A few of my friends who moved to London/UK asked my advice regarding a few common topics so I've compiled the list of things I've told them and I'm putting it here for anyone else who may find it helpful.
Housing
I've always shared flats in London so these websites may be better suited for people renting a room:
Spareroom.co.uk: my favourite one, offers are filtered and it has a great search engine / alert system. Early bird option is worth the cost as it may help you secure a great deal.
Gumtree.com: Lots of offers but be careful with deals too good to be true. Some are fakes to lure you in to get in touch with an agent who will try to offer you something else (generally more expensive).
Moveflat.co.uk: Not as many offers as the above ones but not bad.
Regarding British tenancy laws, your landlord has to put your deposit in a Deposit Security Scheme (DSS), make sure you ask him for the DSS details.
Final advice: if you see a flat/room in London that you like and the price is good take it immediately. If you don't chances are someone else will. It's a very competitive market.
Foreign Exchange
Transferring money home, or to the UK, using conventional banks may become very expensive as their rates and fees are not amazing. You get better deals using specialised Foreign Exchange providers. I've only used one and I've been very happy with all the transactions I've placed through them.
SmartCurrencyExchange.com: You call them and get a quote for the amount of money you want to transfer (I've got rates as good as 2% above spot price). Transfer pounds to their pound bank account and they will transfer euros the destination account you wish in 3 business days. They also support other currencies.
ATM Machine / Debit Card: I've written about this here (in Portuguese), the summary is you get charged fees for every transaction. If you are doing many (6 or more) it's better to withdrawn as much money as possible as opposed of several small card transfers.
Taxes and National Insurance
The best website to get information about this is HMRC. Some companies will help you get a National Insurance Number, while in other cases you'll have to take care of it yourself.
IRS: For people whose only source of income is their salary they don't need to fill IRS forms. Taxes will be deducted from your salary and HMRC will repay you some tax back if you started working half way through the fiscal year or if you leave London before the fiscal year ends.
You got a Per Annum offer but now you are wondering how much you'll get in the end of the month after taxes? Check listentotaxman.com. BTW, contrary to certain continental countries, in the UK you'll only get 12 salaries per year. There are no extra subsidies for Xmas or holidays month.
Getting Around London
Don't forget to buy an Oyster Card once you get to an Underground Station.
tfl.gov.uk: TFL handles Buses and Underground and they have a great journey planner on their website
Barclays (Boris) Bikes: For £45/year it's a great way of travelling in London!
Getting out of London
By plane, check skyscanner.net to find the best flight rates, don't forget to chose "London All" as this will find flights to/from all airports around London.
By train: NationalRail.co.uk
By bus: MegaBus.com, low cost buses, NationalExpress.co.uk, normal coaches service
Health
UK has the reputation of having one of the best Health systems in the world. It's called NHS and you can use their website to find out all you need to know.
Communications
Calling home from your mobile phone/landline can be expensive. There a few other cheaper methods:
Skype.com: obviously you can use Skype to make calls using the internet but you can also use it to call to phone numbers (rates)
Voipcheap.com: A cheaper way to call phone numbers from the web is Voipcheap, not only the rates are better thank Skype's it also offer freedays to call landlines for free. If you have a slow internet connection you can also call a Voipcheap's local phone number from your phone and then dial the number you want to call using your voipcheap credit.
WhatsApp/Viber: have a smartphone with an internet connection? Chances are you are already using one of these apps. They are great to keep in touch with folks back home either by sending messages of phone calls.
Living Costs
So you got a big offer to work in London, but how much does it actually cost to live in London?
Expatistan.com: Expatistan helps you compare the cost of living in your present city to the one you are moving.
