Is the cheque cleared?
Jun. 13th, 2009 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksI do seem to attract some unusual kind of shit when it comes to my finances: On April 25 I made a withdrawal from Party, to be sent by cheque ($995). On May 5 it arrived and on May 7 I paid it into my Citibank account. Three days later, there it is, sitting in my account.
Now, I assume you have heard about scams where people assume that this is the end of the matter, and thus release the goods to the person making the payment, only for the cheque later to fail to clear at the issuing bank.
But what could go wrong with a cheque from Party?
This:
Which I reckon merits a genuine WTF????
Note the phraseology "the cheque was lost" as opposed to "the clearing bank lost it".
So, I telephoned Citibank to find out the name of the Clearing Bank and, luckily (as it transpired) it was the same bank as the issuing bank. In other words, Barclays sent me a cheque. I paid it into Citibank. Citibank sent it to Barclays, which lost it while presenting it to itself and (and here's the classic) then wanted to charge me a $35 "Stop Fee".
So I emailed Paytech and informed them that I thought it a mite unfair to charge me $35 for a mistake by their own bank. And you kind of have Party over a barrel here, because you only have to mention the words "financial journalist" "listed company" and "US regulator" to be fairly sure that PartyGaming will be shitting its pants.
And, all credit to them, within three hours I got an email back saying that the $35 fee would be "waived".
++++++++++++++
Gibraltar was, well, an experience. There were 18 journos in all, including some of the most attractive female journalists ever seen in London. As a person no longer of tender years, I try to avoid lechering after female journos in their 20s. It's just so self-abasing. But there was one on this trip where, to be frank, I just didn't bloody care. My goodness she was gorgeous.
The first evening we had a buffet dinner meet'n'greet on the roof terrace of the "Celebrity Wine Bar". One wag observed that, if a place calls itself "The Celebrity Wine Bar", you can be fairly sure that it will be rather light on celebrities.
Three of the journos went to the bar and ordered three beers, only for the barmaid to say "nine pounds please".
"Er, isn't it on the house?" one asked, bemused.
"No", said barmaid.
So they paid up. Of course, it was on the house. But the people organizing it hadn't bothered to tell the barmaid. or the manager hadn't. Gibraltar was a bit like that. People were amiably pleasant, but just the other side of smooth competence. The itinerary given to us, for example, had several wrong times on it -- although the version carried by the organizer had the correct times. This caused much confusion throughout the stay.
the roof terrace photographed from above, the morning after the buffet
The main town of Gibraltar is to the west side of the appendix-like jutment that sticks out from the south of Spain. It's not the southernmost point. The town looks across a bay to Algeciras, and you go a few miles south along the coast to Tarifa, the real southernmost point. So the main town of Gibraltar looks west to Spain, and east to "the Rock". The runway runs east to west, literally separating Gibraltar from Spain (thhe northern border of the runway is effectively the border to Spain). The east side of the appendix faces the open Mediterranean. The south side looks towards Africa, not more than 10 miles away, I would say.
After lumping out the normal atrocious rate for an Internet connection (£18 for 24 hours), I got some sleep and missed breakfast.
The following morning we had a couple of talks on the boring financial and even more boring town & planning stuff, before being taken on a tour of Ocean Village, part of a new development that is basically being built on reclaimed land.
The concrete strip at the back of the marina is the runway. The land in the backgrond is Algeciras, west across the bay. Spain begins about 100 metres after the runway, I reckon.
After a pleasant lunch at the Rock Hotel (wild mushroom ravioli with grana padano shavings, medallions of beef with glazed baby onions and burgundy jus, trawberry & banana ramekin) we got an insane bus driver who took us up the Rock. We visited St Michael's Caves (stalagtites and stalagmites, see also Majorca, Monaco, Vietnam). Actually, it was quite impressive, although I was a bit disturbed when I suddenly realized that the "elevator music" that was being played was the theme from Schindler's List. This is not really the music you want to hear when in an enclosed space underground.
____________
______________
______________
______________
After that, it was time to photograph the monkeys, Barbary Macaques.
I am on the left.
