Moving again

The Job Applications (not me!)

I keep wondering how fast the time flies here. Few weeks ago we had to decide what to do with the current tenancy. The first contract was made for six months, so we had to consider whether stay in Basingstoke yet another 6 months, or move out somewhere else in the country (or even abroad).

Kayleigh applied recently for few open job positions, they were located in Cheadle (Staffordshire), Bilston (West Midlands) and surprisingly in Singapore! The applications must have been good, because she got a request for interview for all of those places. Anyway, that success clearly showed for us that it was time to consider moving out from Basingstoke.

Stoke-on-Trent and surroundings. Maybe this is the place to live for next 6 months?

Few Words about Real Estate Agents

I had forgotten what kind of ballache it was last time to get a flat to live. This time we started looking for the accommodation a bit earlier, bearing in mind that our holiday trip to Boracay, Philippines was about to start quite soon. So there I was then, calling again to real estate agents and trying to make them to do their job. The system how to rent a house is a bit different here compared to Finland: most places are dealt with professional real estate agencies and therefore the process is somewhat more bureaucratic than it really has to be. I have to say that it wouldn't be England, if something happened easily. I don't know if it is just real estate agents, but I have learned that no matter people say or promise, that doesn't mean anything in the end of the day. Before moving to England I was used to the culture where spoken agreement is as equal as written one. It is called honesty, and that's what I have really missed lately.

Here are some sentences and their true meaning for you to understand what I mean:

"I will ring you tomorrow" means "Forget this, I will never call you, you foreign tw**"
"Let's keep in touch" means "Let's not really keep in touch unless you call me again"
"I will look places to you based on your needs" means "I don't give a f*** what you want"
"I'll be there at 3pm" means "I will call you 3:30pm and say I will be late"
"I'm sorry there's nothing I can do" means "... and I wouldn't be less interested in your problems"
"How's your day" means "I don't really want an answer, I just want to fill an awkward silence"

These sentences are true examples from my previous experiences with real estate agents. More examples of British expressions you can find from here:

• https://twitter.com/SoVeryBritish?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Searching for a Place to Live in Stoke-on-Trent

After learning how to have a proper conversation and how to interpret different expressions I finally managed to get some viewing appointments for flats in Stoke-on-Trent. It is the closest big town near Cheadle, where Kayleigh's work will start on December. I was really surprised how much cheaper it will be to rent a flat in northern part of England. We currently pay £750 ppm for one bedroom flat with a kitchen, living room and bathroom. In Stoke-on-Trent you can rent 2 bedroom property with only £500 ppm, so we decided to upgrade our housing standards with less costs. Last Saturday we went to see four different lettings. After three hours of driving to the north and then several hours driving around the town we really didn't find any flat that felt perfect for us. There was always something wrong with each place: the location, price, general cleanness, smell or once even an angry neighbour who appeared into middle of our viewing to moan about the current tenant. We ended up going back home with sad feelings, because finding a nice place to live seemed to be harder than we originally thought.

Instead of giving up we came back to Stoke-on-Trent on Tuesday hoping that the places to look this time would be better. And they really did: we managed to view again four places and each of them were better than those we saw on Saturday! After finding a really nice two bedroom furnished flat, we finally decided to apply for it.

Application Process for Getting a Flat

To become a tenant, you need to fill up 5 page application form and attach following documents:

• at least 2 identity documents from this list: passport, driving licence, birth certificate
• at least 2 documents about your current address: water bill, gas bill, electricity bill, telephone bill
• at least 2 documents about your income info, this includes documents such as the employment contract, P60, Tax Report, Wage slip etc.

The application fee for two tenants is £150. It is non-refundable and allows the agent to process the application and complete the relevant references and credit checks. If your application is successful you will be required to pay one months’ rent in advance,  a deposit equal to one months’ rent and a signing fee of £35. So in our case to become a tenant after successful evaluation process costs £1185 before even moving in. And because they use the system called UK Tenantdata for collecting information about tenants, you have to pay extra £10 to get the full report about you, in case something occurs and you have to start solving further issues.

By the way: When I asked how to pay this application fee, I honestly thought that it would be just using your English bank account and pay it in their internet banking system and then after payment send a receipt to the agent. Yes, but no. This was the answer: "You can either pay in the office or over the phone". The office is in 3 hours drive from home, so I decided to pay over the phone. I had no idea what paying over the phone could be, but now I know it: You ring to the agent, they connect you to another person (which hopefully is a real accountant), you tell your credit card number to the accountant and also that three digit CVC code, which is written behind the card. To be honest, I felt really insecure for telling someone my credit card details. Finnish banks would never accept this kind of payments online.

So I paid the application fee over the phone and emailed all required documents. That took nearly 2 hours to accomplish, because the agent's mailbox didn't accept over 10 MB files and I needed to send all pages in separate emails. Anyway, application is now in and we will see what happens next.