Shopping
You got yourself a flat and now you need to buy some appliances, bed linen, gadgets, etc. Where to go?
argos.co.uk: There are many Argos in London and chances are there is one close to you. There will find very good prices on a very wide range of products. You can oder what you want to buy from the website, go to one of the shops, pay and collect.
amazon.co.uk: With free delivery on so many items it's hard not like Amazon. Probably the best website for electronic products, media and books.
ebay.co.uk: Most renown for its auctions ebay also lets you buy from shops, including shops in China that will sell you incredibly cheap adapters and gadgets. After you search for something click on the "Buy Now" tab and this will show you item for available for sale.
Enjoy your stay in London and have fun!
Showing posts with label london. Show all posts
Showing posts with label london. Show all posts
Monday, September 24, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Why you should stay away from Talk Talk
This article is probably the one I have the least pleasure writing but is a deserved one.
A month ago I moved to my new flat in Limehouse in which the internet is provided by Talk Talk. We have their (advertised) 24Mb service. From the beginning I felt the speed wasn't very fast but for normal web navigation it was bearable. It was when I had to send my first email with a 5MB attachment that I noticed something was definitely wrong. It timed out a few times and when it finally was sent it still took some 15 minutes or more. I decided to take their speed test to find out our speed was actually 1.5Mbps dowload and 0.02Mbps upload. Called them, endured the standard obvious questions and finally the guy told me there was an issue and he was going to fix it in 48 hours. Two days later, nothing, new call, obvious repetitive standard questions and finally a helpful guy who recommend us to connect our router directly to the test socket. That implied disassembling our BT wall socket but that night we saw 8Mbps download speeds and 0.24 Mbps upload speeds, the fastest we ever got!
A few days from then slow speeds again, for example, it was impossible to do a Skype video call and even sound calls were difficult. We called them, answered the same repetitive questions and this time they sent an engineer who might have charged us £50 if the issue was inside our flat! The guy came 2 days later, brought his own router and did tests for a hour. After which he concluded the issue was not at our place but probably on the local exchange. He also filed some sort of report so the issue would be fixed.
After a few more days without any improvements we called them. At every call they would always give us the same BS about checking our wireless connection or about trying connecting with the cable, etc, etc. This time the phone operator had the nerve to say he could fix anything! 5 min later he admitted he couldn't actually fix it, LOL! Then he said he would escalate it. Later we got a text message asking if it was fixed. Obviously it wasn't. In another phone call the guy asked me to change the Router Wireless Channel, I tried to explain him that wouldn't fix the issue and even so he insisted me to do it...
More or less at the same time I exposed our situation to @TalkTalkCare on twitter, they asked the standard boring questions and provided me a form. I filled and.... you can guess: nothing!
We finally got tired of this, my flatmate called them (yes, they tried to ask the scripted questions even though we have a long story with them) and asked to speak with a manager. The manager said our connection was "normal" even though or download speeds were varying between 2-3Mbps, our upload speeds between 0.02-0.15Mbps and since we had internet no reason to complain. He also said he could send another engineer for £130!!! My flatmate asked "will that guarantee the issue is fixed?" Answer: "no". Since we were not having the service we hired we asked to cancel it and get our money back. Unfortunately Talk Talk charges £140 for contract cancelations!!! Their solution? Subscribe their fibre optic service. In my book this is only comparable to extortion.
I've been speaking about speeds because those I can objectively measure on their website but that's not the whole story. Quite frequently the connection is down momentarily where I have lots of ping timeouts, I drop out from gchat and msn messenger and downloads/upload get dropped. It's quite sad that in this day and age Talk Talk provides such a bad service and is not willing to do anything about it. It seems I'm not the only one complaining according to this article from BBC.
If we ask me why Talk Talk is called Talk Talk, my answer has to be because they talk a lot and don't do anything.
