Brighton required some attention and Mr Richard helped me out by putting me up for a few weeks. You may remember I met up with Richard in Croatia alongside Sam and Steve for our Broatian tour - if not have a look over Day 331 through 338; there is a particularly ravishing profile shot of Steve (who took this curious image) and one of the whole gang where Richard is looking notably adventurous.
We caught up with Rob who was renting/house sitting a strange industrial space with Hannah. It’s the kind of deal where you are a sort of guardian for the property as it’s cheaper to rent to someone at a reduced rate than it is to hire security. Rob has always been fantastic at finding the best contracts and making bizarre agreements; I think everytime I see him he tells me about some ludicrous arrangement or customer service magic that he’s worked. This deal in particular was very peculiar, the top floor was separated by plasterboard to form separate living spaces but they were mostly unoccupied. One section had clothing and what looked like film props scattered everywhere - initially I thought it was a squat; I was told someone used the space to produce clothes for the Notting Hill carnival.
I finally got in contact with the Australian Taxation Office to file my tax return but lacked a small piece of information required to link the service with myGov. This is a little tricky if you’re not residing in Australia and of course you can pay an accountant to solve all of your problems however friends that have used these services have had a hefty percentage of their rebate taken as payment; this I cannot afford. The Gordian knot came in the form of a linking code after a lengthy conversation at 2am GMT with the ATO. It then took 20 minutes to complete.
These are the things we face when returning to normality.
Pro tip: If you are going to call a foreign country where the rate is enough to solve the UK’s deficit, use an online service like Skype which can reduce the cost by up to a factor of ten or more.
(Photo credit to Steve)