Aaron's blog

Rant

Warning

I'm trying not to be so negative but the UK government bodies are really useless in a lot of things. The systems are old, unresponsive and not user friendly.

I won't go into the details except to say that getting an NI Number (like a tax file number) is so painful. Getting the interview is really difficult. They have made this easier as you can now fill in a Word doc online, that you send in. They then send you time for an interview.

When you get there, they transcribe the printout of your word document onto a paper based form!

They were sposed to get back to me after 2 weeks. After waiting
2 months, and endlessly trying to call them to get an update (no answer), I finally got through to a department that could help.

I had attempted to call the place where I applied for the NI number, (using the phone number on the website and the application form) but found out the phone number was wrong (it just rung out). Emails resulted in no answer. The websites were not any help as they also had the wrong phone numbers and could not tell me who to call.

After weeks of fruitmess calling, I then tried to call HM Revenue and Customs - NI registration helpline (who told me that they had not received my application). They then gave me the right number for the place where I had orginally applied so I called them, then they said to call a place in Glasgow who finally admitted they sent the application to the wrong address.

They then asked me to physically go back to the original office I had applied to verify my address (which I refused to do since it's over an hour commute away). I told them that they had countless copies of my address already (rental agreement, bank statements, etc). I was then asked to fax a confirmation of my address (they didn't have email) before they can resend out the number (I refused to do this and asked to speak to the manager).

It's clear that they don't live in 2006.



Anyway, now I have an NI number. My friend said she it took her 3 years to bother getting one cause of similar issues.

posted by Unknown @ 2:11 pm 0 comments

Food highlights

One of the fun things is trying different foods. Although the microwave hamburgers in Amsterdam remained untested. 

posted by Unknown @ 12:41 am 0 comments

Riksmuseum

One of the famous museums in Amsterdam was the Riks. Since it is currently undergoing refurbishment, they put all their best stuff into a smaller exhibition space which was good for us. You see Dutch Masters such as Rembrandt, in a smaller space. Unfortunately, because of hte smaller space we missed out on seeing the Miffy exhibition. Yes, that's right - Miffy the rabbit (The artist was Dutch) 

posted by Unknown @ 12:31 am 0 comments

Beef cuts

Have you ever wondered where all the bits come from? I have. Now I know which part of the cow it is from, I just need someone to tell me which part I should use in different recipes....and what about pork? or lamb? 

posted by Unknown @ 12:23 am 0 comments

Tulips

I've never seen so many flowers in one place in my life. We visited Keukenhof with Mum Lee. It's about an hour's drive from Amsterdam and very pretty. Lots of people. Even more flowers (mostly tulips).

Mum managed to lose us as we were going too fast for her. Lucky she had our mobile phone. Even luckier that it had global roaming activated by default. Otherwise, she could still be wandering around a tulip garden 

posted by Unknown @ 12:20 am 0 comments

Bit sick and run down

We are recovering from sickness, having Tina's mum with us for two weeks, travelling to Paris and Amsterdam. Was kinda funny since we were like the parents and she was the child. We had previously decided on all the travel, how we would get there and some of the things we would do. We also had to figure out how to travel, public transport, map reading, etc. She also lost us a couple of times and we couldn't find her.

Very much a role reversal...

posted by Unknown @ 12:34 pm 0 comments