Things To Know Before You Go

National Insurance Number

June 24, 2018


Here are some cherry blossom trees.



We are going to need them.




What is a National Insurance Number?

Good question. 

I don’t know that we really have the equivalent in Australia. Of course, we may, and it might just be one of those things that happened automatically so I’ve never had to be aware of it, but still. I think it’s probably more like a Social Security number in the US, but don’t quote me. Contributions to National Insurance appear to go towards pension and maternity leave, things like that.
Long story short – you need to get one.

You will need a National Insurance (NI) number to register for most employment accounting, such as self-employed or Limited Company set up. You do not need a NI number in order to start work, which is just as well, because, as you’ll see below, it can take a while to get it sorted…

Here is what will happen when you try to set up a national insurance number;

1.    Being a member of Generation Google, you will probably search online for what to do, which will turn up https://www.gov.uk/apply-national-insurance-number
2.    From here, you will call the listed number - 0800 141 2075 - go through the menu items, and be placed on hold
3.    You will continue to hold for anywhere from 15 minutes to nearly an hour (my personal record)
4.    Once you do speak to someone, they will ask you why you are applying for a NI number, and ask you to provide information such as your full name, your passport and visa details, and your current and/or mailing address.
5.    You will be given a reference number - WRITE THIS DOWN - and told that the application pack will be sent out in 7-10 working days.
6.    You will also be given a number to call if the pack doesn’t arrive within the given timeframe.
a.     If this is a 03456 number - this number is no longer in use, even though it’s apparently sometimes still given out
b.    If this is 0800 141 2079 - this number didn’t work for me on multiple occasions: it spontaneously hung itself up before I was able to make any choices or speak to anyone
c.     NB: if your pack doesn’t arrive, my advice is to call the same number that you did the first time and beg for help from the people there. Chances are they’re the only ones you’ll be able to get into contact with anyway.
d.    NB to the NB: if your pack STILL doesn’t arrive, you call back yet again, find out that an internal error was made and it was never sent in the first place, and have them send it to your new address, because by now you have actually sorted yourself out enough to move.
7.    You need to complete the application and send it back as soon as possible, as it can take up to 6 weeks for a NI number to be issued. 
a.     NB: it has been reported that some banks may accept the cover letter of your NI application pack as proof of address. The author has yet to see this in action. Most banks ask for a completed letter including your allocated NI number.
8.    You may need to go in for an interview to get your NI number sorted. In which case, they should contact you to set something up. I didn’t end up needing to, I just received a letter with my number a few weeks after I sent in the completed pack.


Whew! And another one bites the dust! How are we feeling? Everyone okay? Hang in, we’re nearly at the end, guys. We can do it!

Things To Know Before You Go

Biometric Residence Permit

June 24, 2018

Finally! An easy one!

Getting your Biometric Residence Permit sorted out is definitely one of the easiest steps on this list. All you need is your passport with its visa vignette and the letter that came with your completed visa application. 
When you submitted your visa application, it would have given you a choice of places to get your BRP – probably post offices close to where you said you’d be staying on arrival to the UK. Your chosen location should be on the letter that arrived with your completed visa.
You will need to go to that location before your vignette expires or within 10 days of arriving in the UK, whichever is later. I would get this one sorted ASAP, both because it’s easy and because your BRP is essential if you want to do any international travel (or, you know, remain in the country you actually applied for a visa for, but international travel as well).
Give yourself plenty of time for collection, because your post office could be dead quiet or the bustling centre of the universe depending on the day. And once you’ve got your card, please, whatever you do, don’t lose it! You will need your BRP along with your passport if you’re planning to do any international travel – give them both to the border agents on leaving/returning. Some (if not most) workplaces will require you to at least present your BRP in order to work there. And, again, it’s another piece of documentation that gives you a footprint – one more step away from being a ghost. 


Operas

Coraline

June 24, 2018

Show:             Coraline
Type:              Opera 
Venue:            The Barbican
Date:               Wednesday 4thApril 2018
Seen with:     Tout Seule
Ticket:           £57
View:              Middle of the stalls, so pretty darn good!


Cast:             The Royal Opera; the woman playing the Mother/Other Mother had lost her voice so she walked the role and it was sung by another lady off to the side of the stage. I think they said something about her learning the music in an afternoon or a day or something like that. In any case, it was very impressive.



