Foreign Perspectives

Many years ago when Wendy was first in the UK we applied for and received a European residence permit but after we went to France we didn’t bother to renew it.

To get the European family permit (ie entry clearance visa) whilst we were in France would have entailed a three or four day trip to the embassy in Paris and a wait of anything up to a year. This made it impractical for us so we didn’t bother and instead just went without the visa. Wendy’s Australian so doesn’t need a visa to get into the UK but as it turned out, the immigration people at Rosslare just accepted our statement that we were living in Belfast and let us pass.

So, we’re in the UK sans visa. Interestingly, since there’s no requirement to register with local authorities in the UK, there appears to be nothing stopping you just staying on regardless of what any stamp in your passport may say about when you should leave.

Anyway, to get Wendy legal we, in principle, are supposed to apply for a residence permit for her. Snag is that when we arrived the processing time for this was getting on for two years (despite the legal obligation for the authorities to do it within six months) and we knew that we needed to go back to France that summer. So we didn’t bother. Next time we came back the immigration people accepted our statement about living here (which we had been doing) and off we went again.

Since we’re notionally in the process of selling our place in France we knew that we’d need to go back there at some stage to finish packing etc. but didn’t know when so a two year processing time (during which time they keep your passport) also wasn’t on. Thus we find ourselves living in the UK for getting on for two years now with nothing to show any right to do so and nobody making any attempt to deport Wendy as yet.

The one problem is with social security who have already stated that they don’t believe Wendy is here legally but, despite their obligation to do so, have done nothing about reporting her to the border agency people although they do insist that we need a European family permit.

Funnily enough, we’ve since found that, courtesy of a determination made right here in Belfast, we were correct in our assumption that we didn’t need a European family permit to enter the UK. Just as well really since it’s a visa and you can’t get a UK visa when you’re actually in the UK as you can only get UK visas from British embassies and, of course, there are no British embassies in the UK.

What we are doing, somewhat belatedly, is applying for a European residence permit. At present, the advice is that we may be turned down for this (although we may not). Being refused this permit doesn’t appear to be a problem though as there are no limits to the number of applications and appeals that you can make (all of which are free) and you’re legal in the UK whilst they’re processing the application. Since it currently takes them about six months to process an application, all that you need to do is to reapply if/when you get the refusal and you’ve another six months legality. Weird, huh?

Quite why anyone bothers trying to stay here illegally when they can legalise things seemingly permanently so easily is beyond me.

In many ways this is, for once, an improvement for the customers of the former Halifax but it comes with downsides too.

The range of products on offer is significantly improved with the addition of both a proper Visa card in addition to the existing Visa Electron (which remains the default card issued) and a multi-currency sterling account and a lot more branches in Spain. It’s as clear as mud but the need to keep a balance of 600€ for free banking seems to have disappeared albeit with the downside that there’s now a charge of 9€ per year for the Electron card regardless of balance (replacing the previous 18€ for balances under 600€); it’s 15€ a year for the full Visa debit card.

Probably the biggest downside is that the free transfers from Halifax UK to Halifax Hispania have disappeared so it’s probably a good time to get yourself one of the free FairFX cards and thereby get back your free currency conversions. For free cash withdrawals you can get the CaxtonFX card though their exchange rates aren’t so good therefore it’s probably best to get both cards if you’re living in Spain.

One big difference is in the list of charges. Replacing the Halifax’s previously very clear and short list is a massive 60 page document from Lloyds that throws clarity out the window. It’s certainly complete but I question whether they couldn’t have produced a much simpler and shorter document for normal customers instead of the monster which seems to cover all possibilities from normal people through to major corporate banking.

Overall, I suspect that, for a change, this amalgamation of the Halifax and Lloyds TSB in Spain is probably a good thing for their customers. You can get the freebie currency transfers elsewhere and it frees up the 600€ that was tied up previously to get the free banking, albeit with the downside that you need to fork out 9€ a year.

It doesn’t seem so long ago that people were debating about whether mobile phones should be banned from restaurants.

Nowadays, many people make the assumption that they can call you at any time. After all, if you’ve got a mobile, then why shouldn’t they call you? Of course, at the other end of the line this leads to the habit of never turning the phone off and of answering it no matter where you are.

So it confuses people when I don’t have the phone switched on all day. Why would it? I don’t want to be called all of the time. It’s not so much that I switch it off in the movies  but that I only have it switched on when I want to be reached on the phone.

Probably more annoying to those who feel that I should be contactable 100% of the time is that I don’t even pick up the voice mails more than once a day. In this instantly-reachable age my record so far is one person leaving seven voice mails over the course of a single day asking me to call them. It must have been urgent then? Well, no, it would have been OK to leave it another week that time.

Regain your freedom: switch off your mobile!

When you do several courses at a time you sometimes get a bit of a logjam of assignments. On the whole, it’s generally not so bad as you know quite a bit ahead of time when the assignments are coming up but that doesn’t stop it feeling like quite a busy period when you’ve a series of consecutive deadlines as I do now.

Coming up first is the world archaeology assignment (A251) due on December 3rd so I’m aiming to get that one completed this week. Following close behind that is the CMA for the web applications course (TT280) although I nearly completed that before breakfast on the day it arrived so I will probably finish it off and submit it over the weekend. After that it’s the final assignment for that course which I want to start on this week. Finally, it’s the completion of the final assignment for the medicines course (SK185) which shouldn’t take long.

In theory after that it’s the assignment for the microbes course (S171) but the final date for that is in April so I’m just doing that course as and when I get a few minutes. So far, I’m about 1/4 through it which means it must be nearly time to start the assignment (for short courses you can generally do the assignment as you work through the book).

One of the big hassles with the ipod touch is that it’s very much a closed system. But it doesn’t need to be. So for those who’d like to run it without needing to bother with iTunes, here’s how…

1.  Enable USB tethering:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:pmcenery/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ipheth-utils

2. Enable mobile device support:

Go to System>Administration>Software Sources, click on Add and select

ppa:pmcenery/ppa

Click on Reload then Close.

Go to System>Administration>Synaptic package manager, search for libimobiledevice0 then install it.

At this point you are able to drag and drop MP3 files onto your iPod.

3. Enable Rhythmbox sychronisation:

sudo apt-get install amarok

If this doesn’t work, then:

rm -r ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok
rm -r ~/.kde/share/config/amarok*

Which should have you all set for an open iPod.