Yes indeed - the ferry to France, the most stressful bit is parking up and getting out before you get hemmed in by the next lane of cars. After that, it's walk about, have a drink and watch TV or look at the sea.
The only time it's not fun is if the sea is rough.
Pity SpeedFerries died - they did Dover->Boulogne-sur-Mer in about half the time, smaller boat so quicker loading and no lorries. And Boulogne is a much nicer place to drive out of than Calais.
Quite. No surprise that those who rarely or never use it have notions on how to improve things.
Rather like Brexit, I'd say.
As long as they were on some side road that couldn't impact the main flow of traffic, then I'd agree. ;-)
Same as petrol stations that also have a reasonable sized grocery and no dedicated till for fuel only. I simply don't use them (unless desperate for fuel and see the forecourt empty).
Cheers, T i m
... and it has to be very rough for the ferry stabilisers not to make it feel reasonable.
Yes, we used to use them for preference, they were also the company that really forced prices down to reasonable levels. I remember before the days of Speedferries (probably back in the early 1980s) I was pleased if I got our ferry crossings for less than £100. Speedferries charged a fixed price of £25 if I rmemeber. Prices have stayed reasonable if you're clever/careful, we cross pretty frequently and use the DFDS multi-trip tickets which are currently £29 each way if you buy 12 or more returns.
Not having a dedicated till for quick purchases/transactions is a big problem. I see it in banks when I go to pay cheques in (I run a small business and get paid in cheques or cash). Rarely are all the cashier points open, and there is always someone ahead of me with a horrendously long transaction such as opening a new account without having all the ID needed, or wanting to transfer money to an account whose details are "written down somewhere - where did I put the bit of paper". Or else they are paying in coins or wads of notes (eg takings from a shop) which need to be weighed and counted.
It would be easier if there was a cashpoint machine that either accepted cheques or else at least printed a paying-in slip for you to include in the envelope with the cheque, so you don't have to write out the account number, sort code, account name etc.
And there are always staff hovering around behind the scenes, apparently doing very little. To my way of thinking, people in a queue should take precedence over all other work unless it's answering a customer's telephone enquiry.
You would have thought they could install vending machines at service stations near the crossing...
Theo
In message , at 09:27:28 on Wed, 4 Jul
2018, Huge remarked:Neither of which excuse applies to having a few lanes for contactless cards.
Try the other eye, Horatio.
Barclays seems to be doping away with some cashiers. I can pay cheques in just using my bank card. Shove the wad of cheques into the machine and it will read each one, ask you to confirm the amount, and print you out a slip with a sort of photocopy of each cheque and credit the lot to your account.
Which bit of "the accidents caused by people changing lanes" was it you failed to have your carer explain to you?
Why would anyone use them? If having to pull off the motorway and stop, just use your phone. And you don't have to pre-pay anyway. Pay at the end of your journey.
And anyone stupid enough to not know how to pay will invariably be 'hogging' the outside lane.
In message , at 11:46:53 on Wed, 4 Jul
2018, Huge remarked:
Personal abuse. Excellent.
In message , at 12:23:16 on Wed, 4 Jul 2018, Tim Streater remarked:
My local Barclays has been reduced to an indoor ATM-wall with no actual cashiers, for several years now.
In message , at 13:35:18 on Wed, 4 Jul
2018, "Dave Plowman (News)" remarked:
Which might be in Bavaria.
As the crossings are on the A282 you would be in the wrong place anyway.
The road gets redesignated so some traffic that would be prohibited from Motorways can use the crossings, Thousands think the M25 is a complete circle around London but his small segment make that untrue.
GH
Both HSBC & NatWest have cheque paying in machines |I've seen them in the Halifax, too.
Yes, branches of Natwest in large cities have them. In my experience, the technology is still very poor: I usually find that the machine fails to recognise that a cheque is valid (ie it spits it out immediately) as opposed to failing to read the amount correctly. It is usually quicker to take the cheque to a cashier than it is to try repeatedly to get the machine to accept a cheque.
I could understand it with handwriting, but the success/failure seems to be unrelated to legibility of the numbers: sometimes I've been impressed in its ability to read some handwritten amounts in rather flowery or shaky writing; and I've also had it mis-read or else spit out the cheque where everything is laser-printed in a nice clear Arial, Times or Lucida Console typeface.
Hypocrite. Less than excellent. Post-editing of that hypocrisy. Not at all excellent.
Now f*ck off and die, there's a good little shitbag.
They don't have the Internet in Germany?
I did wonder which mindless literalist would pop up to "correct" me.
Congratulations on it being you.
Yes, I know.
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