TICTH Immigration Canada, its telephone system ("for anything except the service you actually require, press x") and its labyrinthine website.
Having filled in the online forms to renew our PR cards, I paid the fee online, but now I can't get back in to print out the receipt, which needs to be sent with the forms, photographs and whatnot. And trying to register a query needed nearly as much information as the forms themselves.
We tried going to the local immigration office to ask for advice, but discovered that you have to make an appointment (via the aforementioned telephone system), and you can only do that if they've written to you telling you to make an appointment.
It may have nothing to do with Brex**it, (haha) but the Republic of Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs' website has recently become much more user-friendly (so I am told).
Given the number of Americans wishing to get into Canada (so I am told), one would think the Canadians would follow suit (unless the prospective immigrant's name was T**mp, of course).
TICTH Immigration Canada, its telephone system ("for anything except the service you actually require, press x") and its labyrinthine website.
Having filled in the online forms to renew our PR cards, I paid the fee online, but now I can't get back in to print out the receipt, which needs to be sent with the forms, photographs and whatnot. And trying to register a query needed nearly as much information as the forms themselves.
We tried going to the local immigration office to ask for advice, but discovered that you have to make an appointment (via the aforementioned telephone system), and you can only do that if they've written to you telling you to make an appointment.
Give me strength ...
The Canadians claim Alexander Bell as their own and they are proud that the telephone was invented in Canada. The government appears to be trying hard to prove that it is being uninvented in Canada... However, did you get an e-mail at some stage that had a link to get you back into your own application? Unfortunately, I just deleted all mine (on the grounds that it will all have changed by the next time, as it does) so I can't check how it worked, but it went through quite painlessly. If there is no alternative but telephones and humans, then you are probably doomed, and would have less trouble if you try again from say, Afghanistan or Yemen.
TICTH the UK Benefits system.
A man who is permanently confused following brain damage in a car accident has now been found “fit for work” after being on disability benefits for several years. He was therefore obliged to claim Universal Credit three months ago.
Bad enough, but three months later he now finds he owes £1200+, because UC does not cover housing costs if you live in supported accommodation. Nobody realised, so he has been overpaid.
Fortunately there is a work-around, as he can get Housing Benefit. If they agree to backdate it, it should cover the overpayment.
Imagine the man’s bewilderment at this scenario. Not even his UC work coach had a clue what was going on.
The horsewoman you may recall whose mount interacted with my car. After a long silence, during which I texted her to say I was waiting and to ask if there were any problem, being prepared to temper the wind to the shorn lamb, receiving no answer, she has texted me back. This is after I texted yesterday to say I was tired of waiting to hear and would book the car in anyway, and if I did not hear by the 14th (3 months after the incident) I would follow advice and report the matter to the police.
She is now blaming me for the silence, and demanding three quotes, "as is normal", so we can get "the best price". I am going to tell her I want the best workmanship, and am going, as I would if I had caused the problem, to the Skoda dealership, where they will have the appropriate paint and finishes available. (I think I need some suitable technical words to describe what I want.) I really don't see why she should think that she has some sort of say over what is done to my property.
Golden Key, Hades was not the same god as Hephaestus. Hades was the son of Uranus, brother of Zeus. Hephaestus was the son of Zeus, crippled by his father when he tried to intervene in a fight between his parents. Zeus threw him down from Mount Olympus, and smashed both his legs. He was married to Aphrodite, who notoriously cheated on him with Aries. Hades was married to the daughter of Ceres, Persephone.
Still trying to find the right way to text her - much happier with email, snail mail, or dropping a note through her door, except I have no way to do that. Meanwhile I am amusing myself with the definition of her name. The bit down the bottom about Middle English.
TI continue to CTH Immigration Canada. Why in the name of all that's holy do they accept online Interact debit payments from only two high street banks - ours not being one of them?
As we haven't got a credit card, we had to go and buy a pre-paid one - more faff.
The forms - with receipts - have now been sent, and I expect to be back on this thread in about six weeks when they're returned with some obscure error, which they won't specify.
The worst of the UK are in the Passport Office. Not just the crazy small boxes we're all meant to cram our information and signatures into but their inability to just look at what they're sent and not screw up.
On the small box front, I've found the best way to proceed is to invest in some thick paper, colour copy their stupid forms up to usable size, input the required information, then shrink back down to the size they provide. Of course, this renders all the information unreadable without a strong magnifying glass but, because you don't cross the box border, it gets past the checks.
Then there is the nonsense that says don't wear spectacles for your photograph, when some of us are never seen without ours unless asleep (or dead) so what is the point?
Of course, if you're applying for passports for identical twins and can't clip photographs to the correct forms you end up with the wrong photograph on a child's passport - that has happened to us three times - twice a straight swap, once they used one twin's photograph twice.