Skimmed Credit Card

By the way, this happened two weeks ago. I was having a nice cup of coffee in the morning and reading a local newspaper at home. I heard my Finnish phone number ringing and noticed, that the call was coming from Danske Bank. That never means anything good, when your bank rings you. The reason why they called me this time was that they have just got another call from abroad and they were suspecting that my credit card information was in wrong hands. Possibly somewhere in Europe or in the United States. They found out that my credit card was being used in Des Moines, USA, purchases were also made in Zalando.com and Nikeshop.com web store. The fact was that I had just lost 644 € for someone, who's now wearing nice clothes, shoes and enjoying hotel services in USA. I had to make a written complaint and a police report for getting this money back. On top of that my credit card was declined immediately. I had to ask the bank to deliver a new card straight to my English address, because at the moment I have no plans to go to Finland until end of December.

I just wonder how my card got skimmed, because I haven't been using that for ages. Last time I used it was on my trip to Finland around a month ago. Maybe there is still a working scanner device located in Helsinki Airport Terminal 2, because that was the only place where I used that card on that trip. Anyway, I got my new card this week and surprisingly Danske Bank didn't charge for sending it to England.

Dreaming of a Holiday

You know what: After all these things what has happened lately I really feel like I need a holiday from being at holiday. Maybe this picture helps for all of us waiting to hear, what's going on in that side of the planet.

Sommoro! Cheers!

White Beach at Boracay Island.

The English Bank Account - Final Episode

When we got back from our holiday in Croatia, my brand new Visa Debit card was in the mail waiting for me. Finally I could be able to buy something with a bank card, which wouldn't cause any problems or questions. To be fair, my Finnish bank card (which includes both Debit and Credit options) has been really confusing here. Clerks and service people in many places don't know how to handle it, because they have never seen bank cards with dual accounts. And that has been a major issue in every case where my bank card has not been accepted as a paying method. Finnish people may remember how this was an issue few years ago in Finland, until the shops updated their cash register software.

My new horse.

Transferring Money to UK

In the beginning my new bank account had a zero balance, because I didn't want to apply for any pre-planned overdraft. So, the next step to get things running was to transfer money from my Finnish account. I started looking for the best alternative to do that. After doing some research I quickly found out, that all banks and other services want charges, and in fact currency exchange has been one of the oldest jobs in the world since invention of money. Using your current bank would be probably the most obvious choice, but maybe some Internet broker could be also possible... but are those reliable enough?

So, let's say that I would like to transfer 5.000€ to my English bank account. How much money would I then get? I found three possible options, which will be explained briefly in the following chapters.

Option 1: International Money Transfer by Danske Bank

I made a quick phone call to Danske Bank to clarify all expenses. This was the answer what I got: "We're not allowed to tell how much money you will receive to your destination account". What?! So, I asked principles for different charges, because I really wanted to compare these three options I had. If I wanted to transfer exact sum in Pounds, I could do it with this option, but they charge extra 10€ if the sum is not in Euros. And if I wanted to have fast payment (which means that I could probably get my money during the same or the next banking day) they would charge extra 35.50€. And, if I don't know the IBAN number for the receiving account, they would charge again extra 10€. And finally, if I really wanted to make sure that I got the exact sum in Pounds into my receiving account, they would charge extra 20€ for making sure, that the receiving bank doesn't charge anything extra. On top of all these charges they use their own exchange rate, which is shown in their home page. Actually it is the same rate, that they use for selling cash. It will be updated three times during the normal banking day (for instance now the rate is £0.7124 for one Euro). So with this option and with all possible charges included I would receive (5000€ - 10€ - 35.50€ - 10€ - 20€) * 0.7124 = £3508.21.

A screen shot from the Danske Bank's website.

Option 2: SEPA Transfer

SEPA means Single Euro Payment Area, which in fact includes more currencies than just Euro. Therefore I can do SEPA transfer even if the destination currency will be Pounds. When I asked how to do it, they said I only need an IBAN formatted account number and BIC code (also known as SWIFT-BIC, ISO 9362, SWIFT ID or SWIFT code) for the receiving account, and then everything will be free of charges. Fine, I knew both IBAN and BIC as my Lloyds Internet banking system tells me those very clearly. If I didn't know the IBAN, I could also use separate IBAN calculator for finding that.

The only catch on this payment method is that when you use your Danske Bank's money transfer system, the BIC cannot be entered, because there is no field available for that! So can you then be 100% sure, that they will not charge extra 10€ for missing required information? I also found out, that my destination bank Lloyds will be charging extra £7 for any payments received from abroad. The conversion for currency will be again done by original bank, so the exchange rate in this case would be exactly the same as in option 1. Based on these facts, I would finally receive 5000€ * 0.7124 - £7 = £3555.00.

A screenshot from the Lloyds web pages about transaction charges.

