ATM WTF

I have a real problem with ATMs

Not just the fundamental issue of having to rely on a machine to present me with my own money in order to buy food to ensure my on-going survival – it’s something a little more prosaic than that.

It’s the beeps. The nagging beeps that harass you to remove your card or remove the money once it’s been squeezed out through the machine’s mealy-mouthed pinch rollers.

I get that the beeps are there as some kind of auditory spur, to prompt you into physically interacting with the machine at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner. I get that they are an aid to informing people with visual impairments that a step in the process they have undertaken has just been completed.

But I hear the beeps as an impatient nag. An antisocial klaxon that announces to the world that I haven’t removed my card or my cash quick enough for the machine’s liking. It’s like beeping a car horn at someone because they aren’t moving fast enough or are in your way.

I find myself constantly in a race against the machine’s sensors; trying to whip out my card before the machine can get in that first beep; cursing when I inevitably fail to do it. Because let’s face it most ATM’s have a grip like a pornstar sucking… er… an ice lolly (for example).

The beeps are just too abrasive. Too impersonal. Too open to negative interpretation.

Surely a recorded voice would be better? Somebody like Kate Winslet softly intoning things like, “Thank you for using me to fulfil your transactional needs – you may now remove your huge wad from my slot.” I wouldn’t mind if the world and his daughter heard that emanating from the ATM I was using.

Of course, these messages would need to be carefully regulated and recorded solely off-site. Giving the local cashiers access to recording their own messages would only lead to trouble. Messages like “You can now remove your penis from my portal” or “You have been too late with your withdrawal and there is a chance I am now pregnant” would undoubtedly turn many a head in your local branch of HSBC and not in a good way.

But all things considered they would be an improvement on the beeps and might even be good for business. I’m sure I can’t be the only person who would rather the world saw me as a pervert with a cashpoint fetish rather than just another slightly OCD nerd.

Can I?

A Little Less Banky

According to their TV adverts Barclays are launching a great new gimmick.

Personalized credit cards.

That’s right. Anyone with a camera or a hooky copy of Adobe Photoshop can design their own picture or graphic to be printed onto their Barclays credit card which they can then use in any store, restaurant or Heritage site in the country if not the entire world. Apparently, Barclay’s idea is to be “a little less banky”.

A-effing-mazing.

Being of a puerile bent, my mind instantly leapt at the potential for comedic mayhem that I could unleash onto my favourite unsuspecting store cashiers. A credit card with my middle-finger, enlarged by enforced perspective, erupting in eye-watering 3D as my gurning face grins lasciviously behind it. Yeah, swipe that shop clerk! Or maybe something a bit more satirical… me dressed up as a stereotypical crook – black and white striped jersey and black eye-mask, hauling a bag of swag over my shoulder. How much for my weekly shop, Mr Tesco? Daylight robbery? You betcha! Or even better… the ultimate social commentary. We’ve all heard of Christmas party goers photocopying their bum-cracks during office revels. Well, that’s small fry and amateurish compared to your very own credit card proudly displaying your cranked open bum cheeks below the MasterCard icon. Yeah, I’ll take some cash back on that please, Mr Cashier. Worth every frigging penny!

I even went so far as to mock up some initial designs and break out my digital camera. I even thought about acquiring a “back, sack and crack” but figured you could take suffering for your art a little bit too far.

In the end my little comedy ship ran aground before it even left the port (kind of like the Mary Rose only without the overblown Tudor ego weighing it down). It appears Barclays, utter killjoys that they are, have stipulated a few “image guidelines”. Here they are in all their full unbroken-down glory (my additions are in italics):

 

 

1. You must own the image or have the permission of the image owner to use it. (yeah, der)

2. If your image includes another person, you must have their consent to use it. (ditto)

3. The image you choose for your card must not contain any of the following:

• Trademarks or company names – eg, images marked with ® or ™ signs (so Jedi but not Star Wars)
• Images or text protected by copyright – eg, images marked with © or other watermarks or notations (no quotes from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four)
• Slogans, tag lines, branding, marketing or promotional products, services or images of companies (does that include “McBollocks”?)
•  Images of, or the name or nickname of, celebrities, musicians, sportspersons, entertainers, public figures, film stars, cartoon characters, members of the royal family or other famous people (bang goes my Paul Daniels’ “you’ll like this but not” a lot idea)
• Contact information – eg, telephone numbers, URLs, Facebook and Twitter usernames account numbers, addresses or email addresses (a major blow to call-girls everywhere and I can’t even poke the checkout girl)
• Political statements or images relating to ethnicity or religion (so much for my “Jesus, that’s expensive!” idea)
• Images of flags, except for the Union Jack/UK flag, St George’s Cross/English flag, St Andrew’s Cross/Scottish flag, The Red Dragon/Welsh flag and St Patrick’s Saltire/Northern Irish flag. If any of these are used, they can only be images of the original national flags and must not be edited, cropped or have any additional art work or writing on them (what about the Jolly Roger – is that not OK?)
• Images, signs, symbols or text relating to money, currency, drugs, tobacco, alcohol, gangs, hatred, graffiti, betting, gambling, or financial products and services (what? banking generally)
• Provocative, lewd or sexual images or content (that’s 95% of images on the internet ruled out)
• Nudity (does that include animals?)
• Offensive material – eg, images, signs, symbols or text relating to violence, death, injury, racism, cruelty, profanity, obscenity, weapons, firearms, ammunition or terrorism (that’s all references to the armed forces ruled out)
• Anti-social or obscene behaviour, or socially unacceptable groups (so sober pacifist tramps are OK?)
• Content where drinking, being drunk, smoking or gambling is the focus (the Great British social scene down the pan)
• Text, unless benign and in the English language (no interesting quotes from Chaucer)
• Any image that might reflect poorly or might engender hostility toward company brands, including MasterCard®, Visa® or Barclays (that’s my bumhole right out of the equation then)
• Any reference to the Olympic Games, World Cup or any other international branded event (no candid shots of the Ladies’ Bowls Tournament)
• Reference to any bank, building society or other monetary institution (so much for my “HSBC is great” idea and I guess the Mafia is out too?)
• Weapons, unless in a ceremonial context (what if I kill someone during a twenty-one gun salute?)