This was a hell of a hard picture to get. The baby was very rarely in view for more than a second or two before burrowing back onto its mum's teats for milk.
The monkeys all had personalities. Some were posers, some playful, some grumpy and some aggressive. This was a playful one. Another one performed an absolute classic. He was juggling bits of orange peel while on a ledge like this one. Unfortunately he stepped back too far and, DelBoy-like, vanished from view, accompanied by a monkey-like scream of "Auurrrrkkkk!"
Not one of Britain's finest hours.
After the monkeys, we went on a tour of just a small part of the miles and miles of tunnels that were created in the Rock during World War II, to house troops that, one day, might be needed in North Africa. We had a very enthusiastic guide called Smudge, a northern ex-soldier aged about 45 and still bloody fit.
The journos don their pink hats.
We walked a long way along these tunnels, until we reached "Jock's Balcony", which gave you a view north from about half-way up the Rock. The soldiers would spend some time here at the end of their shift to get a bit of fresh air.
The view from the balcony. This is the eastern end of the runway, with the Med to the right. Just beyond the runway (you can see a road with a roundabout) Spain starts.
The view of the Rock from the runway. Directly in the centre of the picture (not the centre of the Rock, but the centre of the picture including the sky) is the Balcony, a sort of horizontal dark strip.
_________
The town itself echoed faded non-grandeur. Gibraltar is an odd place, but Falmouth was the kind of essence. It still has the feel of a naval/army base, despite the fact that most of them have left. No-one owns a freehold in Gibraltar and the MOD has only slowly handed land back to the Gibraltan government. The buildings tend to have paint peeling away and to look rather shabby. I suspect that the well-off professionals live over the border and that the town centre flats are rented. Maintenance seems low-key, to say the least. Similarly, most of the cars seem to be 10 years old and just this side of rust buckets. Because the place wants to keep its heritage (and tourism) the roads are usually no more than 15 feet wide, and traffic is horrific.
The main shopping thoroughfare at 7.50pm
However, the part that has been reclaimed from the sea is, necessarily, much more modern.
It was here that we went for dinner on the Wednesday evening.
The marina
Too many eaters at once!
Sunset
Unfortunately, the restaurant with the best location (and price to match) provided the most disappointing meal. The menu was limited and a "lemon risotto" to start (actually scallops on lemon rice) was very good. But the waiting staff could not remember who had ordered what, so came out shouting the plates. However, what they shouted failed to match the marketing speak on the menu, so "lemon risotto" was "SCALLOPS!!!!"
Even more disappointingly, my dessert (the one course that this kind of place nearly always gets right) was actually different from what was described. I was expecting a "strawberry and white chocolate mousse", but what I got was strawberry blancmange, and not particularly good strawberry blancmange at that.
I expect that this place can do fantastic meals for four. But, as is so often the case, they are utterly incapable of scaling this up to a meal for 24. Then again, the place wasn't that busy, while some of the other restaurants nearby were distinctly more crowded. Draw your own conclusions.
+++++++++
The following day, after a trip to interview the Chief Minister (clever guy, but, let's face it, still only running a population of 30,000) we were left to our own devices, so seven of us found a restaurant in the main John Mackintosh Sq (Parliament Sq, in fact) where we could eat al fresco. This created one of the more surreal pieces of not-quite-competent service.
Three people ordered burgers, which came with chips (plus the salady kind of stuff that you get in burger buns these days) and three people ordered toasted sandwiches.
When these six dishes arrived, our burgers were accompanied by chips and separate salad, and topped with a fried egg. The toasted sandwiches were accompanied by the tops of the burger buns. Somewhoe the chef had put the salads and burger bun tops on precisely the wrong plates.
We mentioned this minor point to the waitress (after much DIY swapping-over of buns, lettuce leaves and tomatoes), and she shrugged in resigned disbelief. Kind of a "yes, that sort of thing happens all the time here, but I have no idea why".
+++++++++
The Gibraltarians (82% of the population is Gibraltar-born) are British, but they aren't English. While we were witing to see the chief minister the PR guy said that the surname (Caruana) is Maltese, while his own name (Canessa) was Genoese.
