However you do need to have some small inkling of what is wrong.... The UK seems to fail drastically at that... With the NHS, we have chronic DR/Nurse shortages - so clearly the answer is to pump money into consultants to figure out why the hospitals are failing targets, introducing new computer systems faster than the staff can get to grips with them and selling off chunks because "businesses can do it better" (because... you know, funding... and tax breaks... and nice cosy jobs for ex politicians...)
+ Dumping those systems onto 15-20 year old hardware and infrastructure. A doctor may not know how to run a hospital but, probably has a better idea of what constitutes adequate levels of service, an administrator may not know how to treat a patient but has an idea of the infrastructure to do so, the trouble with the current leadership is that they listen to neither (and have a documented interest in dismantling what's there).
Oh, man, that sounds great... "So, what we have to do is better identify our target market demographic! The image of the old, invalid, elderly patient is so out of date - the modern patient is young, and hip, listens to the latest pop music and consumes a wide variety of substances! Now, my research shows that our biggest customers like to go out and have fun with their friends on a Friday night, drink lots of alcohol, and are drivers; so we need to speak to them via a bright, engaging campaign - "Yo, dudes! Chillin' at N-H of S, boiiiiii!" oh, sorry there's some icing sugar on my sleeve *SNRRRRRK*"
I also find myself intrigued by the Botes, if only because it seems a good excuse to do a water mat in 4x4 and then build docklands or floating/flooded city terrain. And also buggering up our flow of EU nationals by leaving the EU and also having been putting more barriers to Commonwealth and non-EU immigrants to fill the gaps in our medical profession pre-Brexit and then pretending they'll be lessened post-Brexit assuming of course we don't sell it down the river like the fisheries and Gibraltar as a sacrificial lamb to get someone to be willing to sell us hats... Oh, and prior to Brexit also, making it harder for people to afford to become doctors and nurses by freezing pay while raising tuition fees. It's as if the ruling party wants the NHS to collapse so they can sell it off or something.
So I built a new PC on the weekend, really happy with it (missus isn't though). Used Windows media tool or whatever to make a usb installer on my old PC so didn't need a key to get it running. Shopping round for quite a while looking for a decent price on a Windows 10 retail key (old PC will still be used so can't transfer that key). Find a good price on Laptops Direct UK. Double check the product page to make sure its a retail copy and not OEM, and it does say retail. Phone up customer services to make sure its a retail copy, which they say it is. And they send me a bloody OEM key! "Oh sorry our tech team says that what the product is". So now I have to go out of my way to return this bloody thing. Have a right mind to complain to the advertising standards agency about them. Twats
Do it. "We cannot accept returns on software" What was in the box was not what I specifically requested you provide.
Under UK consumer rights law, it has to be fit for purpose and as described https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/consumer-rights-act and as it's meant to be retail but is instead OEM, it's arguably both.
Uhm, if you cannot install the software because you're not an OEM, it's not fit for purpose. And it was described as retail package. If the retail package is different from the OEM package, it's not 'as described'.
So, I've had a good laugh from this thread, about time I contributed on the ongoing WTF my girlfriend currently has going For context, my partner is American, but lives and works in the UK. They went through all the appropriate channels, from work visas to residency to citizenship. They managed to get a black flag on their passport because of a residency application mistake (employer filled out my partner's home address wrong), so despite having residency, they were routinely "randomly selected" for interrogation, but that got resolved last year. For work, they travel a lot, like once a month to destinations inside and outside of the EU, currently doing so on their American passport with a wonderful thing called a Biometric Residency Permit (BRP) (basically a thing that tells the UK border force that they can enter the country without a visa because they have residency). Yesterday, after attending the citizenship ceremony, swearing oaths, singing the national anthem and the like, they were given a Certificate of Citizenship (as well as a nice crystal tumbler from Westminster Council). Simultaneously (and unknown to them), their BRP was cancelled (because now they are British, they don't need it). They've now got 5 working days to post it to the Home Office or get a £1,000 fine. If you thought that was the punchline, you're wrong, it keeps going. You see, the astute reader will notice they got a certificate, but not a passport. They still need to apply for that, a process that cannot be expedited (nor done concurrently with citizenship unless you happen to live in one of two councils), and one that requires them to send their US passport along with their application (because reasons). This leaves someone who travels for their job without a passport, although the US government will provide a temporary passport for the sum of around $180 for each