Verdict:         Coraline was one of the shows that I was so excited for that I didn’t really do any research, I just bought a ticket. It booked out pretty quickly, so I ended up paying more than I usually would for the ticket, but did end up with a pretty great seat.

I struggled with the show at first, but that’s completely on me. See, for some reason, I went in expecting the same or similar music to the Coralinefilm, which is composed by the wonderful Bruno Coulais. He composed some of my favourite soundtracks, not justCoraline, but Les Choristes, The Secret of Kells, and Song of the Sea. His music is full of children’s choirs, made up languages,  building harmonies, and it’s melodic. Above all, it’s melodic. It may contain strange and unsettling melodies at times, but it’s melodic.

The Royal Opera’s Coralinewas not melodic. Thanks to one of my past students (Hi Glenn!) who insisted on doing his exam program on music one year, I know enough to say that the music was dissonant.  Which is to say, sounds that don’t seem to fit together and kind of sound wrong together. Sounds that you want to move or change so that they do sound right together. At least, that’s my understanding. If anyone would like to offer up a more clear explanation, please feel free!

Anyway, the music was dissonant, the whole way through. Which was fine, and I certainly see why – Coralineis a dissonant kind of story. It did just take me till part way into the first act to get my head around it. Once I did, I could see exactly how and why decisions about the composition had been made. And I enjoyed it, I did! The set was great, swinging from one side to the other to let Coraline through the doors. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible were very funny, played to the hilt by their actors even though one of them was suffering from a cold at the time. The Other Mother’s hand was properly terrifying when it got severed and came out to chase Coraline around the room. The mirror world in which the other children were trapped was appropriately spooky, and the stage effects showed a professionalism and restraint that comes from an experienced production team, which is always nice to see.

And yet… I don’t know, I just felt that there was more that could’ve been done. If the music had switched from dissonant to melodic when Coraline entered the Other Mother’s world it would’ve been an appropriately eerie touch. Obviously Coraline couldn’t have been played by a younger singer, the role was too challenging for that, but the result was someone playing a child who didn’t appear to have ever interacted with a child in real life. Every stereotypical pout and stomped foot pulled just a little at that feeling of reality that a really good show maintains effortlessly.

Overall, a very interestingproduction, and I do use that in all senses of the word. I know a lot of people took their children to see Coraline, and there were certainly a lot of children on the night that I went. I don’t know that I would’ve enjoyed it when I was a child – I don’t think I would’ve understand what they were trying to do with the music. And seeing as the Other Mother’s hand properly freaked me out at 28, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t see it as a child after all…

UK

St Albans

June 05, 2018

Recently I was lucky enough to be invited home for dinner by one of the lovely ladies that I work with. I'm currently providing Speech Therapy services in a school, and one of the nursery school teachers had been offering dinner invitations since my first day on the job.

So one afternoon, I hopped in her car and made the hour+ journey back to her home in St Albans.

Goodness gracious me.

I had no idea of what to expect, other than lots and lots of food. Which was certainly forthcoming - her son is away at university and I think I may have activated the 'mum' gene when I walked in the door. I could almost see the wheels turning in her head; 'I have someone to feed! Excellent!'.

So dinner was absolutely delicious, and I am so grateful to both herself and her husband for hosting me. For privacy reasons, obviously, that is as much as I will say about them, lovely as they are.

Instead, let me show you St Albans.


St Albans was a Roman town, Verulamium, that later took it's name from the first English saint, St Alban. Or so the story goes. In any case, there is an absolutely gorgeous cathedral that apparently has some medieval ?paintings ?designs inside. We didn't get to go in, which is a pity, but just means I will have to return!


The town has been in many films and television shows, and you can see why - it's absolutely lovely. Shout out to my mum - it's even been in Foyle's War! 



There's also a beautiful, and sprawling, park, with some Roman ruins that I will also have to return for.




All in all, it was an absolutely lovely afternoon/evening, and I am ever grateful for the kindness of new friends.













Aussie

You, An Australian

May 14, 2018

There are some strange moments I have experienced since moving to the UK that appear to be unique to my identity as an Australian;


When your Norwegian friend playfully runs her hand across your back so as to alert but not startle you, however you, an Australian, think it’s a spider.

