I forgot I had amnesia

The move away from Mexican terrorist sympathisers HSBC continued at full pace today, if by full pace you mean procrastinating about it but eventually doing it rather than ignoring it completely. Today’s leg involved phoning up the Co-Op and asking them to tell me what it says in the letters they have been sending me so that I don’t have to read them. At least that was the plan: five minute chat while they told me where I was up to. I ended up being on for about an hour, registering for online banking, an ISA and a credit card. All probably could have been done online more speedily, but it was nice to chat to someone from Stockport who actually knew where I lived – rather than someone in Mumbai referring to some Manchester landmarks, that are written on a whiteboard of their call centre, in an effort to create the impression they are not in a call centre in Mumbai.

I do feel a little uneasy about saying I don’t like speaking to people in call centres in India. It is because it is frustrating talking to someone who doesn’t quite understand you and has a weird accent (like a German robot doing a joke Swedish accent). But if you say that you run the risk of being called a racist. It doesn’t make you a racist but it is the kind of thing that may make someone think you are a racist for saying. And as we all know, what people think is much more important than the truth. Fortunately there is the back-up (which should be the first reason, really) that the bank is using a call centre in a far off land so they can employ people at a very low wage – certainly below the minimum UK wage – and thus raise profits. They don’t even pass the saving on to the customer. The dicks. (This is a joke, companies shouldn’t use cheap labour full stop. Period.)

Anyway. It probably took a lot longer as I ended up signing to several other things while checking how my application for a current account was going. With each different thing came a new lot of questions to answer and setting up of passwords and the like. For one of them I had to give a memorable date. I said, “I shouldn’t use my birthday should I? If it’s for security…the problem is the only other date that is memorable to me is September 11^th and that doesn’t seem appropriate.” I don’t think the woman, who was lovely and helpful, shared how funny I felt saying that was.

Who remembers a fucking date though? I can’t even remember where I put a pair of jeans.

Amazon Grace

As it stands I could cease doing business with Amazon and be up on the deal, to the tune of £3.99! Boom – in your face corporate world. This is real crime I am living. You see, I knew that the card I had registered with Amazon was defunct. But – one-click buying is so instantaneous when buying a Kindle book (this) that the system had delivered it to my Kindle before it realised this. About an hour later they sent an email that was like “aw come on….give us that money for that book”. I might pay for it. I might not. For the moment I am the one accruing all the interest on the £3.99, though. Suck on that Amazon.

I shudder to think what will happen to the global empire of Amazon if I don’t pay it sooner rather than later. Ultimately I would probably end up even richer as I wouldn’t be spending money on Amazon. Fuck it, I’m not paying them – tomorrow I will be a millionaire.

Vertigo

The BFI revealed that after years of Citizen Kane being the best film ever made it is now Vertigo. If the number one is going to change after years of a film from the 1940s (just – 1941) being the best one you might expect it was because some modern film was amazing enough to knock CK of its fucking perch. And it many ways it was: Vertigo was released in 1958 so compared to Citizen Kane it is practically the future.

It has been a while since I watched Vertigo and even then I remember thinking “this isn’t the best film ever made, I don’t care what some fucking film critics say in 2012.” I was nine at the time. It’s not , though. I know film/art/everything is subjective but to say Vertigo is the best film ever is just a sack of piss. It’s not even the best Hitchcock film. In fact it’s not even in my top three.

Alfred Hitchcock films that are better than Vertigo:

1. Rope
2. Rear Window
3. The Birds
4. Strangers on A Train
5. Pyscho

And that is just films by ‘Cock. Die Hard is better than all of them – so it is definitely better than Vertigo. At least I can see why Citizen Kane often gets voted the best film; it’s The Beatles of films: it changed the way films were made after it, it invented modern cinema. Or at least parts of it. And it is fucking good. Not that Vertigo isn’t – it’s just not that good.

Whatevz.