterday to get all the stuff he left here over the summer. I’m putting him on my car insurance for 24 hours so he can drive to Manchester and to the various friends’ houses where he has the rest of his belongings scattered/stored.

It was a record breaking hot sunny 1^st October. We took the dogs for a walk through the woods, the woods where there is a pub at the end and had a pint in the beer garden.

I am not quite sure how this happened, but we ended up in the chippy. We both had a mini rissole, chips, peas and curry sauce. It was only three quid for both of us and no cooking or washing up. We ate them in the car. Then we dashed up to Morrison’s with my “get a free bottle of Encona chilli sauce” voucher. They’d sold out.

Driving back in the car we got to talking about how I am turning into my Mum. My lovely dear old Mum who, in the nicest possible way, used to talk absolute rubbish. She would ask pointless rhetorical questions such as “where are they going?”, “what are they doing?” about total strangers. The sort of things a toddler would say. My dear old Mum, who’d raised a family, held down a full time job, had one or two good wins on the bingo and went cold turkey to get herself off the tranquilisers the docs used to put so many women on in the 1970’s. My Mum who was so easily loved and adored by so many people. My Mum who had managed to hold everything together for so many years, was talking shite.

The thing is, I don’t really feel old. And it is only after the words have bypassed my brain and come out of my mouth that I realise how stupid they are. I understand why my son gets frustrated with me like I used to get frustrated with my Mum.

Its 6 years at the end of this month since my Mum died. What I wouldn’t give to hear one more rubbish, stupid, daft rhetorical question.

Where are you Mum and why aren’t you here now? I’ve got a rotten cold and I want my Mum. So what if I am nearly 55? Although this may sound like a rhetorical question, it is, in fact a statement.

MY MATE KEV/THE MENOPAUSE

Been for a day out with my mate Kev. Been mates with Kev for 20 years but we both moved and lost touch for a bit. It was much harder to find him because he is not on Facebook. We are both 54. Kev is a brilliant singer a writer of songs and a guitarist. He was in a band in the late 70’s early 80’s. He could have been a rock star but he chose to veer off the path of fame and fortune for the sake of love, a love that lasted 15 years. Kev is single now like me. He’s a grumpy old man and I’m a grumpy old woman but we can both laugh about it now and talk about hindsight, what might have been and how life would have been so different if only…..

Kev was made redundant last year. He’s worked all his life. He might lose his house 'cos he can’t pay his mortgage. He’s selling it for a knock down price before it gets repossessed.

Kev’s great, and like me, he too can laugh in the face of adversity. Today we got onto the subject of the menopause. Kev knows I am suffering/going through/dealing with the menopause. Kev, Molly, Ruby, Niamh (our collective dogs) and me all walked up a quite a big hill. We stopped half way up so I could get my fan out. Heat wave + hot flush, not good. Bloody hot flushes, bloody menopause I said. Kev said “what is the menopause, is that when you have a pause from men?” So I said yes Kev, I think it is. How can you possibly consider romance when you wake up in the middle of the night, dripping with sweat, stuck to your duvet, to find your dog feasting off the sweat on your forehead? Then we got to talking about Always Ultras. These are some of my ideas to use them now I no longer have a need.

Although I no longer need Always Ultra
I’ve found a use for them now
I can lie down with one pressed
Onto my sweaty brow!

Another use for Always Ultras
I may well start a trend
I could use them as a book mark
When I ‘m reading Peoples Friend

Now I’m on a roll
I might design some posters
I can cut my Always Ultras out
And turn them into coasters!

And what about some insoles
To put inside your shoes
I still have 2 packets of Ultras
For which I have no use!

Anyway, Kev came up with a brilliant idea and we are wondering if we should take it to Dragon’s Den. This is what he said, we could use them to make Para gliders for Barbie dolls and sell them on e-bay!

Any comments on this would be most welcome.

SANTANDER

My flat is empty of life forms apart from Baby Niamh curled up on one of the old lady chairs and Ruby snuggled up on the old lady settee with her nose buried in Susie Warner’s furry pink cushion. I am not working today so I suppose this would be the ideal opportunity to clean the flat. I’m not in a domestic goddess mood. I have looked in my bedside cabinet for some reading glasses. I found 4 spectacle receptacles and opened each one with eager anticipation. Not one of them had any reading glasses in. I threw them all back in the drawer and slammed the drawer in disgust. No doubt next time I am looking for reading glasses I will go through the same rigmarole again, not remembering that I had already done this before. It would have been better if I had removed the spectacle receptacles there and then. Well ….. it’s not as if I have so much to do now I don’t have time to go looking through empty glasses cases. Anyway, it’s easy to get distracted when you’re not fully committed to the job in hand so I’ve been watching the American X Factor. During the adverts and whilst I was in the kitchen making a brew, I heard a Santander advert. Santander is my new bank. This is not a bank I chose myself. It is the bank that “took over” the Alliance and Leicester. They also changed all the paperwork, the design and colour of my bank statements and increased the charge of my overdraft facility by 100%. Changing everything does not necessarily make it better. It appears that I am to bear the brunt of the costs for these changes by Santander surreptitiously adding the 100% increase to the charge for my overdraft facility. I have written a poem and sent it via secure e-mail to Santander. If these wealthy bankers have a conscience I will soon have £100 in my bank account.