When there is a dark shape on the corner of the ceiling which you logically know must be the bathroom exhaust fan, however you, an Australian, think it’s a spider. 

When something, a piece of dust most likely, brushes against your skin, however you, an Australian, think it's a spider.

When a small black shape trundles across your doona cover, giving no reason for panic, however you, an Australian, think it’s a spider.


And when your housemate squeals and darts away from the wall, and you spin around looking for the huntsman, only for you, an Australian, to say ‘that’s a spider?!’

Yes, that wee little thing is, in fact, a spider



Things To Know Before You Go

Bank Account and/or Access to Money

May 14, 2018

You’ve spent all this money on your visa and registration and flights and who knows what else, but if you do (hopefully) have any left over, this is the time to think about where to put it. 
Some options are;
1.    See if you can open a bank account before you leave home. Some banks have international branches, or agreements with other banks overseas. Best plan? Go to your bank in plenty of time before you’re due to leave and make an appointment to talk about what they can offer you.
2.    Open a bank account when you arrive in the UK. Get your documentation in place as soon as possible, even before you leave if you can, and rock up to a branch once you dump your gear.
a.     As of March-May 2018 HSBC will accept a passport as proof of ID, and a letter from an employer on company letterhead stating your full name, address, and job title as proof of address. They will, of course, accept the normal proofs of address (mobile phone plan bills, utility bills, etc) but an employer letter can be easier to come by at times.
b.     Another option for proof of address is changing your address to a UK address (if you know where you’re going to be living/have friends who don’t mind/have cleared it with your AirBnB host/etc) on your Australian bank details, then going to your bank and getting them to print a copy of your statement in branch with your UK address on the statement. Some banks will accept this as proof of address, even though it’s from an Australian bank.
c.     If you register with a GP once you’re in the UK (it’s free!) you can use that as proof of address for some banks.

NB: you will also need to think about money for before you get a UK bank account, which we will talk about at the end of this post.

Opening a bank account in the UK used to be a doddle, or close enough to a doddle that you could still call it one. Apparently, however, they now have concerns that have made it rather less of a doddle (Brexit? What Brexit?). If you read on forums about ‘this or that bank allows you to open an account with just a passport!!1!’ smile fondly as you reminisce about the good old days and then sigh as you close the tab.

Or, in my case, read the blog posts that recommend ‘get your new housemates to put your name on one of the bills in your new rental place and use that as proof of address’ and resolve to wait for that. 
Then a lovely rental property becomes available, and then you apply, and then you find out that you’re required by the agency to have a bank account. 
So you try whatever you can, go to every bank, and every one of them asks for a bill (which you don’t have), a rental agreement (which you wish you had), or a national insurance letter (which, as mentioned already, is not the quickest thing in the world to bring into realisation).
So you go home, have a bit of a cry, make yourself a cup of tea, and write a blog post. 
Well, it’s cheaper than therapy, at least.

I did eventually end up getting an account with HSBC, somewhat later than was strictly necessary. Why later? Well, in true Kelsey fashion, I botched it a bit.
I’m sure you’re all used to hearing that by now.

To explain, let’s go back – I worked in the UK as a Gap Year Student at a lovely school when I was 18. I had an account with HSBC at that point, and while I was pretty sure that it had been closed, I thought it couldn’t hurt to go in and check if there was still a record of me in the system. There was, but the account had been closed a long time ago and they weren’t going to just open it again. So I left it at that.

And for some reason, I didn’t go back to HSBC. I don’t know why. I think maybe I just assumed that I couldn’t open an account there again? I don’t know why, don’t ask. 

Anyway, I tried most of the other major banks with varying bits of identification. Lloyds told me that if my employer wrote a letter on company letterhead confirming my address, I could open an account. Well, one person at Lloyd’s told me that. The next person took one look at the letter from my employer and said, no, you MUST have a National Insurance number. The person I spoke to on me third trip to Lloyds was downright rude.

Such a shame. They have an excellent TV ad with lovely horses, but they might want to spend some of that ad money on social skills training…

Some weeks later, after Santander (next available appointment to open an account would be in a month), Lloyds (rude), Natwest (nope), Barclays (nopenope), etc, etc, I headed back to HSBC. Actually, my dear friend Steph asked why I hadn’t tried them again, and I realised I had completely written them off for no reason. And it really was no reason.

They were lovely.