I may have mentioned this before, but when they were trialling so-called biometric passports we discovered that the much-vaunted tech couldn't differentiate between the twins either - so much for iris prints being foolproof!
But my first place in hell goes to the UK issuing bank of one of my late-beloved's credit cards on which at death there was a small credit balance. I've sent certified copies of the death certificate three times, and three times I've been assured that (a) the account will be closed, and (b) that a cheque for the outstanding amount will be sent. And every time I've had another letter telling me they can't discuss the account, never mind close it, without "permission from the account holder": and every time I point out that the account holder is dead there is a deathly pause (sorry!) and then - nothing. We're coming up for 7 years within the next week
Ah, bureaucracy! What would we do without it (apart from live happier lives)?
TICTH the incredible amount of roadworks currently under way (unlike the traffic ) in our fair city. Virtually every main road seems to have temporary traffic lights (and not-so-temporary queues), and a journey usually taking 15 minutes now takes 45...
...and one town centre is COMPLETELY CLOSED to traffic at weekends, the warning notices naively announcing 'Businesses open as usual'. Maybe they are, but I bet their customer footfall has been reduced. Yes, there are car parks nearby, albeit hard to reach on account of the diversions, but even the excellent local bus service is sadly disrupted.
Mind you, I know WHY so many roadworks are being carried out now. It's my fault, as I paid my year's Council Tax in advance, so they can afford them...
My favourite rant about UK passports / immigration is how bloody expensive the whole thing is.
I should be able to send off my application for French nationality early next week. The administrative fee for this is €55 (plus various ancillary fees, mostly for getting documents translated). I paid more than double that last time I had my UK passport renewed.
I’m expecting the French bureaucracy to work fairly smoothly for me, but that’s essentially because I’ve done all the work for them – made an itemised list of the all the documents to prove there’s none missing, filed them all in labelled sleeves etc. etc. I’ve even printed out and highlighted the guidance notes from the British Embassy on British birth certificates. When you’ve done your homework like this, in one respect they love it because you’ve saved their lazy arses from having to do any work, and in another sense they hate it because they have nothing to tut and obstruct about.
...every time I've had another letter telling me they can't discuss the account, never mind close it, without "permission from the account holder": and every time I point out that the account holder is dead there is a deathly pause (sorry!) and then - nothing. We're coming up for 7 years within the next week
This sounds like Judi Dench's first scene in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel -- and, unfortunately, far too common.
IIRC my sister had similar problems when trying to sell a car into the scrappage scheme when her husband died, as the car had been registered in his name, and no - of course he couldn't consent to the sale ...
Technology is mostly wonderful, but it does sometimes have trouble coping with anything outside its programmed parameters.
The hospital which assured me that my guest was continent - she isn't, or at anyrate has not been coping with pads and cleanliness, which she could do before admission there. And sent her back with her legs, which were dry and under compression, practically normal, leaking exudate so that I have to clean up sodden puppy pads from the floor every morning. They did clear up the UTI, so that is probably all they were concerned with. But all the leaking is not going to help with avoiding dehydration.
The worst of the UK are in the Passport Office. Not just the crazy small boxes we're all meant to cram our information and signatures into but their inability to just look at what they're sent and not screw up.
Fistly, unless you use the Check and Send option at a Post Office or the one-day fast track application at a Passport Office no one actually looks at your passport application. The application form is scanned using optical character recognition so the data can be handled swiftly and efficiently. The hoops one has to go through regarding spectacles, smiling and all that jazz have been introduced to cut fraud, which roughly translated means, in response to the Daily Mail and the like frothing at the mouth. In any event, it's a bloody sight easier and fairer than Universal Fucking Credit.
After our mother died my young sister did all the paperwork with HMRC, and after a year more correspondence came addressed to her. My sister sent it back marked, "She's still dead". I believe that sorted it. Lovely, bright, thoughtful people, they are.
Oh, officialdom gets it that people are dead when it suits them. I had a request to repay part of the attendance allowance after my beloved died before the funeral, contained in a thoughtful letter that explained that since the "benefit week" started on a Sunday and the beloved died on a Saturday the Allowance was not payable for the week in which they died because it was "an incomplete benefit period".
About a year ago I discovered they had no right to get the money back but as it was, and being when it was, I just made out a cheque and sent it back.
You see, the benefits people can calculate things right when it suits them
After our mother died my young sister did all the paperwork with HMRC, and after a year more correspondence came addressed to her. My sister sent it back marked, "She's still dead". I believe that sorted it. Lovely, bright, thoughtful people, they are.
Just writing 'S/he's STILL dead' might just penetrate the miasma, I guess. Nice one, Sister!
