Jerry_Atrick

It sounds like there has been a recent regulatory change or that there as been some case that has made a decision that has the banks scrambling. Modern systems have a lot of cross referencing to work out anomalies and match data as they try and remove the human element to it. We are implementing a system that assesses such anomalies and can accept a certain tolerance of differences between identification documents or will refer to a staff member for review. If a staff member can't make the leap, they have probably been instructed by an overly zealous risk manager not to accept any differences. This comes down to risk appetite.. We have an appetite that two people with almost identical identification documents where everything else checks out except placement of letters of a name (but they are in the correct sequence) has a 99.9% probability of not happening. Same DoB, address history, contact details, etc. It's going to be very unlikely that a space interspersed in one doc means it is a different perspon - especially with recognised surname prefixes, etc. Re the credit card thing, it is the banks duty to ensure that, when you apply for new credit that you can afford it (they also should be doing periodical reviews on your existing revolving credit - of which a credit card is a revolving credit line). They are on the hook for your debts and if, after you going broke, the client can prove that they could not have afforded it and they disclosed all relevant information, the bank gets a fine to boot (over here, anyway)

I banked with Westpac for a short while. Moved to Bank of Melbourne.. who were then taken over by Westpac. It wasn;t long before their crap was imposed on BoM. Left Australia shortly after anyway, so didn't matter in the end.. Returned with Bendigo Bank who seemed much better.. and had most services retail clients and SMEs would need. Sure many others have recommendations - depends on your needs. But, unless you need access to capital markets or wholesale financing, the Big 4 historically are not the best.

I don't know whether to put this in the Gripes thread or start a new thread, Grapes. Admittedly, at least while living here, I occasionally had Jacobs Creek reserve varieties, and of course, Wolfie. But I took 6 months off drinking and am now only having the odd tipple, and ensuring I keep it with the growers/winemakers I know. The problem is, in the UK, there are fewer places to get more independent brands. Around here, Majestic, which is a big national chain, something akin to Dan Murphies but not quite on the same scale, has a small selection of Aussie wines. The old chains, Odd Bins and Unwins folded under debt mountains, but they had the best selection of Aussie wines.. There are some online order sellers, but given where I am wit the move back, I don't want to amass a collection before going and I don't drink enough to warrant sending all back to where it came from. I tried Jam Shed and 19 Crimes and between them, one of them gets. IMHO, the worst wine I have ever tasted and the other a close second.. And I have had a terrible tasting wine.

Agree.. But does someone have his email address and can give him a buzz to see.

I didn't know whether to sad or funny emoticon that one. Hope the latter

Most people knew he was bent when they voted him in. For some reason they didn't care then and I doubt they would care now... if they changed their minds about him, I bet that isn't a factor

Bloody typical. Beautiful morning.. forecast was a small chance of rain.. go and buy weedkiller and the moment I step out of the garden centre, it rains... reasonably heavily as well.

I was going to say Lycoming, but thought it would be too much of a "dad joke".

I love this vid: I just saw this today. I have never met the fella, but a long time ago, I was on the end of a little critique of his for some networking code I developed for Linux. I took it in my stride and sorted out the "shortcomings" in my code, which was adopted into I think it was release 0.94 of the kernel. In all honestly, he is a little narcissistic, but in a good way.

The fact it is still on the market means it is overpriced. I follow a few Aussie real estate and commercial real estate sites, and this popped up on those about a month ago. One I am looking at a few "doors down" has been on for a long while@ https://www.realestate.com.au/property-residential+land-nsw-tocumwal-203580220 Any of these properties on for more than a few weeks is overpriced. There is also a new subdivision on the airfield: https://www.realestate.com.au/property-residential+land-nsw-tocumwal-204059628 Geelong is a lovely place. I bought my laptop in Geelong in my last trip and the centre of the city has really been freshened up. I am not sure Octave would want me close to him 😉 And, although Ford has gone, the old factory looks fantastic and has a hotbed of tech startups. Tocumwal gets hot - I have spent many a summer for long times gliding there with my terry-towel hat on. But the heat is, by Melbourne standards, dry and very bearable.. As a young bloke, I much preferred the cold, but as I get older, I enjoy the heat much more. But one of the drawbacks is of course, it is a bloody long way from the coast.

Yes.. I quite like this shed (though a bit out of my league): https://www.realestate.com.au/property-warehouse-nsw-tocumwal-151477276

Or idiots and crazy

Yep.. My point was chains seem expensive compared to here.

I just love how they accuse everyone else of being exactly what they are... Except, they are also hypocrites.