Option 3: TransferWise

I really love new and smart services that try to change conventional businesses. There are good examples in different areas of industries: iTunes changed the whole music business, Skype changed international telephone calling business, Netflix changed the video renting and so on. I can tell you now that currency exchange is one of those businesses that really needs new and modern ideas. If that doesn't happen, banks can do legal robbery as long as they want. But thanks to the modern Internet business opportunities, some people had already invented ways to go around normal bank charges. One good example for that is TransferWise, the invention made by Skype founders!

Their business idea is: Open a free bank account in two different currency areas (like Euro and UK). Then, create a web service which offers money transactions between those currencies. Tell exactly how much money the receiver will get. Tell clearly how you charge for the money transaction. Use the rate which is better than banks use. Simple as that.

How can the exchange rate be better than all banks have? Well, here's the trick: while I want to change my Euros into Pounds, there's will be someone (= person A), who wants to do opposite on the same day. So, my money doesn't need to be changed into Pounds (or transferred to UK), as it ends up into person A's destination account in Euros. And I get my Pounds from person A's Pound account. On the way to the different accounts the money goes through TransferWise's bank account (which was by the way in Estonia), and they can charge their micro transaction fee from that. If that happens million times, there will be hell of a lot money moving from conventional bank's pockets to the TransferWise's pocket. And everybody wins, including happy customers.

TransferWise uses mid-market exchange rate, which you can see from www.xe.com. By the time I checked both rates (Danske Bank's & XE's) the mid-market exchange rate was £0.73154 per one Euro. That is 1,914% better what Danske Bank uses. Does it make any difference? Not in small sums, but with 5000 € the difference is remarkable. Even if TransferWise charged 0.5% fee from the transaction I would still save money comparing to the best option provided by Danske Bank. And on top of that I could freely choose the exact sum in either Euros or Pounds. So, transferring money with this option would give me 5000€ / 1.005 * 0.73154 = £3639.50, which is £84.50 (=115.51€) better than the best alternative offered by bank!

Sometimes small decimals matter.

This episode made me think what's the point having a relationship to your bank for nearly 30 years? And by the way, I'm not telling you how much money I actually transferred, but with TransferWise it took less than 12 hours and I can recommend this service to anyone. So if you want cheap and reliable money transfer abroad, here's the link where you can get your first transfer up to £3000 for free: https://transferwise.com/u/97184.

Happy banking with your current bank!

Few Steps Closer to a Proper Citizen

National Insurance Number

This is the day I've been waiting for three months! I got a letter from JobCentre Plus while I was preparing my lunch at home (grilled cheese and ham sandwich - which is by the way very popular lunch in here). The letter in a picture states that my application for National Insurance Number has been accepted and therefore I received personal and permanent number for work related things like paying taxes, receiving allowances... or having an own bank account.

A long awaited letter from the JobCentre Plus.

Bank Account - Finally!

What I did next, after having few dance steps, was opening a Lloyds bank website and searching guide how to apply for the bank account. I found an online application and after entering few information about myself and my current bank affairs, they made a decision right away and opened a bank account for me! That's unbelievable after waiting this to happen for so long. The Visa Debit card should arrive in few days, so I can finally start making purchases and withdraw money without fear of having difficulties... Someone may now wonder what's this fuss about having a British Bank account and Bank card, isn't it the same if I used my Finnish one? Theoretically it has no big difference, but in reality the problems occur when you for example go to a web store and it asks your billing and delivery addresses... and because they don't match, the transaction won't go through. That happened the other day when I was reserving theatre tickets and trying to pay them with my Finnish Credit card. The service refused to deliver the tickets to a different address than my billing address was. So, in the worst scenario my tickets would have even been delivered to Finland... oh well. I can now take advantage of all the services which I've been paid already, including Sky box mobile. Their applications are available only in UK App Store, which I haven't been able to use until now.

Internet Bank application waiting for its eager user.

Escaping Bad Weather

Weather here has turned into shit (read: English standard). There has been showers and rain one week on a row (except on last Saturday, when the temperature reached +28 C before nightly thunderstorm). So, we decided to search for a quick getaway to somewhere cheap, nice and warm place. This turned into a real challenge as next Monday is an official Bank holiday in UK. This means, that everyone else in the country is thinking to go abroad too, and the prices went ridiculously high in the most popular holiday destinations. We did hard job to find a decent holiday destination, which wouldn't ruin the budget or be too fully crowded with other British tourists. This time of the year the best European destinations are most likely close to the Mediterranean Sea, if you're looking for beach, sun and warm weather. So there we go: Medulin, Croatia. Flights are to Ljubjana, Slovenia, which means that I can start driving again on a right side of the road :) And because the flights are selected from the cheapest carriers available there's not much to pack either due to restrictions of allowed bag sizes. You really need to be clear with these rules, otherwise you pay for you mistakes and the illusion of cheap holiday is then gone.

