Being on hold

This morning I went through some old emails and cleared them out. I tried to do some work using Photoshop on Mauser's PC, but he didn't have Photoshop installed. I think he also has Vista installed (as well as Windows 7) with an old version of photoshop on, but I wasn't sure how to boost into Vista on his PC.

For my photo website I want to do a series of articles comparing the different ways you can do macro photography (except using bellows since I don't have any). So I took some photos in the back garden using my Panasonic FZ5 and a Raynox DCR-250 close-up diopter lens.

In the afternoon I spent a long time on the phone to Nationwide building society, trying to an update on how my application to open an account with them was progressing. I had applied for the account via their website a month ago and not heard anything since.

First I got sent round in circles, with each person saying that their department didn't deal with it, and transferring me to another person who said they didn't deal with it, then transferring me, etc. And I had to spend quite a while on hold between each person. Eventually I ended up with a lady who gave me two telephone numbers who she said would be able to deal with my query.

The person I spoke to on the first telephone number I had been given said that they didn't deal with it, and they'd transfer me to the correct department. After a few minutes of waiting the hold music stopped and it was just silent. So I waited about another 20 minutes until I gave up and hung up.

I tried the other telephone number I had been given, but it only had options to do with ISAs and Child Trust Funds, which wasn't the type of account I was trying to open, and it didn't have a 'for any other queries or to speak to a cutomer service representative' option.

I checked the Nationwide website, and the only way given there to contact them is via the phone. (If you have an internet banking account with them you can also contact them via the secure messaging part of internet banking, but I don't have an internet banking account with them).

In the end I just took Nationwide's address from one of the letters they have sent me, and wrote them a letter saying that since I couldn't get the correct dept. when phoning them, please could they pass my letter to the correct dept. and get them to phone me back. I don't hold out much hope though.

The other annoying thing about contacting Nationwide is that all their telephone numbers are non-geographic, and so much more expensive to call than normal geographic numbers. I did manage to find a geographic equivalent of the main telephone number I called first, but couldn't find geographic equivalents of the two telephone numbers they gave me.

I read a bit more of John Shaw's Closeups in Nature.

I checked dpreview and The Web Squeeze, then played on Mario Galaxy 2 with L for about 10 minutes.

In the evening I watched 'Up' (and the extras) with L and Mauser. I took some more photos in the garden, and had a haircut.