Apparently (I discovered this later) after the British took the Rock in the name of the Spanish pretender to the throne (it was a poor third choice after failing to take Cadiz or Barcelona) and reduced Gibraltar town to rubble, the 4,000 Spanish decided to fuck off. It was an early example of vvery efficient ethnic cleansing.
After this, the British had no real idea what to do with it. They tried to trade it away a few times, but only the Spanish wanted it back, and they intended to get it by invasion, not agreement.
So it became a trading port. And Malta and Genoa were important trading ports on the Med. So, those families established in Malta and Genoa sent members of the family (probably the rather dim third son) to manage the "branch" in Gibraltar. Sephardic Jews arrived from North Arfrica.
The result is that the Gibraltarians look more Maltese than they do English. Many of them speak fluent English, but with a very heavy accent. That's probably because in Gibraltar the de facto language (spoken in conversation) is a Spanish-English hybrid. Everyone is bilingual, I was told. What that means is that every Gibraltarian is bilingual. because there are many British people working there -- for insurers, brokers, banks and, of course, egaming companies. Mansion and PaertyGaming, to name but two. Unlike Bermuda, Gibraltar has free labour entry, but it seemed to me (when we went to visit a broking company) that the English guy running the place welcomed us as a kind of blessed visit from civilization. Gibraltarians are proud of the place and are happy to go back there (notwithstanding their houses in Spain) but I doubt that the English sent to work there plan on staying behind when they retire.
____________________
Now, I assume you have heard about scams where people assume that this is the end of the matter, and thus release the goods to the person making the payment, only for the cheque later to fail to clear at the issuing bank.
But what could go wrong with a cheque from Party?
This:
Dear Mr Birks
You recently had a cheque deposited to your account to the value of $995.00.
Our clearing bank notified us that the cheque was lost while in the process of being presented to the issuing bank. We therefore will be debiting your account for the unpaid cheque.
We kindly suggest that you contact the issuer and request a new cheque be sent directly to us for clearance. Also ask the issuer to have the old cheque stopped.
Which I reckon merits a genuine WTF????
Note the phraseology "the cheque was lost" as opposed to "the clearing bank lost it".
So, I telephoned Citibank to find out the name of the Clearing Bank and, luckily (as it transpired) it was the same bank as the issuing bank. In other words, Barclays sent me a cheque. I paid it into Citibank. Citibank sent it to Barclays, which lost it while presenting it to itself and (and here's the classic) then wanted to charge me a $35 "Stop Fee".
So I emailed Paytech and informed them that I thought it a mite unfair to charge me $35 for a mistake by their own bank. And you kind of have Party over a barrel here, because you only have to mention the words "financial journalist" "listed company" and "US regulator" to be fairly sure that PartyGaming will be shitting its pants.
And, all credit to them, within three hours I got an email back saying that the $35 fee would be "waived".
++++++++++++++
Gibraltar was, well, an experience. There were 18 journos in all, including some of the most attractive female journalists ever seen in London. As a person no longer of tender years, I try to avoid lechering after female journos in their 20s. It's just so self-abasing. But there was one on this trip where, to be frank, I just didn't bloody care. My goodness she was gorgeous.
The first evening we had a buffet dinner meet'n'greet on the roof terrace of the "Celebrity Wine Bar". One wag observed that, if a place calls itself "The Celebrity Wine Bar", you can be fairly sure that it will be rather light on celebrities.
Three of the journos went to the bar and ordered three beers, only for the barmaid to say "nine pounds please".
"Er, isn't it on the house?" one asked, bemused.
"No", said barmaid.