Right. Basically this rules out any idea that I have already had and / or any idea that I am ever going to have. I pretty much guarantee it. Apart from one. The word BORING in very large type spread across the face of the card.

*sigh*

Yet again, the bankers of this country have stifled creativity, public spending and the potential for economic growth.

Maybe the word “shameful” would be a more suitable design?

The World's Favourite Banker

I didn't set out to watch Gary Barlow: On Her Majesty's Service, truly I didn't. I was just waiting for The Apprentice final to begin and found myself pitched in at the half way point.

About five minutes after that I wanted to retch up my spleen.

Oh I know the whole premise of the show was a huge Royal arse-kissing exercise with Gary Barlow puckering up his nice-boy-next-door lips and wiping off the residue with a napkin but I was gobsmacked at just how far the ex-Take That frontman was prepared to go in service to Her Majesty.

And can I just say right here, at the top of this mountain of invective, that I genuinely have no beef with The Royals. I am not anti-Royalist by any means though at the same time there is a noticeable absence of bunting from around my domicile this Bank Holiday weekend. I am a jockey who quite spectacularly rides the fence named "Couldn't Care Less Either Way".

I can only suppose from the title of the show that we were meant to see Gary as some kind of James Bond character, travelling the globe on a "mission impossible" to sample as much musical diversity as humanly possible armed only with a state-of-the-art laptop and a boom mic operator. In the last half hour that I saw Gary skipped his way across Africa, Jamaica, Australia and The Solomon Islands.

James Bond he wasn't. Suave and sophisticated he most certainly wasn't.

He was a stiff Englishman in a pair of shorts. And as patronizing as all hell.

But in a nice way. I need to stress the niceness of it actually. He was nice. He went out of his way to be nice. To be above and beyond nice. To stretch nicety to the point where a normal human being's mind would bow and bend and finally snap itself into the irredeemable realm of psychopathology.

He told a group of African musicians who had fashioned their own instruments from rubbish that their music was nice. He told an Aborgine classical guitar player that his music was really nice. Really, really nice. Hey, he was really pushing the boat on that one. The Aborigine guy had an English interpreter, prompting Gary to ask of the guy spoke English. Yes, Gary. He speaks the Queen's English better than you or I, the interpreter was there to convert his 1950's BBC tones into Mancunian slang the better to swing the meaning past your cloth-eared brain. After recording the quite superb guitar playing, Gary turned knowingly to the camera and said that he reckoned Mr Aborigine knew more English than he was cracking on... Gary nodded sagely and lowered his voice an octave to show that a great pearl of wisdom was about to drop out of his beared maw, "Just like the French."

Christ, if that is James Bond abroad then the British Secret Service is truly fucked. Musically we've been buggered for years.

And the end result? The masterpiece cobbled together by all this globetrotting?

They played it to the Queen with not only Gary present but also Andrew Lloyd Webber. I'm guessing his face was there to provide effective distraction from the music. The Queen sat tense and stiff like she was passing a gall stone. And that was before they'd even started playing the CD.

The song was bland. The song was forgettable.

It was... nice.

Gary had tried to capture the music of the world (or to be exact the Commonwealth) in the hope of coming up with something original and groundbreaking.

Instead all he produced was the background music to a bank advert or British Airways.

As the final notes faded out, I expected the voice of Sir Michael John Gambon to intone "HSBC - The World's Favourite Bank", just before the visuals cut to a stylized atlas highlighting all the cities of the world where you can get really appalling service from your bank.

The song said nothing about the Queen or the Jubilee or Britain or anything. The only thing that was Royal about it was one sample of Prince Harry slapping a tamborine about halfway through the song, and to be honest, I don't think Fairport Convention are going to be in a rush to sign him up.

What an enormous waste of money, energy, time and life. For you, for me and for The Queen.

Next time, Your Maj, might I suggest Engelbert Humperdinck?