A friend of mine dealing with his mother's estate was told she would have to cancel her bank account herself.
He said, "I'm sorry she can't do that - she's dead at the moment." Cue for flustered apologies and much embarrassment on the other side of the counter.
You'd think banks would have procedures in place for such eventualities - they can hardly expect the deceased to have obligingly closed their account, just in case!
I think I have everything set up for my impending demise. Fortunately, my future executor/trustee is a partner at a major law firm, intelligent, well-informed, and equipped with a sarcastic wit equal to my own. I pity the fool...
Yikes. I spent two years dealing with the ambulance bill for an indigent church member who died in the hospital on that occasion. It was denied as "not medically necessary." (deep breath)
I took to the phone to explain that the deceased was a) completely bedridden, b) stiff as a board due to Parkinson's, c) six feet tall and d) possessed only of a five foot tall wife to do the manhandling of him, not to mention e) contagious with multiple diseases including chickenpox at the time of his need for transport to the hospital, whereat f) he freaking DIED.
It was hard to see how an ambulance could be MORE medically necessary.
Eventually we got them to pay it provided the patient signed the appeal.
I explained again that the man was DEAD.
They then asked for a signature from the executor of the man's estate.
I explained what "completely indigent" meant (hint: no estate), as they would not be satisfied with next of kin, but wanted "the executor." (Deceased had no will, as he had been felled by a major major stroke two weeks after arriving in the U.S.)
They reverted to demanding his personal signature.
After two freaking years of this nonsense, I sent them an extremely formal letter (it started with "Messieurs et Mesdames" and ended with "I have the honor to be / Your most obedient servant"... and so forth) explaining that I was humbled by their faith in my ability to raise the dead, but that most unfortunately his ashes had been sent to Vietnam, and were not available for the resurrection thereof, that I might obtain the necessary signature. I then copied the governor of the state.
Comments
Serves 'em right.
Having filled in the online forms to renew our PR cards, I paid the fee online, but now I can't get back in to print out the receipt, which needs to be sent with the forms, photographs and whatnot. And trying to register a query needed nearly as much information as the forms themselves.
We tried going to the local immigration office to ask for advice, but discovered that you have to make an appointment (via the aforementioned telephone system), and you can only do that if they've written to you telling you to make an appointment.
Give me strength ...
Given the number of Americans wishing to get into Canada (so I am told), one would think the Canadians would follow suit (unless the prospective immigrant's name was T**mp, of course).
The Canadians claim Alexander Bell as their own and they are proud that the telephone was invented in Canada. The government appears to be trying hard to prove that it is being uninvented in Canada... However, did you get an e-mail at some stage that had a link to get you back into your own application? Unfortunately, I just deleted all mine (on the grounds that it will all have changed by the next time, as it does) so I can't check how it worked, but it went through quite painlessly. If there is no alternative but telephones and humans, then you are probably doomed, and would have less trouble if you try again from say, Afghanistan or Yemen.
I think I would be Out - even if I wasn't
We did have an old friend staying who felt under the weather so opted to stay at home (ours) - no sign of the step-child.
A man who is permanently confused following brain damage in a car accident has now been found “fit for work” after being on disability benefits for several years. He was therefore obliged to claim Universal Credit three months ago.
Bad enough, but three months later he now finds he owes £1200+, because UC does not cover housing costs if you live in supported accommodation. Nobody realised, so he has been overpaid.
Fortunately there is a work-around, as he can get Housing Benefit. If they agree to backdate it, it should cover the overpayment.
Imagine the man’s bewilderment at this scenario. Not even his UC work coach had a clue what was going on.
* yes, I am complicit...but not at this scale -- and I hope I impart to those using the blasted things to not turn off common-sense
She is now blaming me for the silence, and demanding three quotes, "as is normal", so we can get "the best price". I am going to tell her I want the best workmanship, and am going, as I would if I had caused the problem, to the Skoda dealership, where they will have the appropriate paint and finishes available. (I think I need some suitable technical words to describe what I want.) I really don't see why she should think that she has some sort of say over what is done to my property.
...well, IIRC, Hades (/Hephaestus), god of the underworld, was a blacksmith and did make horseshoes...so if you want to tell her where to go...
(If you get my drift!
I do hope he is happy and content, and in no need of major movements...
^ there are 2 spellings apparently...
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jade
ROTFL! (As applied to her, not the horse.)
As we haven't got a credit card, we had to go and buy a pre-paid one - more faff.
The forms - with receipts - have now been sent, and I expect to be back on this thread in about six weeks when they're returned with some obscure error, which they won't specify.
Have they cross-bred the UK Civil Service with the French equivalents? The worst aspects of both, naturally.