More specifically, the lady who set up my account was lovely. I didn’t have the letter from my employer with me at the time, so she booked me an appointment for the next day and walked me through the whole process with kindness and calm. She explained absolutely everything and made sure I knew exactly what I was signing. It was a very un-bank-like experience.

Clearly, HSBC is my pick, just for ease of setting up and customer service. You can always switch once you’ve settled a bit more, but getting a UK bank account gives you a bit of a foot in the door, so to speak. Beyond a bit of financial security, it also means that you exist, to put it bluntly. For the first few weeks when you move to a new place, you don’t exist. There’s too few records of you, your footprints are too light. You may as well be a ghost.
A bank account gives you something closer to corporeal form.

In regards to money while you’re waiting for a bank account, there are also a few options;
1.    Cash. The old favourite. If you’re looking to exchange a large amount of cash, don’t leave it to the last minute. The pound isn’t an uncommon currency, but the last thing you want to do is have to go to the dodgy place with the terrible exchange rate because everyone else is out of sterling.
2.    Travel cards. Because I used to fly with Qantas for work, I ended up using my Qantas frequent flyer card for a long time when I first arrived in the UK. The exchange rate isn’t the best, and I probably could’ve found something better if I’d sat down and searched, but it was convenient and, as we know, I have a tendency to botch things, so at least I had something! There are all kinds of travel cards these days, so you should only need to do a little bit of research to find something decent.
3.    Credit cards. You can, of course, use your credit card overseas. But, outside of an emergency, why would you? It’s pretty much like holding up a sign to your bank and saying, please, rob me blind, I’m begging you.
Emergencies only, people.

Even though, as I said, the exchange rate probably isn’t the greatest, I don’t really have any complaints about the Qantas card. You can get one even if you’re not a frequent flyer. I never had a problem with it, as far as I can remember, and while not flash, it did what it said on the box. It let me use my money overseas with very little hassle, and I can’t ask any more of it. Oh, and you can use it as a contactless card on the tube too, from memory. Not too shabby.




Feeling overwhelmed yet? Don’t. We’ll get there, I promise. For all your hard work and to sustain your mental health, here’s some birdies!







Plays

Mary Stuart

May 14, 2018




Show:                 Mary Stuart (by Friedrich Schiller, adapted/directed by Robert Icke)
Type:                  Play
Venue:               Duke of York’s Theatre
Date:                   31stMarch 2018
Seen with:         Tout seule
Ticket:                £22
View:                  Upper Circle

Cast:                Juliet Stevenson, Lia Williams, John Light, Carmen Munroe, Michael Byrne, Elliot Levey, David Jonsson Fray, Rudi Dharmalingam



Verdict:    

I tried, lord knows I tried, to keep my reviews and recaps of shows brief. But that is, ultimately too difficult. Particularly  when it comes to a show like Mary Stuart. So wave bye-bye to brevity, everyone, and let’s get into it.

Mary Stuart is a long play. LONG. Of the four acts, three of them (and roughly 2 hours) take place before interval. The original play was written in 1800, and has been adapted many times as stage productions, radio plays, and an opera.

Mary Stuart examines the end of the life of Mary, Queen of Scots, imprisoned, and eventually executed, by her cousin Elizabeth I. Apart from a fictionalised meeting between them, orchestrated by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, most of the events and timelines in the play are real, if sensationalised for the stage.

In the Almeida Theatre’s production, the parts of Mary Stuart and Queen Elizabeth are decided each night at the beginning of the performance, literally on the spin of a coin. Just think about that for a second. A coin spins, the camera zooms in, and one woman is raised to glory while the other walks towards her inevitable death. Given the historical context of the play, it feels eerily appropriate.

It also feels eerily appropriate for this day and age at times. In one telling scene in the first act Mary, imprisoned, rails against the irregularities of the trial that has sentenced her to death. Some of her reasons don’t hold water today - she objects to not being tried in front of a council of her ‘peers’ (as a queen, only Elizabeth herself is her peer). But to look at some of the others; evidence not being heard in court, potential false witnesses – these could be objections made about the modern legal system.

And there’s so much more;
Mortimer, a young noble with plans to free Mary from imprisonment by force, thinking his pledge of allegiance and promise of help gives him the right to Mary’s body. 
Elizabeth being physically manhandled and manipulated around the stage by her male advisors.
Elizabeth and Dudley’s rough and tumble, push-pull courtship mirrored in mockery by one of her advisors later, the first trying to convince her to save Mary and the latter trying to convince Elizabeth to kill her. 