PS: My flatmate just told me that today a so called Talk Talk "specialist" phoned her, said he had just fixed the issue and asked her to confirm if it was fixed. She answered she would need at least a week since the speed varies and he was offended by it. Later during the call she asked for a refund and he said we weren't paying for our broadband as in the invoice it only said phone line. That's brilliant, apparently we hired a phone line and the broadband comes as an offer, love you Talk Talk! Our speeds tonight, before a 5 min connection failure:
A month ago I moved to my new flat in Limehouse in which the internet is provided by Talk Talk. We have their (advertised) 24Mb service. From the beginning I felt the speed wasn't very fast but for normal web navigation it was bearable. It was when I had to send my first email with a 5MB attachment that I noticed something was definitely wrong. It timed out a few times and when it finally was sent it still took some 15 minutes or more. I decided to take their speed test to find out our speed was actually 1.5Mbps dowload and 0.02Mbps upload. Called them, endured the standard obvious questions and finally the guy told me there was an issue and he was going to fix it in 48 hours. Two days later, nothing, new call, obvious repetitive standard questions and finally a helpful guy who recommend us to connect our router directly to the test socket. That implied disassembling our BT wall socket but that night we saw 8Mbps download speeds and 0.24 Mbps upload speeds, the fastest we ever got!
A few days from then slow speeds again, for example, it was impossible to do a Skype video call and even sound calls were difficult. We called them, answered the same repetitive questions and this time they sent an engineer who might have charged us £50 if the issue was inside our flat! The guy came 2 days later, brought his own router and did tests for a hour. After which he concluded the issue was not at our place but probably on the local exchange. He also filed some sort of report so the issue would be fixed.
After a few more days without any improvements we called them. At every call they would always give us the same BS about checking our wireless connection or about trying connecting with the cable, etc, etc. This time the phone operator had the nerve to say he could fix anything! 5 min later he admitted he couldn't actually fix it, LOL! Then he said he would escalate it. Later we got a text message asking if it was fixed. Obviously it wasn't. In another phone call the guy asked me to change the Router Wireless Channel, I tried to explain him that wouldn't fix the issue and even so he insisted me to do it...
More or less at the same time I exposed our situation to @TalkTalkCare on twitter, they asked the standard boring questions and provided me a form. I filled and.... you can guess: nothing!
We finally got tired of this, my flatmate called them (yes, they tried to ask the scripted questions even though we have a long story with them) and asked to speak with a manager. The manager said our connection was "normal" even though or download speeds were varying between 2-3Mbps, our upload speeds between 0.02-0.15Mbps and since we had internet no reason to complain. He also said he could send another engineer for £130!!! My flatmate asked "will that guarantee the issue is fixed?" Answer: "no". Since we were not having the service we hired we asked to cancel it and get our money back. Unfortunately Talk Talk charges £140 for contract cancelations!!! Their solution? Subscribe their fibre optic service. In my book this is only comparable to extortion.
I've been speaking about speeds because those I can objectively measure on their website but that's not the whole story. Quite frequently the connection is down momentarily where I have lots of ping timeouts, I drop out from gchat and msn messenger and downloads/upload get dropped. It's quite sad that in this day and age Talk Talk provides such a bad service and is not willing to do anything about it. It seems I'm not the only one complaining according to this article from BBC.
If we ask me why Talk Talk is called Talk Talk, my answer has to be because they talk a lot and don't do anything.
PS: My flatmate just told me that today a so called Talk Talk "specialist" phoned her, said he had just fixed the issue and asked her to confirm if it was fixed. She answered she would need at least a week since the speed varies and he was offended by it. Later during the call she asked for a refund and he said we weren't paying for our broadband as in the invoice it only said phone line. That's brilliant, apparently we hired a phone line and the broadband comes as an offer, love you Talk Talk! Our speeds tonight, before a 5 min connection failure:
Saturday, June 18, 2011
O Student Loan
Uma das coisas que tenho vindo a apreciar no Reino Unido é a forma como eles financiam as licenciaturas. Em vez de se recorrer à ajuda dos pais, tipicamente financiam-se usando o Student Loan. Aqui, a partir dos 18 anos existe uma forte independência financeira dos pais aliás, ouvi várias vezes casos em que os pais emprestam dinheiro aos filhos em vez de o darem.
