Piggy bank machine

After what may be as long as two years, my large size coin collector, a large cardboard replica of a tin of Newcastle Brown, filled up again last week and a visit to the piggy bank machine was indicated, that is to say the machine known to HSBC as a cash deposit machine.

I could have just gone to Metrobank in Epsom where they have a state of the art cash deposit machine which can be used by customers and non-customers alike, but it seems a bit unfair to make a habit of it as a non-customer. And I resent paying the exorbitant charges at Sainsbury's, even supposing that they still do it.

So off to the HSBC website to see what they had to say. Which was nothing. So off to the HSBC call centre where there was no call at all without identification, so much typing in of numbers and eventually a voice recognition sentence. Much selection of options. Tiresome music. Tiresome recorded messages, about, for example, the importance of my call. And eventually I get through to a person, a polite young man who I shall call Ken. He understood what I wanted fast enough, but getting the answer took a bit longer. He may even have needed to talk to his supervisor. No, the one in Fleet Street was no longer there. What about somewhere in that general area? And after a while Ken turned one up in Queen Victoria Street, which was fine.

So off to London Town, to be pleased to find a gardener attending to the beds around the small car park to the West Hill side of the station. I wondered how this marvel might have come to pass and he thought that he might have been working for SHW, which could well be the case looking at reference 3. So perhaps they manage the car parks attached to Epsom Station on behalf of Network Rail while these last attend to their core business.

Pulled a Bullingdon on the ramp, to be honked as I pedalled across the roundabout around the sensurround cinema at the end of Waterloo Bridge by an impatient white Audi. Not only did he honk but he overtook on the right before turning left onto the bridge, while I carried onto Stamford Bridge. The first bad manners I have come across in a driver in London in a long time. Sad to say, plenty of bad manners in cyclists, some of whom should clearly know better.

Confused by road works along Queen Victoria Street, but made it to the stand at Cheapside in 16 minutes 56 seconds, just a short walk from the largest retail branch of HSBC that I have ever seen, never mind been inside. And it did have a cash deposit machine with a short queue, and a few minutes later I was clutching a receipt for near £200, rather more than last time, with maybe a dozen rejects, rather less than last time.

Next leg, gently across from east to west, from Cheapside to Covent Garden, making it to Drury Lane, having been denied at a stand further north, in 20 minutes 46 seconds.

Quick visit to the cheese shop in Shorts Gardens to get the name of the cheese noticed at reference 5. Plus a piece of it to take home. Then a quick visit to the Crown where the tattooed lady was still missing, but I settled for a glass of Quickie from Australia, a wine last noticed at reference 6. Even quicker visit to the fancy cycle accessory shop run by Brooks, the bicycle saddle people, where the responsible young person could not be bothered to get up from whatever he was doing to his telephone at the back of the shop.

Third and last leg, Drury Lane to Vauxhall Walk, in 19 minutes and 29 seconds. Visit to the tea shop there where I took tea and a sort of apple cake, not being licensed until 1800, rather good but rather dear at £8. Second division theatrical posters pasted to the windows. Crockery arty, but my cake came on a cracked saucer. Trees round about coming on well since I was a regular in the area and the tourists seem to be coming on too. Something that one would never have seen in this part of London in the olden days.

Scored a two at the aeroplane game at Vauxhall, and there being trouble with the trains, a steady stream of two's at Clapham Junction, with spotting helped along by a lamp post handily aligned on the descent to Heathrow to the west. And  hindered by the planes coming in from anywhere between east and north east, quite a big angle when scanning the bright sky for distant planes. The larger, four engined planes seemed to have the names of places like Qatar painted on their bellies, just to make sure we knew who was in charge. There were also two old-style train spotters, complete with binoculars and notebooks.

PS: the near £200 has now been donated to the British Heart Foundation, through Just Giving, after a very modest amount of identification and so forth. Which seemed an appropriate choice for a warfarin man.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/piggy-bank-machines.html. The most recent reference to HSBC that I could turn up.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/tweet-tweet.html. The most recent reference to Metrobank that I could turn up, threatening to make a visit to their cash deposit machine. Which I subsequently did, but exactly when, I now have no idea.

Reference 3: https://www.shw.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://www.justgiving.com/.

Reference 5: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/show-off-time.html.

Reference 6: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/gravitational-waves.html.