On the small box front, I've found the best way to proceed is to invest in some thick paper, colour copy their stupid forms up to usable size, input the required information, then shrink back down to the size they provide. Of course, this renders all the information unreadable without a strong magnifying glass but, because you don't cross the box border, it gets past the checks.
Then there is the nonsense that says don't wear spectacles for your photograph, when some of us are never seen without ours unless asleep (or dead) so what is the point?
Of course, if you're applying for passports for identical twins and can't clip photographs to the correct forms you end up with the wrong photograph on a child's passport - that has happened to us three times - twice a straight swap, once they used one twin's photograph twice.
I may have mentioned this before, but when they were trialling so-called biometric passports we discovered that the much-vaunted tech couldn't differentiate between the twins either - so much for iris prints being foolproof!
But my first place in hell goes to the UK issuing bank of one of my late-beloved's credit cards on which at death there was a small credit balance. I've sent certified copies of the death certificate three times, and three times I've been assured that (a) the account will be closed, and (b) that a cheque for the outstanding amount will be sent. And every time I've had another letter telling me they can't discuss the account, never mind close it, without "permission from the account holder": and every time I point out that the account holder is dead there is a deathly pause (sorry!) and then - nothing. We're coming up for 7 years within the next week
TICTH the incredible amount of roadworks currently under way (unlike the traffic
...and one town centre is COMPLETELY CLOSED to traffic at weekends, the warning notices naively announcing 'Businesses open as usual'. Maybe they are, but I bet their customer footfall has been reduced. Yes, there are car parks nearby, albeit hard to reach on account of the diversions, but even the excellent local bus service is sadly disrupted.
Mind you, I know WHY so many roadworks are being carried out now. It's my fault, as I paid my year's Council Tax in advance, so they can afford them...
I should be able to send off my application for French nationality early next week. The administrative fee for this is €55 (plus various ancillary fees, mostly for getting documents translated). I paid more than double that last time I had my UK passport renewed.
I’m expecting the French bureaucracy to work fairly smoothly for me, but that’s essentially because I’ve done all the work for them – made an itemised list of the all the documents to prove there’s none missing, filed them all in labelled sleeves etc. etc. I’ve even printed out and highlighted the guidance notes from the British Embassy on British birth certificates. When you’ve done your homework like this, in one respect they love it because you’ve saved their lazy arses from having to do any work, and in another sense they hate it because they have nothing to tut and obstruct about.
This sounds like Judi Dench's first scene in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel -- and, unfortunately, far too common.
Technology is mostly wonderful, but it does sometimes have trouble coping with anything outside its programmed parameters.
Crikey - that seems like quite a lot - I think D's passport expires quite soon. More expense - O joy!
Fistly, unless you use the Check and Send option at a Post Office or the one-day fast track application at a Passport Office no one actually looks at your passport application. The application form is scanned using optical character recognition so the data can be handled swiftly and efficiently. The hoops one has to go through regarding spectacles, smiling and all that jazz have been introduced to cut fraud, which roughly translated means, in response to the Daily Mail and the like frothing at the mouth. In any event, it's a bloody sight easier and fairer than Universal Fucking Credit.
About a year ago I discovered they had no right to get the money back but as it was, and being when it was, I just made out a cheque and sent it back.
You see, the benefits people can calculate things right when it suits them
Just writing 'S/he's STILL dead' might just penetrate the miasma, I guess. Nice one, Sister!
He said, "I'm sorry she can't do that - she's dead at the moment." Cue for flustered apologies and much embarrassment on the other side of the counter.
I took to the phone to explain that the deceased was a) completely bedridden, b) stiff as a board due to Parkinson's, c) six feet tall and d) possessed only of a five foot tall wife to do the manhandling of him, not to mention e) contagious with multiple diseases including chickenpox at the time of his need for transport to the hospital, whereat f) he freaking DIED.
It was hard to see how an ambulance could be MORE medically necessary.
Eventually we got them to pay it provided the patient signed the appeal.
I explained again that the man was DEAD.
They then asked for a signature from the executor of the man's estate.
I explained what "completely indigent" meant (hint: no estate), as they would not be satisfied with next of kin, but wanted "the executor." (Deceased had no will, as he had been felled by a major major stroke two weeks after arriving in the U.S.)
They reverted to demanding his personal signature.
After two freaking years of this nonsense, I sent them an extremely formal letter (it started with "Messieurs et Mesdames" and ended with "I have the honor to be / Your most obedient servant"... and so forth) explaining that I was humbled by their faith in my ability to raise the dead, but that most unfortunately his ashes had been sent to Vietnam, and were not available for the resurrection thereof, that I might obtain the necessary signature. I then copied the governor of the state.
They paid.
(ROTFL)
One must wonder at times what ever happened to good old common sense?