Slean Wolfhead

So how does that work? Your UK state pension is fixed and not index linked, so would the Aussie one increase as your British one became worth less over time?

You're right, but assuming you have to come back to Australia from the UK and then go straight back to work/school, a few nights in Singapore can make all the difference where it doesn't matter if you sleep late/stay up late. As you say, it's only a few hours difference to Australia but a big leap forward from UK time. Also nice to wake up at any time and find something to do all day/night with the hotels being geared up to people coming from anywhere at all times. Going straight through to the UK does mean you're a bit muddled for the first few days, but i generally find if i'm staying with family etc then it doesn't matter if you fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon.

raw white cabbage, the peppery stuff. The first kebabs I had in the UK all had cabbage. ...it was a staple until i came here and saw what they have. On a par with these tiny naan breads you get, and getting charged for poppadoms.

Actually, i think it is a right under the Universal Service Obligation (USO that every home in Australia has "available" access to a fixed copper telephone line, and that it will function during an electrical outage to contact emergency services. It doesn't say the line needs to be connected if the owner doesn't want it to be, and if you're in a rural area somebody needs to stump up the extra for the excavation and run. Standard connection charges don't apply if they can't connect you from the nearest telegraph pole.....and I guess that is why this house has never been connected up ? Also debatable whether ADSL or ADSL2 would even work over a potentially long distance, but you'd get voice calls no problem. The problem is, the USO is becoming out of date fast and the contract is worth $300 million which the Govt wants to save, so it will be scrapped. As everybody knows it will be scrapped sooner or later, Telstra don't wish to invest anything and the Govt probably hasn't got the power nor the will to make them. It's no different to people waiting for NBN and asking Telstra to upgrade the exchange capacity for end of life ADSL services. They just won't do it. I'd just get a 3G/4G modem for internet and use mobiles. $5000 is ludicrous on a 6 month lease for a crappy ADSL service, and I'm pretty sure NBN Wireless providers don't offer short contracts either because they need to recoup their investments.

If you're in a fixed wireless area the copper phone lines will not be decommissioned, so you can still get your phone, although the Fed Govt is likely to scrap this quite access right pretty soon because it's not cost effective. Telstra have been dragging their feet all over Australia because they can see money being poured down the plughole with investment into EOL infrastructure. I'd carry on as you are and see what the legal advice is. It might not be worth $5000 to anybody if you can get wireless internet and mobile coverage for voice.

I guess somebody still needs to make the connection from your boundary to the nearest Telstra connection point. I'm not sure if Aussie Broadband are even allowed to do that, it's a Telstra job. They certainly aren't liable to pay for it. Are you sueing for the return of the $2150. What do Telstra say about making the connection to your boundary themselves, or are they palming it off to NBN?

You're replying to a thread over 3 years old. Interesting about the Xmas lights. Back in England we had a similar street in the Midlands, they were pulling 8000 people a night at the weekends coming from miles away, music shows, sleds on roofs, they setup shops in the gardens selling drinks, and even had burger vans pitching up. Total chaos, but the lights and displays were fantastic. Then somebody twigged that these were all council houses and they were getting benefits to pay the electricity bills! It stopped very quickly...

Complicated these days and the differences between airlines can be stark. The price of an upgrade can go to frequent flyer milesholders rather than just cash buyers, plus the ability to do so can depend on whether you purchased the cheapest Economy fare, or the more expensive Economy "Flexible" fare. Premium Economy seats on some airlines are very expensive for what you get. We looked at the Singapore ones the other day and they were pretty ordinary, certainly not worth paying nearly 3x for. Paying the extra for business class at around 4x is far more cost efficient for what you actually get, you can sleep and it doesn't bugger you up for days either side of the trip

ACT have sponsored the permanent RSMS 119 VISA, but it depends on the field. Anything to do with kids is good, especially if you have some rough/deprived area UK or Irish experience. I've heard of a few recent arrivals who got in by approaching directly when there was no campaign. They might sponsor the application to get you through the door, but i think the days are gone when they would pay for the VISA and chuck you $5k for expenses as well. Although ACT is a bit special...you never know what strings they can pull here.

In future you could try flights via Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam, or Dubai or Doha, then get a direct flight into Bham avoiding LHR altogether.

National Express coach from Digbeth or Bham Airport, whichever's most suitable. Drops you at the door. Either of the Brum to London train routes is a pain to get across to LHR.

Coles do it in the Deli section, imported from the UK. Not sure if its every week but i bought some about 3 weeks ago.

Lots of airlines are changing how you book your flights, it's becoming very complex if you then want to upgrade, use miles and need to have purchased your original flights under a certain fare type to be eligible. The introduction of more Premium Economy seats also changes the dynamic and the value of both Economy and Business class, but it usually means there are less Economy seats on the plane to choose from. If you purchase the cheapest of those, you might not get much choice except for a guaranteed seat, although they do say that they will try and keep families together. That's not much use to a family when other people have booked the rest of the seats in advance and there are only isolated seats remaining. I think Singapore have removed the free seat choosing option from both their Economy and PE "lite" flights so you need to pay more for a standard or flexi fare to retain the ability to choose your specific seat , or you need to pay an extra fee.

