mo 4 Jan
2021 |  Life Skills No.38: We expect you know it's a good idea to ask a service provider for a deal before renewing a contract? What surprised us more after dickering with BT via online chat was not that it saved some £240 on the year but after doing the sums the deal worked out pretty much the same as Plusnet ...
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fr 25 Sep
2020 |  Life Skills No.37: If you've have money in National Savings (prudent old you) at the end of October most interest rates are dropping to pretty much non-existent presumably in attempt to help pay for the coronavirus.
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mo 21 Sep
2020 |  Life Skills No.36: Just after the lock down start we lost a filling. Months of trying and eventually we got a dentist's appointment for November but the missing filling was feeling uncomfortable. For £1 (it must be the last outstanding bargain in Western Europe) the Framlingham Chemists has a temporary filling paste for DIY fillings. Put it in Tuesday and it's still there.
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mo 22 Jun
2020 |  Our grateful thanks to Tony Hutt for doing the sum we should have and calculating the standby cost of charging USBs on a 13amp socket is pence per year ... but then as our mother said (wagging her finger) when she got a £200 ex-gratia payment for slipping over sequence dancing It's not the money nearthecoast it's the principle.
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mo 1 Jun
2020 | Life Skills No.35: We were attracted by a short lived Screwfix offer on these 13amp sockets with USB charging, but you know how your USB charger gets warm even when nothing's connected? That's because it's still consuming power and it's still going on your bill. For these sockets it's less than 75mW but it is 24/7 so we gave it a miss. |
we 22 Apr
2020 |  Life Skills No.34: To register on the NHS app you need photo id like a driving license or passport and be prepared to supply a video of yourself saying four numeric digits. We registered over two days because after the initial registration the process got stuck and we completed the next day.
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su 12 Apr
2020
Dartford
Crossing | .JPG "Dartford Crossing refund") Life Skills No.33: We do find it wearing how often you have to complain In the UK. When the Dartford Crossing (a government web site but seemingly a private business) tells you they are closing your account they don't offer to give your money back. We got our £19.96 back but it took five emails and arrived as a handwritten cheque. Now we need to get £29 (yes £29) parking back from the 02 in that there London for the cancelled Eric Church concert. ♫
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mo 6 Apr
2020 | Life Skills No.32: In the UK contactless card transactions begin in 2007 with a £10 limit. Last Wednesday prompted by the Covid pandemic the limit went up from £30 to £45 though it will take time for some retailers to catch up. |
tu 17 Mar
2020
 | .png "Tesco vouchers") Life Skills No.31: If you get absolutely soaked through, say photographing american football during Storm Ciara and your Tesco vouchers run so they won't scan there is a fix. You can print them out online from your Tesco clubcard account, our grateful thanks to the very helpful woman at the checkout.
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su 1 Mar
2020
 |  Life Skills No.30: Premium Bonds were introduced in 1956, you could buy a single one pound bond but had to wait six months for them to become lottery eligible. In our recent memory the minimum buy was a £100, it went down to £50 recentlyish and last month reduced further to £25.
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tu 4 Feb
2020 |  Life Skills No.29: When in a shop run by posh people don't get your money out too soon, they'll keep you waiting before they take it ... it's something to do with the sordid nature of coin.
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sa 28 Dec
2019 | .jpg "How to make a silent 999 call") Life Skills No.28: It reflects how bureaucrats think that there are seven paragraphs to read on the IOPC (Independent Office for Police Conduct) web page before it actually tells you how to make a silent 999 call ... here's how ... if prompted? ... you would hope that would be when prompted. While we're in the area if you're deaf you can make a three nines call by text but you do need to register first.
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th 12 Dec
2019 | Life Skills No.27: We carried an organ donor card for over three decades until it disintegrated when accidently (who does it on purpose?) put through the washing machine. We've now registered as a donor online; comparatively straight forward, has a preferred name box, lots of gender options and if you select All (organs) you could help nine people or more. |
fr 8 Nov
2019 | Life Skills No.26: We first drank a Rombouts drip coffee at the charming Geffrye Museum in East London; it came with a matching cup and biscuit instantly.jpg "Double coffee drippers") besotting us. As the popularity spread inexperienced staff (which seemed to be most of them) would overfill the dripper leaving the drinker to deal with an overflowing cup. We bought our first drippers certainly for decades and found them sadly gutless, using two improved the situation a bit. |
th 1 Aug
2019 |  Life Skills No.25: Postal Orders are cheques for people who don't have a cheque book. We recently bought one for a friend ... not the friend with erectile dysfunction another friend. We had to pay cash and we were a bit surprised that a £10 PO cost £11.25
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mo 11 Mar
2019 | Life Skills No.24: Always staple a cheque to the paperwork. We had a cheque that somehow at the Land Registry got separated from the application and suddenly we were dealing with two people, the person who had the application and the person who had the cheque ... not easy to sort out. |
su 12 Jan
2019 |  Life Skills No.23: If you enjoy hearing Desert Island Discs Sunday mornings you might like its slightly posher cousin Private Passions which follows on Radio 3. The chosen music often has a wider range and presenter Michael Berkeley's musical knowledge and resonant voice add a further dimension ... just saying.
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