O Student Loan é um empréstimo oferecido pelo governo para pagar as propinas e despesas relacionadas com a faculdade. A taxa de juro é 3% mais inflação. E (esta é a parte que é interessante) o empréstimo só começa a ser pago quando o aluno aufere um salário superior a £15000 anuais, sendo as prestações automaticamente deduzidas do seu salário. Isto é interessante, porque um aluno que tire um curso e fique no desemprego não tem que o pagar.
Recentemente o governo inglês aumentou as propinas das universidades para que estas fossem, quase na integra, pagas pelos alunos em vez de financiadas pelo povo inglês. Isto gerou alguma controvérsia e confusão, mas associado ao Student Loan tem uma vantagem: a educação superior é aberta a todos e financiada pelos que beneficiaram dela!
O Student Loan é um empréstimo oferecido pelo governo para pagar as propinas e despesas relacionadas com a faculdade. A taxa de juro é 3% mais inflação. E (esta é a parte que é interessante) o empréstimo só começa a ser pago quando o aluno aufere um salário superior a £15000 anuais, sendo as prestações automaticamente deduzidas do seu salário. Isto é interessante, porque um aluno que tire um curso e fique no desemprego não tem que o pagar.
Recentemente o governo inglês aumentou as propinas das universidades para que estas fossem, quase na integra, pagas pelos alunos em vez de financiadas pelo povo inglês. Isto gerou alguma controvérsia e confusão, mas associado ao Student Loan tem uma vantagem: a educação superior é aberta a todos e financiada pelos que beneficiaram dela!
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Justiça inglesa: despesas dos Membros do Parlamento
Este assunto não é propriamente novidade, mas no outro dia vi umas penas de prisão serem anunciadas e achei que valia a pena escrever sobre isto.
Em 2009 o Telegraph expôs Membros do Parlamento (MP) que fizeram pedidos de reembolso de despesas indevidos. Os MPs têm direito a ser ressarcidos por despesas feitas no exercício dos seus cargos e na altura não havia um controlo das mesmas, limitavam-se a confiar na sua palavra. Com o trabalho do Telegraph veio-se a descobrir casos de MPs que recebiam reembolsos por casas que não utilizavam ou, por exemplo, que uma MP pediu o reembolso de uma conta de TV por cabo que incluía canais para adultos. Na altura isto foi um enorme escândalo, nenhum contribuinte gosta de descobrir que anda a pagar este tipo de entretenimento ao pessoal do parlamento.
Uma grande investigação foi lançada e os nomes de todos os MPs que reclamaram despesas indevidas foram publicados, bem como o montante "roubado" e foram obrigados a devolver esse dinheiro (podem consultar a lista aqui). Mas, como descobri recentemente, a coisa não ficou por aí e vários MPs foram acusados judicialmente e apanharam penas de prisão que chegam aos 18 meses!
Acho isto um excelente exemplo de como ninguém está acima da lei. Estes infractores acabaram mesmo por pagar um preço mais pesado por serem pessoas que deveriam dar o exemplo. Pena que noutros países os políticos nunca cheguem a ser acusados por delapidar o erário público ou levem apenas palmadas nas mãos.
Em 2009 o Telegraph expôs Membros do Parlamento (MP) que fizeram pedidos de reembolso de despesas indevidos. Os MPs têm direito a ser ressarcidos por despesas feitas no exercício dos seus cargos e na altura não havia um controlo das mesmas, limitavam-se a confiar na sua palavra. Com o trabalho do Telegraph veio-se a descobrir casos de MPs que recebiam reembolsos por casas que não utilizavam ou, por exemplo, que uma MP pediu o reembolso de uma conta de TV por cabo que incluía canais para adultos. Na altura isto foi um enorme escândalo, nenhum contribuinte gosta de descobrir que anda a pagar este tipo de entretenimento ao pessoal do parlamento.
