I was so distracted by Basil Brush’s Boom-Booms the other day that I didn’t notice something very important: British supermarkets stock Sudafed on the shelves! Wheeeeeeeee! Why don’t the Lonely Planet guides mention this?
This has brightened my whole day. I was about to post a rant about the difficulties of opening a bank account in the UK: basically, you need to present your passport, birth certificate, parent’s birth certificates, a personal letter of introduction from your local MP or Peer, a photograph of yourself shaking hands with a player in a premiership league football team, evidence of your income, and evidence that you are a customer of good standing at another bank – which you must then renounce by burning all your other passbooks and bank cards in a bonfire verified by three independent witnesses. On the other hand, considering that these are the same requirements demanded by jumped-up shampoo salesmen in Australian pharmacies when you try to buy Sudafed, it’s a swings-and-roundabouts kind of deal.
you now have to give over your first-born and receive a GPS implant before you can buy a prepaid phone in Australia. No first-born, no phone.