Which weather forecast you prefer? I decided to go to see if 30 C is too much or not.

Bank Holiday Advantages

Bank holidays are by the way great moments to get what you want. Travel agents do their best to get their revenue, everyone wants to take advantage of one free day from work. On the other hand some work unions (like public transportation in London) decide to take advantage in their own way. London Underground threatened to be on a strike for the whole week, which would mean that their workers could be on a holiday too and the effect of the strike would be greatest possible as the rest of the people struggle to get to the airports. A great way to get attention, ay it? Luckily they called off the strike as this would have been a real chaos in there.

Public Transportation Is Great - Most of the Time

There is one thing that I don't understand in London public traffic, especially in train services: There are several train stations in London which are located in rough circle around the city: Victoria, Waterloo, London Bridge, Charing Cross, Euston, Clapham Junction, St. Pancras, Paddington... you name it. And in many cases you have to travel through London to reach different destinations in England. Surprisingly, there is no train connection between railway stations. So, instead of using the train in your whole journey, you need to change into an underground or bus in the middle of busiest London area. In theory this is fine and very effective system, but in reality the trouble is that the whole traffic relies on the underground. And if you work there and you want more salary, just go into a strike and everything stops in the capital city. Motorways around the London area are mostly totally rammed with cars even without the strike, and overground public traffic can't bear the demand what happens when people want to reach their destinations in rush hours. I don't know if I'm moaning for nothing, but the tube strike (or at least fear of it) has hit me every time, when I rely on the public transportation in London.

London Tube zone 1, where most railway stations are.

Driving Safely

Speaking of the driving in here, I'm started to feel more and more confident with left side traffic. Now I can already drive easily in Basingstoke without GPS or navigator. And several lanes in roundabouts don't make me nervous anymore. In the end of the day there is a clear logic how to use them. It's just different (like everything else in this country). Everything has been fine so far. In fact the only trouble on the road came the other week, when we were returning from the Staffordshire back to Basingstoke. We got a flat tyre and it needed quick replacement right away on the road. Luckily I managed to drive to the closest garage just before the tyre was completely empty. After searching the comparison chart between bars and PSI, I managed to change the tyre without any problems. I also noticed that the rest of the tyres were quite badly worn, so I decided to invest into new set of tyres on the next working day. That cost me totally £360 for changing all 4 tyres, but now I've got much content feeling to drive on rainy roads of England.

Not very fancy ones, but good enough for safe driving.

New Hobbies Arising

The Sports Centre

I applied for a premier membership for Basingstoke Sports Centre. I never thought I would be interested about become a member of the sports club, but apparently this is what happens when you have enough free time to think about how to spend your time. The Sports Centre is located conveniently only 15 min walk from the home, so I can easily go there every day if I wanted. There is a well equipped gym, swimming pool and you can attend to different types of classes there. And what is really the most exciting thing there for me? There is a sauna! Oh, I have to say that this is what I've been waiting for even I never thought that I would miss a sauna at all. When I was in Finland, I wasn't a heavy user of sauna, it was okay for me if I went there occasionally, maybe once or twice in a week. But this new opportunity to have sauna here made me quite delighted. Yesterday I went to the Sports Centre for first time, I spent sweaty one hour in a gym by using cross trainer as it is a device that I used to have at home in Finland. Let's see how my new hobby starts working in future. Right now I'm really interested and excited about it.

Licence to sport, £44 per month with zero contract.

Gardening

Some serious gardening should be done in here?

The other day I looked at our backyard and thought myself that it really needs care. There are basically loads of different plants, flowers etc., which most of them are not familiar to me at all. The climate in British Isles is so different comparing to Finland, that my little knowledge about plants has basically no use in here. Bearing in mind that earlier I wasn't even interested about gardening. The garden in my previous home in Finland basically meant only some unpleasant jobs for me, and I always tried to avoid them. However, now I don't know what is it, but I actually think seriously about doing some gardening stuff in our backyard. I went to a library and borrowed a book about it. And as a proof of my geek level I even installed an app called Grow Your Own, provided by the Royal Hortocultural Society. Actually it is a useful app for learning gardening in a new environment. I will probably start with herbs as they are very useful in food preparing.

Grow your own app.
Wow, there really is an app for
everything you can ever imagine.

A Guitar

Last time when we visited West Midlands, Kayleigh brought her guitar from her parents' house. This acoustic, handmade Rikter & Sierra guitar gives me a great opportunity to start playing a music instrument again. When I was a teenager, I used to play clarinet and piano, I also took lessons on music theory for few years. Unfortunately I quit this hobby soon after leaving my parents' home, and forgot that part of my history for decades. But when I took this new guitar into my hands, I thought maybe this old interest for playing music will start rising again... So I want to learn how to play guitar now. And because I now have time at least a year to do that every day, so why not? So, this is my goal: one day I will play the Love Theme from the Godfather film, just like Michael Mark does in this Youtube video. I believe some of my friends from work will easily understand the reason for why I picked up this particular song for my ultimate goal of this hobby.