Uma grande investigação foi lançada e os nomes de todos os MPs que reclamaram despesas indevidas foram publicados, bem como o montante "roubado" e foram obrigados a devolver esse dinheiro (podem consultar a lista aqui). Mas, como descobri recentemente, a coisa não ficou por aí e vários MPs foram acusados judicialmente e apanharam penas de prisão que chegam aos 18 meses!
Acho isto um excelente exemplo de como ninguém está acima da lei. Estes infractores acabaram mesmo por pagar um preço mais pesado por serem pessoas que deveriam dar o exemplo. Pena que noutros países os políticos nunca cheguem a ser acusados por delapidar o erário público ou levem apenas palmadas nas mãos.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Cashback
O cashback é um serviço muito útil existente aqui no Reino Unido que permite "levantar" dinheiro dos operadores de caixa de supermercado nos pagamentos com cartão de débito. Ao fazer a compra o cliente indica que quer cashback, diz o valor que é acrescentado ao recibo, paga e recebe o dinheiro, poupando uma ida ao multibanco. Para os comerciantes tem a vantagem de diminuir as quantidades de dinheiro que têm de transportar e depositar nos bancos. Todos ficam a ganhar :D
Friday, July 16, 2010
From this water I shall not drink
In Portugal we have a proverb that goes like this "Never say from this water I shall not drink" (Nunca digas desta água não beberei). It basically means you never know how next day will be, so don't deny something as you may need/do it later.
7 months ago I was saying I wouldn't live in London again. I was careful enough to keep my doors open, but honestly I didn't think I would comeback. Tuesday I was proven wrong as the good old proverb goes...
Don't get me wrong, London is a lovely city, with lots of attractions and full of professional opportunities (and in my case friends). But at my current stage I don't feel it's an advantage over living in Portugal. The personal trade-off balances the professional one.
On Tuesday I started my afternoon cancelling my contract for London and ended it saying count me in. What happened? I had an unconfirmed offer from the same company to work in another city and I decided to bet on that one. But when I said no to London I entered a corporative game. Immediately that unconfirmed offer became void, I was pressured to accept London and get an opportunity to be transferred one year later to that city. I wasn't satisfied with that and expressed an "opportunity" wasn't enough. A few hours later I get a call guaranteeing they would do their best to secure my transfer as it still depends on a visa and my performance, without any traps or stunts. So that's it, London for a year and a new place afterwards :)
From this water I shall drink again!
7 months ago I was saying I wouldn't live in London again. I was careful enough to keep my doors open, but honestly I didn't think I would comeback. Tuesday I was proven wrong as the good old proverb goes...
Don't get me wrong, London is a lovely city, with lots of attractions and full of professional opportunities (and in my case friends). But at my current stage I don't feel it's an advantage over living in Portugal. The personal trade-off balances the professional one.
On Tuesday I started my afternoon cancelling my contract for London and ended it saying count me in. What happened? I had an unconfirmed offer from the same company to work in another city and I decided to bet on that one. But when I said no to London I entered a corporative game. Immediately that unconfirmed offer became void, I was pressured to accept London and get an opportunity to be transferred one year later to that city. I wasn't satisfied with that and expressed an "opportunity" wasn't enough. A few hours later I get a call guaranteeing they would do their best to secure my transfer as it still depends on a visa and my performance, without any traps or stunts. So that's it, London for a year and a new place afterwards :)
From this water I shall drink again!
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Pearl Jam Live x3
Tuesday, the 11th was the start of an amazing weekend for me. As I've told here I was able to secure tickets for Pearl Jam's "intimate" concert at Shepherd's Bush Empire (2000 people capacity). I went with a Portuguese friend that lives in London. We were seated on the 3rd level, a bit far away from the action but you could still feel the great atmosphere. This was a more calm concert with great songs, though they didn't play my old time favorite: Black. After the concert was over we went for some pints with some friend and the we caught the tube home. I was going to commute at King's Cross to catch the Northern Line but decided to change at Euston because there were some works in King's Cross during the weekend. As I was going downstair to the platform I start hearing Black. One of those tube musicians was playing Black exactly at the same time I was there, what an amazing coincidence! That was first time I gave one of those guys money. You can read more about the concert here and here (Portuguese).