trip abroad. That lets them leave the UK, but it doesn't let them re-enter for work, despite now being a UK citizen. You see, the BRP, tied to their US passport, is expired, so at best they could enter on the visa-free tourism route (since the UK will not issue visas to citizens, because that would be dumb), but that leads to the grey area of whether they are allowed to work or not (terms for visa-free entry say no, but citizenship and Right Of Abode say yes, so that's a legal mess waiting to happen). They don't have a UK passport yet, so can't use that one. But wait, I hear you cry, they could prove citizenship with that certificate they got at the ceremony! Turns out (and here's the real kick), that they can't. See, the Certificate Of Citizenship, as issued by Her Majesty's Government, is not proof of citizenship of the UK, and so a border guard can absolutely deny entry. The only accepted proofs are 1) A passport describing the individual (which they don't have, and takes 6-8 weeks of not having a US passport) or 2) A Certificate Of Entitlement in their US passport (which takes 3 months of not having a US passport). This is all after going through 3 months of ID checks and police inquires for citizenship in the first place. So yeah, they're flying out to Israel in a week, coming back to the UK for 3 days before we fly to the US for Christmas (visa-less transit, no issue), after which we have literally no idea if they'll a) be allowed to board the plane in the US (the airline cannot reasonably determine they'll be accepted and therefore may not want to risk the fine) and b) be accepted at Heathrow immigration (anecdotal evidence suggests border guards will accept the certificate regardless, especially for US/Commonwealth citizens, but official guidance says they won't because it isn't strictly proof). Fortunately, their employer has an office in the US, so worst case they can work from there, but that's still a flight wasted. To quote a German friend at work, "I didn't think UK immigration could get more stupid, but apparently I was wrong"
The way every single story I hear of people trying to legally move to this country goes stupidly wrong when the many forms of bureaucracy collide with each other makes me think our real problem with immigration is that our entire system is run not just by idiots, but by many idiots in many different departments.
At the risk of politics... That's what's so asinine when people go on about "Well, my family came here legally, I don't know why they can't do the same." Yeah, sure, your family came here legally when basically all you had to do was get on a boat and go. I mean, my grandfather changed his name by moving two states over and just adopting a new name. That doesn't work like that any more, either.
There are only two things that are infinite. The universe and human stupidity, and I'm not certain about the first one ...
Or, you know, they immigrated legally in the past few decades like my wife and her parents did. I mean, I'd love to buy an automatic firearm. My grandfather could have bought one if he had the cash and the will without all the rigamarole that's involved now. It doesn't work that way any more, but using the same logic I guess it should be acceptable for me to just ignore the process. If the process sucks, you don't ignore it, you fix it.
Immigration is funky. When I came into the US I did it by breaking a metric ton of immigration laws in the countries I passed through, making me an illegal immigrant in those countries. When I got to the US border, I presented my papers and my asylum request, was processed and ultimately granted citizenship, making me a legal immigrant in the US. So was and also was not an illegal immigrant (which is now irrelevant since I'm a citizen now)
Last night one of my friends was telling me of this government scheme (I can't remember the name) set up in conjunction with one of the big banks to help small businesses. People with ideas would go along to this big group meeting, submit their idea, and maybe network with other aspirants. Now, my friend was there to maybe get some help/advise for the gardening group he works for. He was telling me of all the other folks there with their brilliant business ideas, trying to get free money. So many of them have basically concocted pyramid schemes, cash-in-hand tax dodges and plans that otherwise reek of "scam!" A great one was a "social plan" designed to "help students with their income", in which students living in Glasgow would be on-call tour guides for any groups needing shown around the historical sights of the city. It was billed as being "more social", so had no real business structure at all. Basically, the students will have submitted their phone numbers to the manager, who calls them up at random if any tourists appear and he offers them a guide. There was no official payment structure; the students would be paid entirely in "donations" from which their manager would take a cut. The guy proposing this really pushed that these were "donations" - not payment for a service. Plus, it was all entirely cash in hand. So... no tax! :D And if those students then wish to set themselves up as managers, all they need do is collect some numbers and start their own network, giving their own manager a cut of all the money they make, etc etc... Now, it's definitely not a pyramid - it's a triangle! The best part is that these guys genuinely think they've come up with something revolutionary which the banks and government will definitely never have heard of.