English Food

The Sunday Roast (by the White Swan Inn)

Guess what one of my friend in Oulu said when I told him about moving to England for a year? Well, he said with very sarcastic voice that I picked up the worst possible country in terms of weather and food experiences. Is it only Fish and Chips or Full English breakfast that people eat here from the day after day, or is there something else which may be worth of trying? I can tell you YES, there is a full range of different kind of meals, which are actually very good and honestly worth of trying. Like for instance, Sunday roast is a good example of very nice meal which is served in most pubs on Sundays, just like in this randomly selected pub in Newcastle, the White Swan Inn. 

However, I think the biggest difference between Finnish and English meals is the fact that Finnish meals include often salad (lettuce) and other raw vegetables like cucumber and tomato, which isn't the case in here. And secondly, the lunch is totally different, traditional English lunch deal includes just sandwich, crisps and a drink (or maybe a soup), whereas in Finland it is often the most fulfilling meal of the day. I'm not surprised why Finland is the World's biggest coffee consuming nation per capita. Nobody keeps him/herself awake after such enormous lunches there are in Finland, and that happens even in the middle of the every workday.  

It would be very interested to know what English people actually eat, and if it's not too difficult I can learn to prepare English food myself too. Good food (and brave tasting of different kinds of strange things abroad) has always been in my interest. Maybe my new hobbies, gardening of herbs (and other useful plants) in addition to my new sport activities will supplement each other in the end of the day. All in all, I will try to keep these new hobbies in good balance, as I think they can help me to live healthier and more valuable life in here.

The Dishwasher: Final Episode

Oh and by the way: the dishwasher broke again this Monday, this time there was both internal and external water leak. Finally I got our letting agent convinced that machine needs to be changed into the new one. Thanks to Rayner's Appliance Care, they fitted the brand new British made dishwasher into our kitchen. Beko, the devil's machine as I call it, is now in a dumpster and I never have to see it again. Case closed.

The Bank Account - Part 3

Floody Monday

I just can't believe this. The NI number interview is a joke. They just rang me from Southampton JobCentre Plus and said they have water flooding accident in the office and they need to cancel all interviews for today. They asked me to rearrange the appointment by calling that damn phone service again! After queuing yet another 10 minutes I managed to get another appointment. The interview for having the NI number will be held on 4th August 10:15am, so yet another two weeks of waiting to ge my bank account issues solved. I had already some plans to travel to Finland to see relatives during that week, but that must be postponed now, luckily I didn't book flights to Finland yet. Anyway, I'm going to try to reimburse my already paid train tickets to Southampton for today from the JobCentre. Let's see what happens next.

This is definitely not the best Monday so far. The dishwasher stopped working again, and that happened soon after the phone call from the JobCentre. The dishwasher power went off and it left all water flooding to the bottom of it. So I rang to the Rayner Appliance Care again to get some help. The bloke asked me to leave the dishwasher as it is, and he will come to see it tomorrow. So there will be now 24 hours of waiting that cursed dishwasher to come back alive again. Which it apparently does, as it has always started working properly on the next day. More embarrassing happenings to come...

The Secret Cultural Index

Do you know what is my secret cultural index? Remember, in my last blog I was wondering about real ale culture dying in Southern parts of England. The other day I found an excellent website for searching for pubs, it's called http://whatpub.com/, and it truly offers very comprehensive database for all types of pubs in UK. Just enter your location (postcode) and it tells you where you can find the nearest pubs which offer great ales for all beer lovers. The more importantly, it also tells the number of pubs around you. The default radius of the search is 10 km (6.2 miles), and the the number of pubs is my secret cultural index. The search tells me now, that there are 71 pubs around me. It also makes me wonder why I'm writing my blog here at home now?

Right now I really need a pint. My attempts to get British bank account, NI numbers and clean dishes can wait. Besides Oak pub just around the corner offers minimum of withdrawal £10 of cash while purchasing some of their excellent products (Marston's Pedigree for instance), so that gives me a really good excuse to explore more about British living culture. It also helps me to forget all bank and money issues, flooding problems or national insurance numbers.

As a first initial test of finding the best place for cultural index in UK, I searched pubs in Tipton, which is in the heart of the Black Country area in West Midlands. The index there was 406. This really tells something about differences between northern and southern regions, maybe I should soon consider moving?

Bits and Pieces of Daily Life

A Proper Night Out in Stafford

A night out in Stafford with friends.

I got an invitation to a night out in Stafford with Kayleigh and her best friends. That was a kind of event that I've really looked forward to happen: a proper night out with English friends. And the evening was successful, I found the way of having fun similar in both England and Finland. It's a multicultural habit to go out, visit several pubs and finally enter into a night club for dancing and having more fun! I got new Facebook friends, we had really nice talks and also lots of laughs and jokes together. I felt myself very homely with these lovely people.