Haven't updated this thread for a while. Most of the structural work has been done. We are fixing up the pointing on the outside of the house as well as the cracks in the cement and stone casings and sis )one of which was letting a lot of water in). That was all done yesterday. In addition, we had to remove a cast iron downpipe that was spit at the read and in a corner so we didn't notice it until it was too late and damp impregnated the walls. Behind it was pointing that was more like syrup, so that had to be removed and repointed. We are waiting a new cast iron downpipe (Grade 2 listed houses - can't replace with decent looking plastic stuff). I think I mentioned on another thread, the day I arrived back in Aus while back at the office (as it is closer to Heathrow, has great showers, etc), I got a call from the partney requesting me to get the sparky in for a power cut. That ended up with a rewire of the whole basement at what turned out in the end to be £5K (or close enough). Ouch... On the interior, we have had the downstairs boot room and dunny done; the living room done (except for the bay, where the new plaster doesn't seem to have been mixed properly and is flaking away.. so waiting for the plasterers to come back and fix it). We actually did the living room in a hurry for Christmas, so it needs some tidying up, but is passable. Same with the formal dining room.. although the fire surround and mantelpiece turned out to be black marble that was painted over, so we are painstakingly removing the paint. You wouldn't read about it. The study is now done (bar painting the segment of the wall that is damp from the leaking downpipe - which we are waiting to dry and using a dehumidifier to help). So, I have moved my desk and slowly moving by home office in there. It is lovely and affords a nice view to the village. Although the kitchen was done long ago, there have been cracks in the plaster (expected) and there was some outstanding painting. That is being worked on at the same time. The basement hallway is painted, which was a pain as we had all new pipe encasement boxes. We have opened iup the downstairs utility room and save for putting curtains (I have no idea why SWMBO wants them rather than doors) on the long sink unit, only the tiling is required. I will get some time on the weekend and try and put together before and after pictures.. Not promising anything as have a lot on this weekend. We are starting the clear out.. The place is full of stuff we have accumulated over the years and don't need. There will be tip runs and facebook marketplace listings. We have decided to go brutal as neither are wanting to move into a big house anymore. They are lovely, but f! they are a lot of work and expensive.

Well.. Not really... To be honest, in my case, it would be a godsend. Not a large enough payout to be life changing, but enough to buy me a good chunk of time to work on the property and get going myself. Time for me at the moment is precious - I have not much left over between work and some domestic items that have to be attended to. As I am 6 years at the firm, it would free up some time for me to get stuck in as well.. most of what has to be done now I can do; so it would be a life raft in the move back to Aus, which is now about a decade in the making. (And I know for some, they are thinking long may that continue ;-))

I wonder if this makes payment optional?

Same..

I don't know where to put this... post, so this thread is as good as anywhere. Kicked off a project today that will ultimately result in my redundancy. My initial thought: I need to get it done before the big move. Some people were a little gloomy at the prospect.. I was very excited.

far-k!. I had a new chain on the CBF and has done 10,000 miles with twice being tightened.. Yes, I clean it weekly.. And it cost be £90 (about $180). Yes, most of my riding is constant - not much stop start, motorways are fairly "clean", but I have a feeling getting a chain motorcycle in Aus is going to be an expensive habit. I can't remember what the sprockets cost, I think they were closer to the £120 mark.

So much for leaving the office on time yesterday - for the ride home. But thankfully, it wasn't too late - I left my desk at about 6:15 and was on the bike at 6:30.. It was starting to get dark - it is that time of year. But the weather is positively warm for the UK... I don;t know the temp, but I was sweating in my kit.. Although it is concerning from a climate and environmental perspective, I was selfishly appreciating it as my heated glove replacements have not yet arrived. That said, I didn't need the heated grips at all.. and I could have even used summer gloves instead, as it was warm all the way home. Even with a fuel stop about 3 miles prior, I was on the M4 by 7:15pm. I had an amazing run of lights through London and, with the exception of the ever increasing population of lunatic cyclists - electric and human powered, the traffic was quite light and it was easy to filter to the front of the queue at traffic lights. Except for the 20mph limited areas (sans cameras), I was sticking to the speed limit and taking it easy. Once on the A4, it is 30mph to the other side of Hammersmith and then 40.. so with lighter traffic, we were keeping up those speeds comfortably. I have to be honest.. I always approach these commutes with a sense of fatigue in doing them, but once I am on the motorway and in a rhythm, I quite enjoy the ride. For a lot of people, it would be boring, but there is enough to keep you alert and concentrating. This was no different. What I liked about coming home earlier than normal is there is slightly more traffic on the motorway, which provides further protection against any stray deer that may come along - although in all my time doing this route by car or motorcycle, I have yet to see one - dead or alive. The M4 from London to Reading is basically around populated towns/cities and well lit. Once past Reading, it becomes rural and unlit. At night I am a bit naughty and stay in the middle lane in case a deer does make its way onto the motorway - in which case I will have more options open to me (which is not really true, as to the left of the left lane is a decent hard shoulder to ride onto at speed if needed). I will normally stick to the limit until a car comes through going a speed I would prefer to be. And last night, there was no shortage of them to follow. And when they turn off, there's another to replace it within a couple of minutes. So, apart from two narrow bands of precipitation - one drizzle and the other moderate rain, it was a nice ride home. Whe turining onto the M5 from the M4 at Bristol, for some reason, the cars were handling that exit/entry really slow - so I did some higher speed filtering to keep up the pace (I was starting to feel the need for a releif stop). On the M5, it was much the same.. The phone went off as some evening software release didn't quite go to plan, but there's nothing I could do about it at 70mph -ish on a motorway. Got home by 10:30, which for that route was amazing timing (I ende up not stopping for that comfort break, but it was a rush through the front door). Bike is performing nicely.. and the decorator finished the study, so after work today will move my office back into there. He can then work on the next room..

And let's not forget, his last electoral win was the majority of people who turned out to vote... Not just the electoral colleges - but also the popular vote. I can't be arsed looking at what the voter turnout was, but if it was low, there were enough pricks who didn't care enough about it. (Remove from the USA population those who turned out to vote against him from the prick population of the USA). And for the context of being pricks, I include some good friends of mine in the USA who thought for some reason it was a good idea at the time.

This is a very good article and shows the longer term impact of our flee to globalisation mixed with a deranged US leader: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-29/us-dollar-trust-weakening-due-to-donald-trump-iran-war/107204644?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

I didn't know about the railway museum but there is an aviation museum now.