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Lokolo

melancholly wrote: »

so i'm assuming the last statement was a joke, but in terms of travel, does your new company offer any scheme to loan you the money for an annual travelcard? lots do and the annual versus monthly cost could mean a big saving (although my understanding is that only bus season tickets can count for salary sacrifice, but that might be worth checking too). might help a bit.

don't envy that commute long term though.... it's long!

Ha they are cutting it down the route from 40 minutes to 25 by September, which will help a lot and actually helped me in the decision (as I was thinking of renting out in London). My parents also said they wouldn't charge me rent if I save money for a house deposit which is nice.

And yes the company do offer a interest free loan for travelcards, I've budgeted without for now as I am not sure how long I am going to live at home, so I may move to a different location, depending on how the commute goes!

gadgetmind wrote: »

Or do they take part in the Ride To Work scheme? If you can get a bicycle on the cheap, you can ditch the travelcard, parking costs, and all the huge bills associated with owning/running a car.

Yep this was one of the things on the disadvantages list. Tax, insurance and car parking are a pain, but the pleasure of driving (visiting friends and such) outweighed the cost imo.

gadgetmind wrote: »

OK, maybe not for everyone, but a chap at work does just over 25 miles each way, every day.

However, the joy of a bicycle, particularly a folding one, is that you can take it on the train, or even have one at either end. OK, you still have PT costs, but these can maybe be reduced by not going all the way into central London and cycling the last leg.

I ditched the company car and parking space about a decade ago, took the cash option instead, and bought a bike. I have no idea how I put up with shuffling along in traffic for as long as I did.

Yeh unfortunately where I am in High Wycombe makes cycling a little difficult, however I am looking at moving out after I've saved a deposit and one of the things is looking for a place close to the station so I don't have to do the car parking bit!

Lokolo

2sides2everystory wrote: »

When you arrive home at the Border Agency's desk with your UK passport at an airport, after scanning in your chip or code the process of electronic vetting takes up to 10 seconds per person.

Some of you have ultra-fast broadband. You are already amazed by the data flows you personally can achieve down the line at home. You can download an HD movie at speeds 10x or even 20x faster than you can watch it.

Why does it take 10 seconds to electronically vet your passport?

How many government computers, outsourced government computers, private sector databases, secret databases are being accessed in that 10 seconds? Think about it.

Now then, that flight you just took, or the one you took when you left UK last week - could that possibly have been construed as a flight from debt? But you are back now to face the music? That's ok then.

Paranoid or what?

I get the feeling you like to hang around Area 51....

However you said takes up to 10 seconds with ultrafast broadband. Now don't get me wrong, if this scenario was true (that airports have super ultrafast broadband), surely they won't have a dedicated line for passports? They will have all sorts of data going through, flight times, flight delays, flight information to be updated on the boards. Passenger information (such as number of passengers on the flight), how many people are boarding and booking (theres a lot of flight desks, god knows how many transactions are going through each second at an airport).

But, the only time it has taken me 10 seconds for passport check is in USA where they were taking a photo of me. Otherwise it takes approximately 3.

2sides2everystory

Yeah I am sure you are right, Lokolo, as we all are in our own way of course