Last Thursday I flew to Amsterdam to meet a Portuguese friend living there. Then we went to Rotterdam for my second concert of this tour. We arrived there just 5 min before Pearl Jam opened the concert, enough time to buy some beers. They started by saying something like "It's been a long time since we were here" and played "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town". Great start! From then on they rocked, amazing pace, didn't stop much to speak. 2h hours of pure joy. Check the setlist here. At some point my friend went to buy some beers but instead he bough us two Pearl Jam t-shirts, thanks mate ;)
Yesterday was the last concert at the O2 Arena in London. This time I had fan tickets which would allow me and my flatmate to get in earlier. That proved to be quite good as we secured a very good position. First band was Gomez which I never heard before. The lead singer has an impressive voice. And then it was time for Pearl Jam. They opened the concert the same way they did in Atlanta 94, with Release and then, just like in Rotterdam they went for a breathtaking set of songs. When Animal started the crowd went crazy and before I realised what happened I lost my flatmate and was standing almost in front of the stage, with only 3 rows of people separating me from the barrier. That area was so packed I could barely fill my chest with air, let alone sing. That's the sensation of having 8000 people pushing you...
The first part of the concert was breathtaking, and continued on. My highlights are Immortality, Footsteps, Crazy Mary, Rats and a great version of Black ending with everyone singing along "we belong together, together". Check here for the complete setlist. An impressive two and half hours of great songs very well played. One of my best PJ concerts yet!
By the end of the concert I was covered in sweat from head to toes. My phone, that was inside my pocket was wet and slippery. But all of it was worth it.
Last Thursday I flew to Amsterdam to meet a Portuguese friend living there. Then we went to Rotterdam for my second concert of this tour. We arrived there just 5 min before Pearl Jam opened the concert, enough time to buy some beers. They started by saying something like "It's been a long time since we were here" and played "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town". Great start! From then on they rocked, amazing pace, didn't stop much to speak. 2h hours of pure joy. Check the setlist here. At some point my friend went to buy some beers but instead he bough us two Pearl Jam t-shirts, thanks mate ;)
Yesterday was the last concert at the O2 Arena in London. This time I had fan tickets which would allow me and my flatmate to get in earlier. That proved to be quite good as we secured a very good position. First band was Gomez which I never heard before. The lead singer has an impressive voice. And then it was time for Pearl Jam. They opened the concert the same way they did in Atlanta 94, with Release and then, just like in Rotterdam they went for a breathtaking set of songs. When Animal started the crowd went crazy and before I realised what happened I lost my flatmate and was standing almost in front of the stage, with only 3 rows of people separating me from the barrier. That area was so packed I could barely fill my chest with air, let alone sing. That's the sensation of having 8000 people pushing you...
The first part of the concert was breathtaking, and continued on. My highlights are Immortality, Footsteps, Crazy Mary, Rats and a great version of Black ending with everyone singing along "we belong together, together". Check here for the complete setlist. An impressive two and half hours of great songs very well played. One of my best PJ concerts yet!
By the end of the concert I was covered in sweat from head to toes. My phone, that was inside my pocket was wet and slippery. But all of it was worth it.
Saturday, August 08, 2009
Fire Destroys School
While I was in Portugal on holiday, something very sad happened, the primary school near my flat was destroyed by fire. It was really sad to approach home on Sunday and feel the burnt smell...
Here is a link for the news article.
And here are some photos taken by my flatemate:
Here is a link for the news article.
And here are some photos taken by my flatemate:
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