Why does it always rain on me?

Been one of those days, like yesterday :(

The elation of victory followed by the despair of defeat. Had the razor ready at lunchtime but by 4pm everything was back on course.

I despair for people who may have less patience/intelligence/wherewithall than I - and you're scraping the barrel to find them but... Today I tried again to renew the insurance on a new car. Well actually I thought I'd done it in February when it was new but I was advised this morning that my papers were out of order.

Seems the old insurance with HSBC hadn't been cancelled so I was paying for two policies. No bother, just cancel one and get on with life. If only it was that easy. There must be a whole industry built around insurance call centre incompetence! Now I have to prove that I have cover on the new car before they'll cancel at HSBC and prove that I had cover on the old car to Allianz before they'll accept the NCD status.

Frankly all I want to do is 'drive legal', hand over some money and get on with important things. Things that matter rather than pander to petty bureaucracy, and faceless script readers at anonymous call centres who believe if they tell me I'm being recorded I won't deeply offend them. People who believe the fraud and crime of the world is committed by those who don't know when they were born or can remember their postcode.

I was jabbered at by one person today who went at 60 mph down her script sheet and I didn't have a clue what she was on about. Aaaargghhhh!!!!! Hey, she wasn't rude, she was very polite, a bit quiet spoken for a call centre person but I suppose it's non-PC to make that a selection criteria. She asked all the questions in the right order and ticked all her boxes. Great job girl. But as far as I'm concerned she was next to useless! I didn't know what she was talking about - and she wasn't too sure either. I spent 33 minutes on hold for her trips to 'her advisor' to check the simplest of requests.

I could go on and on but the simple point I'm making is how do old, or not so bright people or those who can't afford to spend the morning paying some greedy banker or broker to talk to them on an 0845 number get through this tiresome nonsense? How do they cope with all this crap. It must be a nightmare for them.

Oh the Blip. Well it's a tree with a magpies nest in it reflected in a puddle. It it had been deeper I might have thrown myself in it.

Plop.