"Modern Life Is Rubbish"

Or so Blur would once have had us believe. It's not, of course; it's better in more ways than you could shake a smartphone at.

It is, however, worse in one significant way, at least, and that is the well-intentioned but hopelessly delivered arena of financial regulation. I *know* I could get my insurance cheaper elsewhere but the prospect of listening to some poor soul shackled to a desk in a call centre reading me the small print over the phone for a new insurance policy is a price I'm not willing to pay. Sure, renew the policy, just don't talk to me. 

And yes, I get that being able to walk into a bank and opening an account with nothing more than a smudged photocopy of what might be your birth certificate but possibly a shopping list was not a sensible means of either audit or security but did we really have to go so far in the other direction? What we needed after 2008 was proper regulation of the banks (and an admission that capitalism was flawed), not more bureaucracy.

So yes, I did spend half an hour on the phone this afternoon attempting to open a new business bank account. Sure, I already have TWO accounts with the bank in question AND I'd already filled in the online forms. But I took a deep breath or two and tried to be patient with the guy who was gamely attempting to understand the business even though he wasn't really very interested in audit management and I couldn't really see why the bank needed to record quite so much detail. 

On the other hand, I got to sit in the pod, our new soundproofed office within an office, looking out of the window and listening to the Sonos during the bits when I didn't have to say anything.

****
-12.5 kgs
Reading (not reading): 'Jog On' by Bella Mackie. I'm giving it until the end of the week.