This is the poem:-

I’ve just seen an advert on telly
About switching to Santander
If you do you’ll get a £100
But I think that’s just not fair.
The reason that I think this
Is cos I banked with A & L
Who were taken over by Santander
So I should get £100 as well.
I was happy with A & L
It wasn’t my choice to switch
And the transition did not go too smoothly
Or sadly without a hitch.
The payments and transfers facility
I use to send cash to my son
With the faster payment service
When he finds that his cash has all gone.
I transfer the occasional tenner
Into his student account
And if you look at the state of my finances
It’s a relatively high amount.
But during the merge with my bank
The faster payment did not go through
And my poor boy was left penniless and starving
And did not know what to do.
Therefore as a gesture of goodwill
And so I keep my overdraft with you
Could you credit my account with £100
I think that’s the least you could do.
I have not put a question mark
It’s a rhetorical question you see
And the charges you’ve added to my account
I’d be obliged if you returned them to me.

MY BOY'S GONE BACK TO UNI :(

I’m not too keen on silence
It’s not a sound I like
But that’s the sound I hear now
My son’s gone to uni and taken his bike.
I’ve just been in his room
There’s no laptop or guitar
And although he’s gone to Salford
And it’s really not that far
I’ll leave his bedroom door open
Not a lot, just a little ajar.
I won’t put everything away
‘Cos I know that he’ll be back
So I think I’ll leave it a couple more days
Before I start to pack.
I know I should not feel so sad
My son is twenty four
And he only came for the summer
He’d already left home before.
I love my son you see
I think he’s a really good bloke
His feet are firmly on the ground
And I think he sees the joke.
The thing that we both share
And what I think he’s learned from me
Is no matter what life throws at us
We laugh in the face of adversity.

THE INEPT SHOPLIFTER

Yesterday evening, a rather inept shoplifter helped himself to a large case of Thornton’s Milk Chocolate Collection from the Co-op where I work. These are on offer, reduced from £11.00 to £5.00. He was seen carrying these chocolates out of the Co-op without paying for them. Not by me, I hasten to add. I am relaying this story as told to me by Colette. I have been on a conflict course setting out the procedure should we spot a customer leaving the Co-op without paying for his/her shopping. We do not under any circumstances chase the assailant or try to make a citizens arrest. This led to the shoplifter being able to hot foot it down the road laden with several large boxes of Thornton’s chocolates.

This shoplifter had not taken into account the sharp eyed neighbourhood watch team or the fact that a local police officer lived quite close to the bus stop. This is the bus stop where he was seen sitting holding on to these chocolates. These are quite large boxes of chocolates and far too big to fit in a Co-op carrier bag or even a large bag you would expect an experienced shoplifter to use.

I do not know why this gentleman decided to hang around this residential area with a sharp eyed neighbourhood watch team for 2 hours. I do not use the local bus service but I do believe it is a very good bus service even in the evening. His failure to plan his getaway more thoroughly resulted in him being arrested at the bus stop by our local police officer (I won’t mention Phil’s name as I do not wish to blow his cover) and taken away with the Thornton’s Chocolates as evidence. I am doubtful these chocolates will be returned to the Co-op. Forensics still has my jacket which was taken away as evidence when the Co-op was the victim of an armed robbery and I was man handled by one of the masked men – this was in January. I was asked at work last week if I would like a new warm fleece. I said yes please. If I do get my old one back it will no doubt be covered in Thornton’s chocolate.

I would suspect that as the culprit was caught red handed (with chocolate on his hands) the Thornton’s chocolates can be returned immediately.

FACEBOOK

I’ve noticed that a lot of the young people have posted photo albums on their profiles entitled Summer 2011. These pictures are full of young people having fun, drinking and partying, as you would expect from the younger generation. I got to thinking what pictures I would post on my Facebook profile for Summer 2011. I do not have these pictures as it did not occur to me at the time that I could make a photo album entitled Summer 2011 to share with my Facebook friends.

Here is a list in no particular order:-

1. The little bald bailiff man outside my door clutching a “notice to issue distress”.
2. The Casualty Department at Northern General Hospital where I spent an afternoon with Judybongo with separate, but tenuously related injuries.
3. My son and his friends dressing up as “ladies” in dresses and going out in the dead of night (I do believe there is some photographic evidence of this event).
4. Me talking to a policeman through the open window of my car. I was sent on my way without being charged. It was a little misunderstanding.
5. Last but not least and an excellent photo opportunity. After allowing my learner driver son to drive my car from Sheffield to Manchester and stopping off at various places and driving through Manchester City centre and up and down the Mancunian Way, covering more than 160 miles….. The look on my face when finally pulling up outside my flat at 11.50 p.m. with only 10 minutes left on my son’s temporary car insurance, to be stopped by the police. My son had stopped the car at the bus stop round the corner where his girlfriend was waiting. He turned the lights off when he got out to snog her and drove the few yards home with no lights on. I should have noticed this but I didn’t. Unfortunately, the police did.
6. My final picture would be my full clean driving licence.