While having a great time I was surprised about the amount of pubs and bars in Stafford. Our home town Basingstoke is double sized, but the amount of pubs is very limited, whereas in Stafford you could find nice beer havens in almost every corner of the town centre. And as far as I know that trend seems to be the same in other places in central part of England. I wonder why is it so, maybe the pub culture is more or less dying in southern cities and towns - or even in England? This finding requires more observation in near future (read: more visits in the pubs).

By the way, I can recommend the Travelodge hotel for the short stay in Stafford, it offers reasonable priced accommodation in the walking distance from the town centre.

The Bank Account - Part 2

I finally managed to get a reservation for an NI number interview, yayyyy!!! This time I got much better service than during my previous attempts to solve the issue (remember my last blog text about struggling with the bureaucracy?). The officer lady in the phone had a really strong indian accent, but it didn't bother me at all, because things started to work out pretty easily. The interview will be held in Southampton Job Centre on Monday next week, how exciting! I have to bring with me there: 1) a valid passport, 2) another official ID card and 3) the utility bill from my current address in England. While moving to England I had a gut feeling, that it would be wise to have both passport and the official ID card available. I was right, this time the investment for the extra ID card is really needed, because I guess my Finnish driving licence might not be good enough for proving your identity, as it lacks English translation. I'm also really happy that the utility bills (water, electricity & gas) have my name on it - even if they are not paid from my own bank account. For those who wonder how payments work here in general: the most common way to pay bills is to use the system called Direct debit. And it doesn't work for international bank accounts as I've noticed. This really causes the chicken & egg situation for foreigners in most cases here. Anyway, my saga of getting an own bank account continues on Monday, so more to come...

The Dishwasher

Beko, the devil's machine.

As you know our flat is fully furnished, and as a bonus we have a dishwasher. I was really delighted about having one, because it didn't seem to be a common device in those places we saw while looking for a flat to rent. Unluckily, this particular Beko DFSF 1531 W dishwasher we have here has become a true nightmare. I don't know what's wrong, but it seems to malfunction every second time I try to use it. I've done everything: reseted, rebooted, even drained it manually etc., but nothing seems to work out. It has an own will, it seems to work whenever it wants to. Yesterday, after manually draining it three times, I finally got really annoyed and wrote a letter to our letting agent to fix or replace the damn machine. This morning very nice repairman from Rayner Appliance Care came to see it, and the machine worked like a charm! We tried several times to get it malfunction but no, that machine was really working. The repairman left and I felt really embarrassed and humiliated. So, we will see how that cursed machine will work in the following days. All I wanted is to have clean dishes, but that seems to be one of those things that won't work in easy way. However, it seems now that everything is pretty much okay if the fairly unreliable dishwasher is the only serious thing to moan about.

Library & Museums

I applied for the local library card three days ago. Surprisingly that was really easy thing to do, no utility bills or whatsoever needed, all I had to do was to enter my address details in to online application form and that's it! I got the card number on the next day and yesterday the card came by post. On top of letting me use the library, it offers also quite convenient eBook loaning system with an Overdrive app, which works smoothly in my iPad. I'm not sure if Finnish libraries have similar eBook systems, but this system is very convenient. I have now large selection of free books available in my iPad. And what's more important, there also seems to be enough time to read those books now. Reading books is one of the things that I really waited for while starting my year off, as the previous work periods have been too busy for that kind of activity.

Today I visited in Willis Museum and Sainsbury Gallery which had a exhibition of Basingstoke history. Interesting piece of show, but for the moment I was the only visitor in the whole museum. And later on the same thing happened in the local pub called the Rising Sun: there were nobody else but me and relatively bored bartender. I wonder if the real culture is dying here... The weather wasn't the problem, today was the nicest day so far: no rain at all.

Licence to educate yourself.

The English Bank Account

Now, when the things are beginning to settle down, the lack of English bank account has started to piss me off. In practice it is not a big issue, but for instance in our local food shop has a cash point which doesn't accept my Finnish debit or credit card. On top of that the shop charges 25p from every purchase made with a credit or bank card, so cash is really preferred in many places here. I can easily withdraw cash from the local pub called the Oak though, but the minimum withdraw is £10, and drinking beer is mandatory at the same time hehe.

Another thing that bothers me is Apple's App Store. As a Sky Broadband customer I have an access to free Wifi network called the Cloud in most public places in UK. But you can't use it, if you don't have a specific app, which is only available in UK App Store. In order to switch to that I need again a credit or debit card which is issued in UK.

You can't pay your gas, electricity or water bill without an English bank account. And the other day I tried to make a cheap booking to Travelodge hotel in Stafford, but they charged extra for using international credit card as a payment method.

