Norouz Mobarak

Norouz Mobarak to everyone,wish you all the best and wish this year would see some good and fortune for all of you.

President: Compare :)

Even for someone like me who is not interested in politics,is important when we talk about my country and the people governing the poor country of ours. I found this cartoon very realistic about Mr. P.,shame that he has even given more opportunity to westerners to think we are bunch of dirty scruffy people.

I don't know if you saw the muslim guy who posed as a suicide bomber in London or not,but they all look different,dirty and disgusting. There is something about them that I cannot digest,call me racist or narrow-minded but why on earth Muslisms (not the real ones) try to portrait a bad picture.

New Megane Sport

The new face-lifted Megane will hit the market in Feb '06, so we should expect the new sport one some time soon as well. For those of you that still haven't seen the new pictures, I add them here.I am very excited as I have got tickets to the British Motor Show in London which will take place in July,looking forward to that. The show will take place in ExCel centre from 20th to 30th July 2006. The tickets are fairly priced, £8 during the week and £12 for the weekend, you can get theatre tickets for 5 quid as well.

HSBC

I have decided to share my experiences with you guys as you might have gathered by now,although most of are negative views but realistic ones. Those of you who know me, would know that we were looking for our first house and all the related matters. The main and the most important one is and I think always will be finding a mortgage provider. As we had account with HSBC, we decided to get information from them in the first place. Everything looked very easy and achievable, easily made an appointment to see the mortgage advisor, informed the lady of all our situation and what has happened and what are the plans. As we were both new in our jobs, we asked if does that affect anything or not,but we were told NO. Something that I think everybody knows nowadays is,if you buy a house for less than £120,000 you are exempt from Stamp Duty (step taken from Government to help first time buyers to get into property ladder), surprisingly our mortgage advisor wasn't aware of this fact.
After our initial appointment we saw the same lady some more times and she said that she would keep in touch to see how are we getting on with finding a house. She did stick to her promise by calling us every week to see how we did, but when we found the house which we thought was good enough for us, and got in touch with the bank to make a formal application, on the evening before the appointment I received a phone call that as we have not been in our jobs long enough HSBC cannot help us in this case. As you can guess I was so P***ed off that was unbelievable and when I asked how come after coming to bank so many times nobody told about this, I was told that the lady we saw is not actually Mortgage advisor. How would you feel if you were in our shoes?Taking time off from work to go to see someone that has go nothing to do with what you are asking!!!
We have managed to sort our mortgage now and thanks God it's not with HSBC but you think they are good and efficient but it's just a show. I even made a complaint about them but as you can predict nobody got in touch with me,luckily I didn't even need to go back to them.
As an advice for all of you who are thinking of these matters, I believe even if you pay a bit more to get a personal mortgage advisor, it's worth it; saves your time definitely and also you get to see more options.

Merry Christmas Everyone

Merry Christmas all,wish you a lovely time wherever you are and also a Happy New Year in advance.

Another disappointing experience

For the second time, I have been defeated by online shops this christmas. I have used this website before,very good and varied choice to choose from but as it is located in the States, you have to wait for ages to get your order. It adds to the pleasure that you have to wait for the post to arrive,as most of our posts goes to next door neighbours or come with different names :)

This time I bought a couple of T-shirts, in the end of November but still haven't heard anything from them. So, I dropped them a line to see what is happening,once was told that it's still within time that I should expect for delivery. But after 20 days I sent them another email,told that they are sorry about and they will cancel my order and send it again for me AT NO EXTRA COST. But guess what, the stuff I wanted is out-of-stock so have been advised to try later,they might be available.

If you were in my shoes,would you use them again?Although I badly wanted those stuff,but would never buy anything from them again,they spoiled the fun in shopping.

Online Christmas Shopping

I don't know about you guys,but I usually search alot in different ways to find a good bargain,but,have to remember not always go for the cheap option.Sometimes I prefer to pay more but get the item I want fast and from a secure source.

This christmas,I was looking for bargains and as you can expect found loads,but some didn't have the stuff I wanted ,so I ended up using this website.Good prices and wide variety,so I ordered with this in mind that they are in stock. But guess what,when you do order,you receive an email that the items you have ordered are out of stock and will be sent to you as soon as they are available. So, I called them up and the answer I got is,although what I say is right and no where on the website says they are out of stock,but on the other hand,it doesn't say that they are in stock either!!!
I have ordered some other stuff from another source,but they have done the same thing,so if you wanna order online you better check before putting your order in,and see if it says the items you want is in stock,otherwise try other sources.

Our Incident

Last week we had a small incident which could have been easily solved but as everything has been centralised and goes through call centres,it didn't.

The problem was our key broke in the lock,guess when?Friday evening when the weather couldn't be worse,dark and cold.I tried to get it out myself but due to lack of light and equipment,and on top of all that,freezing cold,didn't manage to do so.So,what you do is you call up a locksmith.

They took all the details and said that their contractor will call and arrange the time,Reminder:the weather is cold we are wet and staying in the car is not very ideal.

He called,checked the address on his Satnav and said he would be approx. 30 to 40 minutes.And just to take the key out of the lock is equal to their hourly rate of £72.00.

We sat there hoping he would be there quick,after 80 minutes,yes 1 hour and 20 minutes later,we called them up again.They said please get in touch with the contractor direct,and gave us another number.Guess what?another call centre :o) I was a bit (if you understand what I mean) frustrated. They said they will give the guy who is on his way a call and will call us back ASAP. 10 minutes later,still nothing. I couldn't believe this,so,I called them up again and again they gave me the same answer.So,I did what I thought was right and told them that I don't need them no more and cancelled it.Tried some more locksmiths,but due to bad weather they all refused to come out. So,I did what I should have done ages ago,I broke one of the small windows by the door.The amazing thing is we called somebody up to fix the window and I bought a new cylinder for the lock,and all this cost us less than £72.00. By the way,after breaking the glass,about 5 10 minutes later,MR LOCKSMITH turned up,which as you might guess faced an angry man.

i just wanted to share this nice experience with you as well,so in case,it happens to you,you know what to do,JUST BREAK THE WINDOW :o)

Finally

Finally, it came,yeah of course I meant SNOW. I just looked out of window and faced this,although it's nice and also it helps to kill the coldness of weather but it also means that you have to leave the warmness of your bed and go to work.No doubt that there would be more cars on the road as a result and more traffic.

I remember when we were kids,we used to love snow,mostly because if it was heavy schools were shut and we would have had fun.I remember it was always a big relief hearing those words on the radio that due to heavy snow,the schools in certain areas are shut.
It's good to have a white christmas,don't you think so?

Very interesting view

I was reading different sections of BBC Persian the other day and I came across this article. It has been done by a British Tourist on his visit to Iran, not his ideal sort of destination in the beginning but his view changes as soon as he sees the real Persia.It makes a good read, unfortunately for some,it's in Persian.But don't be disappointed as you can listen to the story said by Jimmy himself.