One of the (many) great things about an iPhone is if you need to find your nearest (eg) NatWest bank you go to maps, type in NatWest and then a pin shows you where it is. In the old days I had to walk around looking for a bank to deposit my charity money in or (the horror) ask someone. But now my phone just tells me and is usually more or less right. Well done Ian Phone for your wonderful invention.
I took in £481 today which is most of the money from Birmingham and Rhyl (so well done to you if you were one of the generous 450 people who gave more than a pound per head. I had counted up the coins when I was a bit drunk and might well have made some mistakes with the bags - I had added an extra 5p to the 5p bag because I had slightly lost count and couldn't be bothered to go back and check by counting out 100 of these awful fiddly coins (5ps are the worst coin by miles). I had also sneaked an Eire 2p into the bag of 2ps and was sweating a bit hoping that my fraud would not be discovered, not least because it would take ages for the teller to check through the fifty 2p pieces to find the illegal one (and would it be financially worth the time taken to justify the saving of two pence? Probably not).
Sometimes I have taken as much as £1000 in to the bank, all in coins, but today there were a few notes as well, so it shouldn't take too long. But it is still a laborious process as each bag needs to be weighed on a little machine and usually you can see the teller sigh and look annoyed when they realise I am paying coins in. Sometimes they ask if I am a NatWest customer in the hope that I might not be and they might get out of it.
But today I gave in all my bags and my notes and a list of what I thought I was giving in and the woman simply counted the notes and then counted the bags and trusted me. She had a weighing machine right next to her, but she didn't use it, or seemingly even try to assess if the bags looked right. She just put the bags in her drawer. I was a bit surprised. I had got away with the 2p, but they almost certainly had got an extra 5p out of me. What if I had made other mistakes? I decided to take the banker's gamble and not say anything as there was an equal chance that the bank error would be in my favour.
Not only that, but the woman didn't even bother to check my adding up. She accepted that this list of figures I had given her added up to £481 and I was out of there. I felt a little insecure about that. What if I'd added up wrong?
Maybe this woman was some kind of financial Rain Woman and could add up figures in her head and tell how many coins were in a bag just by holding them, but more likely she was just a bit lazy and couldn't be arsed to go through the rigmarole. Or new and didn't realise that she couldn't trust her customers. If only I had put 19 pounds in each bag I could have made about eight pounds profit. Or I could have just written that the numbers added up to a million pounds and SCOPE would have been quids in.
Obviously if the banks didn't usually weigh the bags then people might start to take the piss, but I can't help thinking that this woman has the right idea. Yes, it's possible that mistakes will be made in counting up coins, but if my experience is anything to go by there pretty much balance out in the end. And the time it takes to find out that someone is paying in 2p less than they had declared is surely going to cost more than 2p, as well as keeping other customers waiting.
I wish the whole world could be so trusting, though of course, she was wrong to be, because one of my 2p coins was from a different country and isn't even legal tender in its place of issue any more.
On leaving my posho Birmingham hotel I left my bags and buckets with the concierge guys. The car park was about 400 metres up the road and I would be able to drive up and pick up my stuff before leaving. When I got back one of the lads carried my stuff to my car for me and then turned around to reveal that he was wearing one of my Velcro moustaches which he had liberated from my pink swastika bucket. "Whaddya think?" he asked and his mates laughed and sniggered in their little room. God knows what they thought was going on with this toothbrush moustachioed guest with a Nazi bucket and cut up moustaches.
When I got to Leamington the lady at the check in desk asked me if I had stayed at the hotel before. I told her I had a couple of times and she said, "Yes I thought you recognised you."
I wanted to say that maybe she was thinking of Hitler. But I left it.
I was feeling a bit blue today, for no other reason than the relentlessness and loneliness of touring. I realised how rubbish I would be in prison, because I felt alienated and unhappy and still had the freedom to move around and do to Caffe Nero. Though at least the people in prison have loads of pals in with them to help them pass the time, by crafting shivs and forcing them to become their bitches.
Luckily the gig cheered me up. The staff were very friendly and I was conspicuously offered a cup of tea the minute I arrived, which suggests once again that this blog has an influence. The gig is in a cinema and the lighting was such that it was possible to see the entire audience quite clearly all the way through, which can be a bit disconcerting. Also the front row were easily with in spluttering distance and at the same level as me.
But it was a fun one and the room was fuller than last year. That's all I can ask for.
