Second Time Lucky

I've been thinking about doing this again for a while now but it's taken this long to pluck up the courage to do it. A couple of years ago I decided to open an ISA. I did my research on the internet and found the best interest rates and decided to open an account. It was all fine for about a year until this whole damn recession business kicked off and suddenly, the safest place to keep you money was no longer the banks but under the mattress! I had decided to open an ISA with IceSave, an Icelandic bank which just so happened to be the hardest hit by this whole thing, so much so that it went under and for a while there was the distinct possibility that I'd never see my money ever again. I can't afford to lose that amount of money, especially not at my age because I won't be earning for another two years and every penny counts. Of course the government did the right thing and stepped in to make sure that everyone got their money back; and whilst I lost out on a bit of interest, I was still up compared to leaving it in a standard account. Since then I've been a bit nervous about the whole ISA thing but if I don't start saving soon then I will have to start paying tax on the interest I earn and I don't think I could stand that!

I tried to set up an Alliance and Leicester account during the summer but the instructions on the form were so unclear that I ended up missing a vital stage out, I was supposed to get someone to validate my identity so of course they had to be a professional of some description so a teacher or accountant. I;m not at school any more so that kind of rules the teacher thing out and my university professors hardly know me enough to vouch for me on a bank application. The only other option was to take the form into a branch and get one of the counter staff to sign it on seeing me in person along with proof of identity like a passport. Except I didn't ever receive the half completed form back in the post from them and couldn't really be bothered to go all the way into the city centre just to find my nearest branch of A&L to open a silly bank account. You'd have thought that there would be some other way of proving who you are without going to all of that hassle I mean I've got a British passport, four other bank accounts over three different institutions, I'm on the electoral role and registered as a student at a university so why they need someone to vouch for me is beyond me.

Anyway, I was searching around and came across some suggestions and at the moment, one of the top accounts is with Northern Rock of all people. This is particularly odd as they were the only British bank to go under and have to be rescued by the government but what it does mean is that at the moment, any money I do put in is backed 100% by the government. So I found my local branch and as it happens it is directly opposite Specsavers where I was due an appointment.

So in the hour I had to spare after my lecture and before my eye appointment I went in and managed to pretty much set up the account. I did have a slight panic when she asked me if I had all of the relevant proof of ID but I carry my driving license around in my wallet and for some unknown reason I have memorised my national insurance number. Perhaps that memory thing isn't such a bad thing after all! Then just when I thought I was all set, she asked for the initial deposit, fine I thought I've got my debit card it can come from that. No, turns out Northern Rock live in the dark ages and have no chip and pin machines. It's not like they're a new thing or anything, they've been around for several years now and especially seeing as they're a bank and all. So I now have to go back tomorrow with a cheque made payable to myself (which still seems weird) and finish the whole thing off.

Eye appointment went alright but they've decided to change the prescription again but this time reducing the strength of on of them rather than increasing it. Seems a little counter-productive to me but I guess they know what they're doing. Then when they asked me if I'd had my lenses through the post and I replied no, they seemed rather confused. According to them they sent them mid October to my house in Birmingham but no sign of them there so I don't know what's going on. As far as I was concerned, they were supposed to send them to the store so that I could change them for my new prescription. That would have been too sensible though so of course they couldn't do that and instead they decide to send them to a different county and then expect me to exchange them in store. I've got to wait for the new ones to come in still which will take about a week apparently so they have that long to arrive in Brum so that I can change them. It would be nice if they arrived whilst I was down there next week but I can't see that happening, especially if the postal strikes continue as they have been. I'm told that they are processing new post as normal whilst they are working and dealing with the backlog if they get time. It seems a bit odd to just push everything to one side and forget about it until you get a spare moment because that way something sent now might not arrive until after Christmas!

We finally got round to going out tonight to Babylon and back to the 90's again. The evening started pretty badly after going to Vodka Revolution and being pretty disappointed. I don't normally do the whole drinking thing and experiences like this don't encourage me much. I liked the sound of flavoured vodkas before but was very disappointed when I finally got to taste them and my friend made the grave mistake of ordering a milk based cocktail which made an appearance again at the end of the night. They're quite expensive and this one just tasted like milkshake with a hint of coconut and a tinge of alcohol. When they are as expensive as £5.95 each you expect a lot more for you're money, thankfully we had vouchers so the damage wasn't too bad.