We opened a joint NAB migrant (Classic) account from the UK and were able to deposit money into it ready for arrival. They don't actually activate the account for use until you turn up in the branch with your ID's after arrival, but all the cards were ready for issue on the day. We always intended to change banks but have stuck with NAB for everyday banking as the internet side is very good and easy to manage, there are much better deals elsewhere for things like mortgages and loans etc...

Is that true? I know there was a previous scandal over different suppliers adding different levels of detergents, with some petrol (Shell) being a lot better for your vehicle than others (Costco)...hence a different production cost. Not sure if that's all been resolved and they use the exact same composition now. I see it's dropped around 7% in the last few weeks due to the oil price, but the usual Aussie internal market means that different states see wildly differing prices.

My BiL lives in Atlanta. They too have all 4 seasons and the temperatures almost uncannily reflects Canberra, right down to the sub-zeros in winter, very occasional snowfall and long hot summers. We can pretty much guarantee that they get the opposite of what we're getting. much moreso than a comparison with the UK where we all originated from. Where they vary is the humidity and thus the rainfall. I believe Canberra gets the better of that in that you can breathe and sleep better with cleaner air, whereas Atlanta can be insufferable in summer.

If I had an HSBC Everyday Global account applied for from Australia, can somebody in the UK transfer to this account over the counter to a UK sort code and account number? If i had one of these accounts, could i transfer directly to a UK bank account without needing BIC or SWIFT numbers?

He can apply to pay them now and might get class 2 very cheap.

There are an enormous amount of furniture stores in Australia, they've been exporting wood for years and it's not expensive for average wood. A lot of furniture comes in from Indonesia and China now, but the wood could have come from here originally. There's a lot of cheap board and veneer, but also plenty of solid wood furniture...you can usually tell by the price. Take a look here for a list, then follow some of the links to different stores and check out some of the different woods....much more than pine or oak. Australia's different for shopping and a lot of these places have re-sellers in a particular city but they send deliveries interstate. https://www.myshopping.com.au/PT--318_Furniture Wormy Chestnut is a good alternative to oak, harder and very Australian. It's not a chestnut but a eucalytpus hardwood. The "wormy" comes from the dark streaks in the wood that reflect the life history and attacks by fire and drought, causing changes in the markings. Hard enough to use in commercial flooring, or for furniture with plenty of character and visible history within the grain.

My parents met an Aussie couple on holiday in the Cotswolds...they said they came to the UK every summer to spend money and stay for a good few months in a caravan, so pretty wealthy. The old Aussie guy had broken his leg some months before. He said he'd been taken to hospital and was treated extremely well, plastered up, then was under Outpatient care until they could fly home. He told my dad they'd only asked his name and address...so he'd done that and given the address of the caravan park. They wouldn't take his insurance even though he had it available.

Bristol, Birmingham,..they're all the same. I did 3 weeks there last summer.....the amount of crap i ate and drank was unbelievable, even the pub food was rubbish. Chain pubs, same menu's, everything dropped off by the same lorry and heated up...nothing fresh or handmade at all. There were places i used to frequent that i refused to eat at this time...and it will get worse when they cheapen up even further in the next few years..chlorine-washed chicken and fat and sugar for the poor, the best stuff being exported. The only place i got decent meals was off my mum and dad, who eat very healthily and make it all themselves. I did like the balti's and Banks's beer though....can't get that in Australia.

Exactly. But you're seeing this culture shift in the UK, similar to how large portions of the USA have gone. People have had enough of experts, they've become shallow and consumerised and very introspective about their lives. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. The way to start would be education but before that, making them understand how important education is to their futures. I just get the impression that a growing number can't even bothered to read to the bottom of the first page and assume they're always going to be looked after. It's very "nanny state" and there needs to be more understanding of personal responsibility and accountability. That's good. Am currently roasting a joint on the bbq, but everything else has come from the garden. We haven't bought a ready-meal in 6 years and feel much the better for it.

Governments kowtow to the sugar industry which is incredibly powerful and supports hundreds of thousands of jobs. They know it's killing people but will not do anything about it, just like tobacco before it. It has to be about people getting wiser and stopping their kids consuming it because your Government won't help, neither in Australia or the UK. Market forces will dictate, but the sugar industry will respond by just making it cheaper. As you say, it stops with the parents.....but just think how many of them were brought up the same way and don't do any research or read any labels. Millions of them...how hard will they try?

Somebody's mother and gran, keep voting Tory people.... http://www.clactonandfrintongazette.co.uk/news/15810659.UPDATED__Pensioner__81__found_dead_at_home_in_Clacton_after_waiting_almost_4_hours_for_ambulance/ The 81-year-old woman called 999 complaining of chest pains on Tuesday, according to the GMB union. Paramedics arrived hours later and forced their way into her home, but she had already died. The East of England Ambulance Service aid crews arrived three hours and 45 minutes after her initial call. Dave Powell, regional officer for GMB, said the incident is "another example of how we are not coping" with the NHS winter crisis. "My concern is now that we are actually suffering deaths whilst people wait for ambulances," he added. "On arrival, the crew had sufficient concerns to force entry to the property as the control room could not contact the patient via telephone. "Unfortunately, the patient was found deceased in the property and there was nothing the crew could do for her.

They used to prescribe paracetamol and aspirin at prescription price because patients wanted it free, instead of paying 25p at Tesco or Aldi. My dad used to rant about it...bloody lazy cheapskates. I think they've stopped it now, or at least put up signs requesting people to stop asking for it on prescription.