I honestly thought that it would be easy to go to a bank (like Lloyds for instance), establish an account and transfer enough money from my Finnish bank account to make things happen easier. But no. In order to open an UK bank account you need a) NI (National Insurance number), which is somewhat equivalent to Finnish social security number; and b) Utility bill, which means either electric, gas or water bill addressed to your English address, which actually shows that you have a place to live here. As I explained in my previous blog text, I'm still waiting for my electricity bill to arrive. I already have a water bill in my name, thanks again to my girlfriend who offered again her bank account details for the agreement. Anyway, in order to get the personal NI number, you need to call to National Insurance number application line, online application is not possible. The service number is an automated answering machine, operated by voice. I made my first phone call there at 8am to avoid queues.

The voice machine led me into the officer, who asked my reason for calling them. I said that I want a bank account, and bank said me to contact you. The officer said in bored voice that wanting a bank account is not a proper reason for getting NI-number, and I need to apply as a job seeker. I said okay, because you never know when you need more money with this consumption of unnecessary costs. She told me then to call another service number for an interview appointment, because this number is only for NI applications.

So, I rang to the second service number, which was another voice controlled automat. It asked the reason for my call and I replied "I want an appointment to an interview as a job seeker". The automat confirmed by saying "You said you want to make an appointment as a job seeker. Confirm your reply by saying yes". I said "yes", but the machine didn't understand me, and replied by giving me the number where I should call for the service. That was the same number where I rang in the first place! I made two or three another calls to this second number and finally got answered by an officer. Surprisingly he asked my reason for a call. After explaining what I want he said that this phone number is for reclaiming unemployment benefit and gave me third number to the local job seeker's office for the appointment.

I rang to the local number. After 15 minutes i was answered and told that I was ringing to the wrong number, because NI applications are handled in another number. I told the whole service chain so far. The officer insisted me to keep calm and not giving up in the first number until I get the time for the appointment.

I rang to the National Insurance number application line again. Finally, after 20 minutes of queuing I was answered and got some service. I was asked basic information including my name, age, address in UK, nationality, phone number in UK and my current location (I supposed to be already in England, which I luckily am). After this brief interview I was told that I should physically go to another interview, but because I'm an EU citizen, the closest place is either in Woking or in Southampton as the local office in Basingstoke doesn't handle these cases. I asked when can I go as I have plans to travel abroad soon and that's why I wanted to make the appointment as soon as possible. Woking had a free time on Thursday and Southampton on Monday on next week. Unfortunately both times were not good, because I planned to be away then. I asked if it is possible to make the appointment for the time when I come back to UK again on next week's Thursday. The answer was that I have to ring again when I'm back because only times they have so far are those two options. That's it. I ended the call and said let's keep in touch.

We will see when I get my bank account. I'm not giving up on this. And as a bonus I will also get a status as a job seeker, so this is going to be very interesting to see what happens!

I need a pint. Maybe I can get some cash from the pub too.

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Tässä käytännön hommia järjestellessä alkoi pikku hiljaa harmittamaan, että en omista englantilaista pankkitililä. Käytännössä tämä näkyy pikkujutuissa, kuten siinä että lähikaupassa oleva käteisautomaatti ei hyväksy suomalaista pankkikorttia sen enempää debit- kuin kredit-puolelta. Lisäksi kauppa veloittaa 25 penceä jokaisesta pankkikortilla tehdystä ostoksesta. Käteistä saa kyllä kätevästi vieressä olevasta the Oak -nimisestä pubista, mutta siellä miniminosto on £10. Lisäksi joutuu juomaan kaljaa heh heh.

Toinen asia, johon englantilaista pankkikorttia tarvitaan on Applen AppStore. Kotinetin kylkiäsenä tuli ilmainen Wifi-yhteys (the Cloud) julkisissa paikoissa. Jotta sen saa toimimaan pitää kännykässä olla appi, jonka saa vain englantilaisesta AppStoresta. Jotta voi kirjautua englantilaiseen AppStoreen pitää olla luotto- tai pankkikortti joka on myönnetty Englannissa.

Sähkö- ja kaasulaskua ei saa maksettua, jos ei ole englantilaista pankkitiliä. Myös vesilasku tuottaa hankaluuksia. Tässä pari päivää sitten yritin varata halvan Travelodge-majoituksen Staffordista, mutta kansainvälisen luottokortin käytöstä veloitettiin jälleen lisämaksua. 