So they paid up. Of course, it was on the house. But the people organizing it hadn't bothered to tell the barmaid. or the manager hadn't. Gibraltar was a bit like that. People were amiably pleasant, but just the other side of smooth competence. The itinerary given to us, for example, had several wrong times on it -- although the version carried by the organizer had the correct times. This caused much confusion throughout the stay.
the roof terrace photographed from above, the morning after the buffetThe main town of Gibraltar is to the west side of the appendix-like jutment that sticks out from the south of Spain. It's not the southernmost point. The town looks across a bay to Algeciras, and you go a few miles south along the coast to Tarifa, the real southernmost point. So the main town of Gibraltar looks west to Spain, and east to "the Rock". The runway runs east to west, literally separating Gibraltar from Spain (thhe northern border of the runway is effectively the border to Spain). The east side of the appendix faces the open Mediterranean. The south side looks towards Africa, not more than 10 miles away, I would say.
After lumping out the normal atrocious rate for an Internet connection (£18 for 24 hours), I got some sleep and missed breakfast.
The following morning we had a couple of talks on the boring financial and even more boring town & planning stuff, before being taken on a tour of Ocean Village, part of a new development that is basically being built on reclaimed land.
The concrete strip at the back of the marina is the runway. The land in the backgrond is Algeciras, west across the bay. Spain begins about 100 metres after the runway, I reckon.
After a pleasant lunch at the Rock Hotel (wild mushroom ravioli with grana padano shavings, medallions of beef with glazed baby onions and burgundy jus, trawberry & banana ramekin) we got an insane bus driver who took us up the Rock. We visited St Michael's Caves (stalagtites and stalagmites, see also Majorca, Monaco, Vietnam). Actually, it was quite impressive, although I was a bit disturbed when I suddenly realized that the "elevator music" that was being played was the theme from Schindler's List. This is not really the music you want to hear when in an enclosed space underground.
____________
______________
______________
______________
After that, it was time to photograph the monkeys, Barbary Macaques.
I am on the left.
This was a hell of a hard picture to get. The baby was very rarely in view for more than a second or two before burrowing back onto its mum's teats for milk.
The monkeys all had personalities. Some were posers, some playful, some grumpy and some aggressive. This was a playful one. Another one performed an absolute classic. He was juggling bits of orange peel while on a ledge like this one. Unfortunately he stepped back too far and, DelBoy-like, vanished from view, accompanied by a monkey-like scream of "Auurrrrkkkk!"
Not one of Britain's finest hours.
After the monkeys, we went on a tour of just a small part of the miles and miles of tunnels that were created in the Rock during World War II, to house troops that, one day, might be needed in North Africa. We had a very enthusiastic guide called Smudge, a northern ex-soldier aged about 45 and still bloody fit.
The journos don their pink hats.
We walked a long way along these tunnels, until we reached "Jock's Balcony", which gave you a view north from about half-way up the Rock. The soldiers would spend some time here at the end of their shift to get a bit of fresh air.
The view from the balcony. This is the eastern end of the runway, with the Med to the right. Just beyond the runway (you can see a road with a roundabout) Spain starts.
The view of the Rock from the runway. Directly in the centre of the picture (not the centre of the Rock, but the centre of the picture including the sky) is the Balcony, a sort of horizontal dark strip.
_________
The town itself echoed faded non-grandeur. Gibraltar is an odd place, but Falmouth was the kind of essence. It still has the feel of a naval/army base, despite the fact that most of them have left. No-one owns a freehold in Gibraltar and the MOD has only slowly handed land back to the Gibraltan government. The buildings tend to have paint peeling away and to look rather shabby. I suspect that the well-off professionals live over the border and that the town centre flats are rented. Maintenance seems low-key, to say the least. Similarly, most of the cars seem to be 10 years old and just this side of rust buckets. Because the place wants to keep its heritage (and tourism) the roads are usually no more than 15 feet wide, and traffic is horrific.
The main shopping thoroughfare at 7.50pm
However, the part that has been reclaimed from the sea is, necessarily, much more modern.
It was here that we went for dinner on the Wednesday evening.
The marina
Too many eaters at once!
Sunset
Unfortunately, the restaurant with the best location (and price to match) provided the most disappointing meal. The menu was limited and a "lemon risotto" to start (actually scallops on lemon rice) was very good. But the waiting staff could not remember who had ordered what, so came out shouting the plates. However, what they shouted failed to match the marketing speak on the menu, so "lemon risotto" was "SCALLOPS!!!!"