The core of the play is the power struggle between the two queens. Mary was younger and famously beautiful, while Elizabeth was notoriously petty and jealous of other women. The two women only meet twice in the play, once during the invented ‘meeting in the woods’ and once in a sort of dream sequence towards the end, when Elizabeth is being roped into her royal regalia for the first time and Mary is being stripped down in preparation for her death.

On the night that I saw it, Juliet Stevenson played Mary and Lia Williams played Elizabeth. Both were fantastic, although I have to say that Lia William’s paranoid, egotistical, desperate Elizabeth edged out as the favourite for me.

Elizabeth, who was called a bastard longer than any of her siblings and was more true a child of Henry than any of them. It was there in her capriciousness, in the faceless phantoms that were the root of all her fears, her childishness and inability to hear anyone praised over her.

At one stage, Elizabeth signs the warrant for Mary’s death, as she was told to do by her advisors, but then gives it to her secretary (played wonderfully throughout by David Jonsson Fray) without any clear order of what to do with it, saying that she knows he will do the right thing. He is, understandably, concerned, fearing that without a clear and direct order, he’ll get blamed for whatever the outcome turns out to be. Which of course comes to pass; when one of the Lords eventually takes it from him and serves it, ordering Mary’s execution, Elizabeth is then able to blame the secretary, saying it was never her intention to execute Mary and that the order was handed over incorrectly. The Lord who served the warrant is dismissed from court. The secretary is sent to the Tower, and his death. I don’t know whether the choice to cast a young black man as the secretary was intentional, but it certainly made yet another powerful statement on the imbalances of power and the feeling of almost inevitability that goes hand in hand with helplessness.

Mary was strident at times, to where I nearly lost my feeling for her - I wondered, like Elizabeth, at the unmatchable beauty and wit that she was said to possess. But when she pulled back, when the shrieks gave way to pleas, I understood the shrieks all the more. The urgency, the lack of agency, the educated woman backed into a corner, into a death sentence she saw coming and could still do nothing to escape. 

The young man playing Mortimer was unfortunately the weak point of the play for me. He never really moved beyond juvenile, somewhat whiny, and put me in mind of every annoying, entitled young man who ever tried to mansplain my own world to me. Which may have been his intention, in which case, bravo! But he did come across as a slightly two dimensional character.

I had a brief moment at the very beginning of the play where I was positive that I knew one of the actors from something. To the point where I had to stop and check (thank you, Google!), and then text my friend in excitement at interval. Robert Dudley was played by John Light, who is in the North and Southminiseries that Steph and I watch religiously every few years. He, and the cast on the whole, were fantastic, but the two leading ladies did very much steal the show, so bravura to them. 

Mary Stuart begs the question - why would anyone ever choose to rule? And yet, the two women at the centre of the play, do. One maybe more reluctantly than the other, although for all her claiming that she wants to be free of it, Elizabeth does nothing but cling to the throne with her fingertips if needs be. 
The show must be exhausting. Mary’s role appears the more challenging at first glance, but her motivations at least stay true throughout the story. Elizabeth vacillates, something she was famous for doing in life, to the utter despair of her advisors. On stage she is constantly wringing her hands, striding around, picking imaginary lint off the clothes of her advisors. She clearly sees herself as young and desirable, and is terrified of being confronted by a younger, more beautiful Mary. In reality, her jealousy destroyed more than just her Stuart cousin - her Grey cousins, the sisters of Lady Jane Grey, were similarly hated for their youth and beauty. So too were Catherine Carey, the daughter of Mary Boleyn and (possibly) King Henry, making her Elizabeth’s cousin and potential half-sister, and Catherine’s daughter Lettice. Elizabeth was a woman not so much scared of her mortality, but of having the proof of it presented in front of her.

The final scene of the play is haunting – Mary, stripped down to her shift, her eyes fixed on heaven, a martyr in the making, and Elizabeth, laced into a gown in which she can barely move, her face smeared with thick, white paint. Mary is the one going to her death, but it is Elizabeth who ends the play abandoned, alone in the middle of the stage, trapped, like a pale corpse in a golden dress.