Kuvittelin, että olisi ihan helppo juttu mennä pankkiin, perustaa pankkitili ja siirtää sinne rahaa suomalaiselta tilitä tarpeeksi, jotta arki alkaa sujumaan. Mutta ei. Pankkitilin avaamiseksi tarvitaan a) NI-tunnus (National Insurance number), joka vastaa suomalaista henkilöturvatunnusta sekä b) utility bill, eli sähkö-, kaasu tai vesilasku englantilaisesta osoitteesta, jolla todistetaan asuinpaikka. Sähkölaskua odottelen vielä, mutta vesilasku minulla jo on, joten se ei olisi ongelma. Sen sijaan NI-tunnuksen saamiseksi tarvitaan hakemus, jota ei voi tehdä netissä, ainut tapa hankkia se on soittamalla puhelimella palvelunumeroon. Palvelunumero on käytännössä puhelinautomaatti, joka kyselee perusteita NI-tunnuksen hakuun. Puhelinpalvelu on auki 8-18, joten aloin soittelemaan sinne heti aamutuimaan välttääkseni ruuhkat.

Automaatti ohjasi minut lopulta asiakaspalvelijalle, joka kysyi syytä NI-tunnuksen hakemiselle. Vastasin rehellisesti, että haluan pankkitilin. Virkailija totesi kuivasti, että NI-tunnusta ei saa pelkästään sitä varten, pitää olla työnhakija. Vastasin, että ok, koska eihän sitä koskaan tiedä, jos vaikka rahat loppuvat tällä menolla kesken. Sen jälkeen virkailija ohjasi minut toiseen palvelunumeroon haastattelua varten, koska täällä käsitellään vain NI-hakemuksia.

Soitin toiseen numeroon, jossa oli vastassa jälleen ääniautomaatti, joka kysyi syytä soittooni. Vastasin, että haen töitä ja haluan varata ajan haastattelua varten. Vastaaja kysyi haluanko varata ajan haastattelua varten, johon vastasin “yes”. Vastaaja ei ymmärtänyt vastaustani ja kysyi uudelleen. Vastasin “yes”, jonka jälkeen vastaaja kertoi, että ei ymmärtänyt vastaustani ja ohjeisti minua soittamaan ensimmäiseen palvelunumeroon. Soitin uudelleen kaksi tai kolme kertaa tähän samaan vastaajaan, joka lopulta ohjasi minut asiakaspalvelijalle n. 15 minuutin jonotuksen jälkeen. Asiakaspalvelija vastasi puheluun ja kysyi miksi soitan. Kerroin, että haluan varata ajan haastatteluun. Asiakaspalvelija sanoi, että tänne soitetaan, jos halutaan työttömyyskorvausta ja antoi uuden puhelinnumeron paikalliseen työvoimatoimistoon ajanvarausta varten.

Soitin paikalliseen työvoimatoimistoon. Puheluuni vastattiin 15 minuutin jonotuksen jälkeen. Sitten minulle kerrottiin, että olin soittanut väärään numeroon, koska NI-hakemuksia käsitellään numerossa se ja se. Kerroin asiakaspalvelijalle, että olin alunperin soittanut tähän numeroon ja mitä oli tapahtunut tämän jälkeen. Asiakaspalvelija kehoitti soittamaan alkuperäiseen numeroon uudelleen ja olemaan luovuttamatta, kunnes he hoitavat hommansa.

Soitin ensimmäiseen numeroon uudelleen. Lopulta noin 20 minuutin jonotuksen jälkeen puheluuni vastattiin ja homma alkoi sujumaan. Minulta kysyttiin perustietoja, kuten nimeä, ikää, osoitetta Englannissa, kansalaisuutta, puhelinnumeroa ja sitä, olinko tällä hetkellä Englannissa vai jossain muualla. Virkailija kertoi, että minun pitää mennä haastatteluun, mutta koska olen EU-kansalainen, lähin paikka on joko Wokingissa tai Southamptonissa, koska paikallinen toimisto Basingstokessa ei käsittele näitä. Kysyin, milloin voisin mennä, koska olin lähdössä ulkomaille ja halusin hoitaa asian mahdollisimman pian. Wokingissa olisi vapaa aika torstaina ja Southamptonissa seuraavan viikon maanantaina. Kerroin, että kumpikaan aika ei nyt valitettavasti sovi, koska olen juuri nyt lähdössä käymään ulkomailla ja palaan takaisin seuraavan viikon torstaina. Kysyin saisinko varattua ajan paluuni jälkeiseen aikaan, jolloin vastaus oli, että minun tulee soittaa uudelleen sitten kun palaan, koska aikoja ei voi varata kuin yhdelle päivälle kerrallaan per haastattelupaikka. Ja Wokingiin se päivä on tämän viikon torstai ja Southamptoniin ensi viikon maanantai. Joten se siitä. Lopetin puhelun ja sanoin palaavani asiaan.

Saa nähdä milloin minulla on pankkitili. En aio luovuttaa näin vähällä. Pakollisen työnhakijastatuksen vuoksi kylkiäisenä saattaa tulla myös tarjouksia työpaikoista, joten mielenkiintoiseksi menee.

Tarvitsen oluen. Menen nostamaan rahaa pubiin.