Even more disappointingly, my dessert (the one course that this kind of place nearly always gets right) was actually different from what was described. I was expecting a "strawberry and white chocolate mousse", but what I got was strawberry blancmange, and not particularly good strawberry blancmange at that.
I expect that this place can do fantastic meals for four. But, as is so often the case, they are utterly incapable of scaling this up to a meal for 24. Then again, the place wasn't that busy, while some of the other restaurants nearby were distinctly more crowded. Draw your own conclusions.
+++++++++
The following day, after a trip to interview the Chief Minister (clever guy, but, let's face it, still only running a population of 30,000) we were left to our own devices, so seven of us found a restaurant in the main John Mackintosh Sq (Parliament Sq, in fact) where we could eat al fresco. This created one of the more surreal pieces of not-quite-competent service.
Three people ordered burgers, which came with chips (plus the salady kind of stuff that you get in burger buns these days) and three people ordered toasted sandwiches.
When these six dishes arrived, our burgers were accompanied by chips and separate salad, and topped with a fried egg. The toasted sandwiches were accompanied by the tops of the burger buns. Somewhoe the chef had put the salads and burger bun tops on precisely the wrong plates.
We mentioned this minor point to the waitress (after much DIY swapping-over of buns, lettuce leaves and tomatoes), and she shrugged in resigned disbelief. Kind of a "yes, that sort of thing happens all the time here, but I have no idea why".
+++++++++
The Gibraltarians (82% of the population is Gibraltar-born) are British, but they aren't English. While we were witing to see the chief minister the PR guy said that the surname (Caruana) is Maltese, while his own name (Canessa) was Genoese.
Apparently (I discovered this later) after the British took the Rock in the name of the Spanish pretender to the throne (it was a poor third choice after failing to take Cadiz or Barcelona) and reduced Gibraltar town to rubble, the 4,000 Spanish decided to fuck off. It was an early example of vvery efficient ethnic cleansing.
After this, the British had no real idea what to do with it. They tried to trade it away a few times, but only the Spanish wanted it back, and they intended to get it by invasion, not agreement.
So it became a trading port. And Malta and Genoa were important trading ports on the Med. So, those families established in Malta and Genoa sent members of the family (probably the rather dim third son) to manage the "branch" in Gibraltar. Sephardic Jews arrived from North Arfrica.
The result is that the Gibraltarians look more Maltese than they do English. Many of them speak fluent English, but with a very heavy accent. That's probably because in Gibraltar the de facto language (spoken in conversation) is a Spanish-English hybrid. Everyone is bilingual, I was told. What that means is that every Gibraltarian is bilingual. because there are many British people working there -- for insurers, brokers, banks and, of course, egaming companies. Mansion and PaertyGaming, to name but two. Unlike Bermuda, Gibraltar has free labour entry, but it seemed to me (when we went to visit a broking company) that the English guy running the place welcomed us as a kind of blessed visit from civilization. Gibraltarians are proud of the place and are happy to go back there (notwithstanding their houses in Spain) but I doubt that the English sent to work there plan on staying behind when they retire.
____________________
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-14 08:22 am (UTC)Do you think the egaming companies will stay in Gibraltar should another country offer them a sweeter deal somewhere along the line?
no subject
Date: 2009-06-14 06:46 pm (UTC)Would the stronger regulation bear Party in better stead in its attempts to re-enter the US? I doubt it. As far as the US is concerned, there's either "in the US or not in the US". The subtleties of regulation from Gibraltar versus IoM will be lost on the US regulators, I fear.
PJ
Flagship - PBM magazine
Date: 2009-06-14 04:13 pm (UTC)Do you know of anybody who might be interested in early issues of Flagship? We are starting to declutter our Daventry house as part of the long delayed "let's move to Shropshire" project and I found about 20 issues in a box that has been unopened for over 15 years.
Seems a shame just to throw them in the bin.
Re: Flagship - PBM magazine
Date: 2009-06-14 06:42 pm (UTC)PJ
Re: Flagship - PBM magazine
Date: 2009-06-26 05:40 pm (UTC)